A huge 8.3 magnitude earthquake off Japan’s northern coast sparked a tsunami warning today, sending thousands along the archipelago’s eastern coast fleeing to higher ground.

French police today arrested three suspected members of the armed Basque separatist group Eta, including the alleged second-in-command of its military wing, and found a weapons cache.

US troops have taken over operations at the Spanish military base in south-central Iraq as Spanish troops continue with their withdrawal from the country, the Defence Ministry in Madrid said today.

Two Americans working for the US-led Coalition have been shot dead along with their Iraqi translator after their car was stopped at a makeshift checkpoint by men dressed as policemen in south-central Iraq.

Two Iraqi civilians were killed when insurgents attacked a Polish army camp in Iraq with car bombs today.

Floods and landslides hit a town and villages in south-central Sri Lanka, killing at least 84 people and forcing 150,000 people to flee their homes, officials said today.

The final moments of the lives of the crew of the doomed shuttle Columbia’s that were captured on video and are to be released tonight.