The United Nations is to contact the United States about reports that America’s National Security Agency hacked the world body’s internal communications.

The presidents of Afghanistan and Iran have convened in Pakistan for a three-way summit that is expected to focus on steps Islamabad can take to bring about peace talks with the Afghan Taliban.

Pakistani commandos cornered a group of Taliban militants in an office building on a naval base in Karachi today after the insurgents raided the complex in an attack which destroyed two US-supplied surveillance aircraft, officials said.

More than 80 people were killed when rebels attacked cattle herders in Southern Sudan, while hundreds marched in the southern capital to protest at the unresolved status of a volatile border hotspot.

UN officials said today they have started relocating some of their 300 foreign staff in Afghanistan to other locations because of worries about rising violence.

A heavily-armed Taliban commander was killed during an pre-dawn shootout at a mosque in eastern Afghanistan, Nato said today.

The Supreme Court rejected final appeals today by five former soldiers sentenced to death in the 1975 killing of Bangladesh’s independence leader in a military coup, a government lawyer said.

CRICKET chiefs are confident the Ashes series has not been affected by corruption despite a serious betting allegation ahead of tomorrow’s crunch final Test.

A transport helicopter has crashed in southern Afghanistan, officials said today.

The United Nations has declared the Pakistani capital Islamabad unsafe for the children of its international staff and ordered them out, putting the once tranquil city on a par with Kabul and Somalia.

Saudi Arabia plans to increase its oil production by 200,000 barrels a day next month, the kingdom's oil minister told United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon.

Suicide attackers tried to kill a leading Pakistani politician today as members of Benazir Bhutto’s political party prepared for critical meetings on whether to boycott January 8 elections following her assassination.

A key opposition group vowed today to try to undo amendments President Pervez Musharraf made to the constitution before lifting emergency rule.

Police searched the house of detained former Bangladesh prime minister Khaleda Zia and confiscated documents and mobile phones, an official said today.

At least 24 people were killed and 66 injured when two bombs ripped through a Pakistani army bus and a commercial district in a city near the capital Islamabad today.

Pakistan successfully test-fired a new version of its long-range nuclear-capable missile today, the military said.

AN ARMED man who sprayed a Jewish centre with bullets, killing a woman and injuring at least five others, forced his way past security by holding a gun to a 13-year-old girl’s head, police said yesterday.

THE United Nations is investigating a report that peacekeepers in Congo allegedly fired mortars at a civilian area and stood by as Congolese troops set a village ablaze.

More than 7,200 villages have been inundated and some 176,000 people left homeless by monsoon floods in India’s western Gujarat state, where a dead lion washed up with dozens of other casualties, officials and news reports said today.

A formula proposed by Pakistan’s President General Pervez Musharraf for solving the long-running issue of Kashmir has been rejected by opposition groups.

PAKISTAN has expanded its investigation of the country’s premier nuclear weapons laboratory, detaining as many as seven scientists and administrators for questioning, officials said yesterday.

Pakistan’s former navy chief was charged today with receiving kickbacks worth more than £3.5m (€5.44m) in connection to the purchase of three ships by the national shipping company.

A 45-year-old Bangladeshi man emerged from his grave after nearly six hours underground, a local news agency reported today.

Pakistan's Islamic groups say they will continue nationwide rallies in support of the Taliban militia.

The Taliban claim to have arrested some Americans in Afghanistan.

Taliban leaders threw the hanged corpse of an Afghan opposition leader into a hasty grave in Taliban territory today, leaving Afghanistan’s opposition in exile to mourn - and vow revenge - without him.

Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have reportedly killed a leading figure from the country’s opposition in the Logar province, south of the capital, Kabul.