CAPE CANAVERAL: The US shuttle Discovery landed at the Kennedy space centre here on Sunday after a 10-day mission on the International Space Station (ISS), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) said.

Discovery returned to earth in a flawless touch-down at 2:03 am (11:33 am IST). It was only the 11th night landing since the first US shuttle mission was launched in 1981.

In the first mission to ISS since assembly of the orbital complex began in December, Discovery astronauts delivered some two tonnes of equipment to make the space station more livable in anticipation of its first three residents. ``We are about to turn the station into a home,'' said Frank Culbertson, ISS deputy manager. ``It will take us a few more months to get to the point where we can actually have people live up there permanently but it's approaching,'' he said.

Case against Sharif in UK

LONDON: A London law firm has moved the local high court for attachment ofvast properties allegedly owned by Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's family in Britain for outstanding debts to the tune of US $31 million. The firm, working on behalf of two leading Saudi banks, is seeking to attach four luxury apartments allegedly bought through offshore holdings on the British Virgin Islands in London's exclusive Mayfair area, the BBC reported.

A much-awaited BBC documentary aired on Saturday night, which the Sharif government had desperately tried to can, made the damaging revelations about the huge properties here belonging to the Pakistani premier's family. The programme quoted several leading Pakistani personalities such as former president Farooq Leghari, former chief justice Sajad Ali Shah, journalist Najam Sethi and opposition leader Air Marshal (retd) Asghan Khan as saying there was a massive cover-up of financial bungling.

Jazz singer Torme dead

LOS ANGELES: Silken-voiced pop and jazz singer Mel Torme, whose mellow stylings earned him the nickname the `VelvetFog', a title he hated, died on Sunday at the age of 73 of complications from a stroke, associates said. Torme's wife and five children were at his side when he died at the University of California at Los Angeles medical centre where he had been rushed from his Beverly Hills home, they said. News of the death plunged Hollywood into mourning.