SYDNEY: Two Australian soldiers were killed and two wounded by a bomb blast in Afghanistan, officials said on Saturday, taking the country`s death toll in the conflict to 20.The announcement came as Australia held national elections in which both main parties have pledged their support

BUCHAREST: Europe`s Roma communities, at the centre of an immigration row in France, are often driven out by poverty from their homes in Romania and Bulgaria, the European Union`s two most impoverished members."Here we are like vagabonds. We don`t have work, we have nothing," said

KARACHI: With entire towns and villages swallowed up by Pakistan`s devastating floods, experts say it could take years to solve a shelter crisis now facing up to 4.6 million people camped out under open skies.The catastrophic floods swamped a fifth of Pakistan -- an area the size of

BEIJING: Police in China have arrested six people and detained 41 others for allegedly distributing milk powder tainted with the same chemical which killed infants in a 2008 scandal, state media said Saturday.Three of the six were employees of a factory in the northwestern province of

SYDNEY: Australia faced the "more and more likely" prospect of a hung parliament Saturday, with neither the government nor the opposition looking assured of an election majority, party officials said. "I think a hung parliament is looking more and more likely," said Senator Nick Minchin,

BUSHEHR, August 21, 2010 (AFP) - Iran on Saturday begins transferring fuel into its Russian-built first nuclear plant, as it remains defiant about sanctions imposed by world powers over its controversial atomic programme.After decades of delay, engineers will finally transfer the

SRINAGAR: The Indian military said Friday 23 soldiers had died in flash floods that struck a mountainous region in the north of the country a fortnight ago. "The army has lost 23 soldiers, including three JCOs (junior commissioned officers) in the flash-floods," Indian military spokesman

KABUL: A US soldier and an Afghan woman were killed in separate attacks in Afghanistan, NATO said Friday, amid a surge in Taliban violence and counter-insurgency operations across the country. The soldier was operating under NATO`s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and died

BEIJING: Four people went missing after a fishing boat rented by students capsized on Friday in a river in northeastern China in strong winds, state media reported. The incident happened just before 8:00 am (0000 GMT) on the Songhua river in the city of Harbin in Heilongjiang province,

BEIJING: Authorities in China`s restive Xinjiang region believe two suspects, a man and a woman, were behind an explosion that killed seven people and injured 14 others, state media reported Friday.The pair allegedly tossed explosives from a three-wheeled vehicle into a crowd on Thursday

LONDON: Britain has warned Libya that any celebrations to mark the one-year anniversary Friday of the Lockerbie bomber`s release would be "tasteless, offensive and deeply insensitive".The Foreign Office urged restraint amid fears there could be a repeat of scenes last year when Abdelbaset

SEOUL: North Korea on Friday demanded an apology and compensation from Japan for its 1910-1945 colonial rule of the peninsula, denouncing the annexation as "state terrorism.""Japan can never shirk its obligation to make an apology and reparations to the DPRK (North Korea) for its

BAGHDAD: An Al-Qaeda group on Friday claimed it was behind a suicide bombing on a crowded Iraqi army recruitment centre in Baghdad that killed 59 people in the deadliest attack this year, US monitors said.The Islamic State of Iraq said Tuesday`s attack, which coincided with the holy

WASHINGTON: The United States has persuaded Israel that Iran would take one year or longer to build a nuclear weapon, dimming the prospects of a preemptive strike on Iran`s nuclear facilities, The New York Times said late Thursday."We think that they have roughly a year dash time,"

TOKYO: Iran is ready for immediate talks with world powers over a nuclear fuel swap deal, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in an interview published in Japan on Friday.Iran is "ready to resume in late August or in early September" talks with the five permanent members of the UN Security

WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is expected to announce Friday that Israel and the Palestinians will resume direct peace talks for the first time in 20 months, the New York Times reported.The Times, citing two unnamed officials briefed on the situation, said Israeli

SEOUL: South Korea said Friday it wanted Pyongyang to apologise for the sinking of one of its warships before it could consider a resumption of North Korea nuclear disarmament talks. The comments followed a visit by a top Chinese envoy to Pyongyang this week to discuss the disarmament

SHIMLA: At least 20 passengers died when the bus they were travelling in plunged into a gorge Thursday in northern India, a day after 37 people were killed in a similar accident in the same state. Twelve others were injured when the bus fell into the ravine 40 kilometres (25 miles) from

KABUL: Afghanistan marked independence day Thursday as the Taliban-led insurgency drags on, with foreign troop deaths at record highs and the government under pressure to honour pledges on corruption and security. August 19 commemorates the signing of the Treaty of Rawalpindi in 1919,

Kabul: A suicide car bomb struck a police vehicle in southern Afghanistan, killing a district police chief and four other people, and a NATO soldier died in a separate attack, NATO and Afghan officials said Thursday. "The insurgents pulled alongside the Daman district police chief`s