Pakistan's top leadership on Tuesday sought American assistance in the civilian nuclear field and the transfer of drone technology, saying such steps would help address misperceptions about the US and bridge the trust deficit between the two sides.

Somali pirates freed a North Korean chemical tanker and its 28 crew on Tuesday, after the owners delivered a ransom, the European Union Naval Force said.

An apparent US missile attack destroyed a suspected militant compound in northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday, killing at least nine people, intelligence officials said.

Fiji declared a state of emergency on Tuesday, and ordered troops to launch relief operations in northern regions battered by a powerful cyclone that knocked out power and forced thousands of people to flee into shelters.

The general who led the army to victory in Sri Lanka's civil war and then was roundly defeated in his bid for the presidency, appeared before a court-martial on Tuesday on allegations of sedition, the military said.

Pointing out that it was "critical" to defeat Taliban, Former Pakistan President Parvez Musharraf has sharply criticised US plans to begin troops pull out from Afghanistan in a year's time.

Hundreds of Palestinians in east Jerusalem set tires and garbage bins ablaze on Tuesday and hurled rocks at Israeli riot police, who responded with rubber bullets and tear gas. The heaviest clashes in months broke out as an American envoy abruptly canceled a visit, deepening a US-Israeli diplomatic feud.

Vietnam has released one of its leading democracy activists, an ailing Catholic priest who suffered two strokes while in prison, so that he can receive medical treatment, family members said Tuesday.

North Korea should let farms produce freely and allow food to be sold in local markets because the communist government cannot provide enough food for its people, a U.N. human rights investigator urged.

Thai protesters poured several jugs of their own blood at the front gate of the government headquarters and outside the ruling party's offices on Tuesday in a symbolic sacrifice to press their demands for new elections.

The Afghan government was holding secret talks with the Taliban's No. 2 when he was captured in Pakistan, and the arrest infuriated President Hamid Karzai, according to one of Karzai's advisers.

Recent events — including surprising electoral success by an anti-Islamic Dutch party, moves to ban veils in France and minarets in Switzerland, and arrests in Ireland and the US this week in an alleged plot to kill a Swedish cartoonist — are signs of the rising tensions.

Twin explosions rocked a government building in Nigeria's restive and oil-rich Niger Delta region Monday, only minutes after a militant group promised to attack amnesty talks being held there, a government spokesman said.

A suicide car bomber killed four people and wounded 29 others, when his vehicle exploded in a busy street during the morning rush hour in western Iraq.

Still seeking votes for his proposed health care overhaul, President Barack Obama appears ready to reverse his position, and allow unpopular deal-sweetening measures in the hopes of finding Democratic support for legislation whose future will be decided in coming days.

Thailand's prime minister, backed by a formidable military force, rejected an ultimatum to dissolve Parliament on Monday as tens of thousands of red-shirted protesters vowed to splatter the seat of government with their own blood if their demands weren't met.

Israeli media reported Monday that the U.S. is pressing Israel to scrap a contentious east Jerusalem building project whose approval has touched off the most serious diplomatic feud with Washington in years.

Britain's foreign secretary will seek to smooth rancor with China over climate change talks and Beijing's execution of a British drug smuggler thought to be mentally ill as the two sides meet this week for talks.

The Vatican denied that its celibacy requirement for priests was the root cause of the clerical sex abuse scandal convulsing the church in Europe and again defended the pope's handling of the crisis.

North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il has a USD 4 billion "emergency fund" hidden in secret accounts in European banks, a media report said.

Army reinforcements were rushed into Thailand's capital as tens of thousands of anti-government demonstrators marshaled around a key military headquarters demanding that the government dissolve Parliament by midday Monday.

Egyptian security officials arrested an Israeli journalist as he tried to sneak across the porous Israeli-Egyptian border with African migrants, his newspaper reported on Monday.

Deadly bomb attacks in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar were a warning to NATO's top general that the Taliban are ready for a coming offensive in their heartland, the insurgents said on Sunday.

A clan elder in Somalia says a fight over land rights between two rival clans has killed at least 15 people.

Early results released by Iraq's election committee show the prime minister ahead in the oil-rich Basra province, strengthening his lead in the country's historic elections.