LONDON - BRITAIN'S leading supermarkets are giving out 418 million fewer plastic bags a month than they were three years ago, but still just failed to meet a target to cut the number by half.

Last December, the seven leading high street supermarkets signed up to a voluntary deal with to reduce the number of carrier bags handed out by 50 per cent compared to 2006 figures.

WASHINGTON - NASA on Friday said it would raise the orbit of the International Space Station by around a mile (1.6 kilometres) as a precautionary measure to avoid possibly being hit by orbiting debris.

'We're going to reboost the station/shuttle at 8.30 pm EDT (8.30am Singapore time) by about a mile. Just a precaution to avoid a close approach from an object,' Nasa said in a posting on the micro-blogging website Twitter.

BEIJING - ARCHAEOLOGISTS in China's north-western city of Xi'an have excavated another 100 terracotta warriors, including that of a much-prized army officer, near the tomb of the country's first emperor, state media said on Friday.

A new excavation at the World Heritage site was begun over a month ago in a bid to unravel the mysteries surrounding the ancient terracotta army buried near Xi'an, the capital of Shaanxi province.