World - AFP

ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Thousands of Islamist hardliners converged amid tight security in the Pakistani capital on Sunday to commemorate the first anniversary of the deadly siege and storming of the Red Mosque, officials said.

MOSCOW (AFP) - A town in Georgia's rebel region of South Ossetia came under fire from the Georgian side of the border overnight, the Russian Vesti-24 channel reported early Sunday quoting a South Ossetian spokesman.

PARIS (AFP) - Former hostage Ingrid Betancourt said in an interview Sunday she would return to Colombia "in a few days" to write a play about her experience after being held in the jungle for six years.

LONDON (AFP) - The parents of Gabriel Ferez, one of the French students stabbed to death in London, appealed Sunday for the killer or killers to hand themselves in to police in a statement issued by Scotland Yard.

ISTANBUL (AFP) - A Turkish court has charged two retired generals in connection with a shadowy grouping that allegedly planned to oust the government, the Anatolia news agency reported Sunday.

JALALABAD, Afghanistan (AFP) - An Afghan district governor said 22 people, most of them women and children, were killed Sunday when US-led coalition air strikes hit a wedding party in eastern Afghanistan, but the force insisted only militants were killed.

LOS ANGELES (AFP) - Firefighters reported progress in their fight against two large wildfires that threatened Sunday thousands of homes along California's coastline.

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israel reopened border crossings to the Gaza Strip on Sunday after closing them last week when a rocket was fired from the Hamas-ruled territory in defiance of a two-week-old truce.

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) - Thousands gathered at a stadium here Sunday for a mass anti-inflation rally which Malaysian opposition figurehead Anwar Ibrahim was due to address amid deepening political turmoil.

COLOMBO (AFP) - Sri Lankan troops have killed another 19 Tamil Tiger rebels and lost two of their own soldiers in fresh fighting in the island's north, the defence ministry said Sunday.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - After months vowing to get US troops home from Iraq, Barack Obama has succumbed to the war's political entanglements, struggling to explain his plan in the light of recent security gains.

TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran on Saturday offered to negotiate on its nuclear drive but without a freeze on uranium enrichment, in its first comments since responding to an international package aimed at ending the standoff.

HARARE (AFP) - South African President Thabo Mbeki, chief regional negotiator on the Zimbabwe crisis, met here Saturday with President Robert Mugabe and leaders of a breakaway faction of the main opposition party.

PARIS (AFP) - Former Colombian hostage Ingrid Betancourt said she had been given a clean bill of health on Saturday after a series of medical tests at a Paris military hospital.

MOSCOW (AFP) - Russia's defence ministry on Saturday accused Georgia of harbouring plans to take back the separatist province of Abkhazia by force that could trigger a war, Interfax news agency reported.

ASADABAD, Afghanistan (AFP) - An Afghan provincial governor said Saturday 16 civilians including women, children and doctors were killed in US-led coalition air strikes but the force insisted the dead were militants.

PARIS (AFP) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Saturday urged his Polish counterpart to ratify the European Union's Lisbon Treaty, despite Ireland's rejection, as France seeks to resolve the first crisis of its EU presidency.

ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (AFP) - The White House said Saturday that G8 leaders are likely to "strongly condemn" Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe and "strongly question" his government's legitimacy, at their Japan summit beginning Monday.

HAVANA (AFP) - Cuba this week rounded up and detained more than 30 dissidents after accusing the United States of "instigating" opposition to the Communist regime, a top rights activist told AFP Saturday.

MADRID (AFP) - Spain's governing socialists, meeting at a congress in Madrid, said Saturday they wanted the law on abortion to be relaxed in the predominantly Catholic country.

ISTANBUL (AFP) - A Turkish court on Saturday remanded seven people, including a retired army officer and a top businessman, in custody in connection with an alleged plot to overthrow the government, the Anatolia news agency reported.

PARIS (AFP) - Freed Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt said Friday she owed her life to France, in an emotional visit to Paris where she received a hero's welcome after her six-year hostage ordeal in the jungle.

HARARE (AFP) - A defiant Robert Mugabe ruled out the prospect of talks with his opponents on ending Zimbabwe's political crisis Friday unless they acknowledged his victory in a one-man presidential election.

TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran on Friday handed world powers its "constructive and creative" response to their bid to end the five-year standoff over its contested nuclear programme, top officials said.

TBILISI (AFP) - Tensions soared in Georgia's rebel region of South Ossetia on Friday after separatists said two people were killed by intense shelling and threatened to retaliate with heavy weapons.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush and White House hopefuls Barack Obama and John McCain marked the US Independence Day holiday Friday with parades, picnics and odes to patriotism.

KARACHI (AFP) - President Pervez Musharraf insisted on Friday that Pakistan's powerful army still supports him, but he said he would step down if he thought it would solve all of the country's problems.

MINSK (AFP) - A bomb packed with nuts and bolts injured up to 50 young revellers on Friday at a huge outdoor concert in the Belarussian capital Minsk attended by President Alexander Lukashenko, officials said.