PAPUA SHOWDOWN: Indonesia's ambassador in Canberra was recalled as the parliament in Jakarta vented its spleen over the visas for Papuan refugees
Indonesia reacted furiously yesterday to Australia's decision to grant temporary visas to asylum seekers from Papua Province, recalling its ambassador and warning that the move jeopardized ties between the neighboring countries.

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Australia's school system is leaving Aboriginal children lagging well behind their non-indigenous classmates, with little or no improvement in Aboriginal education in more than 30 years, a study released yesterday shows.

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The retired general who will oversee relief and reconstruction efforts in cyclone-shattered northern Australia toured the region yesterday and said he could not set a time limit on how long it would take to rebuild devastated towns.

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`LEAVE OR DIE': Up to 20 rebels were killed by troops and gunships when security forces responded to an attack on a checkpost near the border that had killed one
Pakistani troops and helicopter gunships killed up to 20 militants near the Afghan border yesterday, officials said, hours after President Pervez Musharraf warned foreign rebels to leave the area or die.

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Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called yesterday for a friendship treaty with Pakistan to help resolve the bitter issues that have bedeviled relations for almost six decades.

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A district court yesterday ordered the first shutdown of a nuclear reactor in Japan, saying the country's second-largest reactor has a high risk of causing accidents and leaking radiation if an earthquake strikes, media reports said.

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END OF AN ERA: The animal, who officials say was originally brought to India as a gift for British colonial figure Robert Clive, was found dead
A giant tortoise thought to be one of the world's oldest creatures has died in a Calcutta zoo, ending a life that spanned much of modern Indian history.

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`REVOLUTION IS OVER': A riot police squad needed less than 20 minutes to round up the protesters challenging the re-election of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko
Riot police arrested hundreds of protesters and destroyed their tent camp in central Minsk early yesterday, ending an act of unprecedented defiance against Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.

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RISKY RAID: The rescue of three Christian hostages in Baghdad was the culmination of months of undercover work by special forces, including the UK's crack SAS troops
As British elite forces (SAS) troopers prepared to raid a house in one of the most dangerous parts of Baghdad in the early hours of Thursday morning, they were not certain that they would find what they were looking for on the other side of the door. The location was correct, but there remained some doubt about how accurate the tip-off was.

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Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, in a rare moment of self-criticism, lashed out at what he described as "backward" societies in the Middle East, arguing that government heavy-handedness in dealing with political opposition stemmed from the violent nature of that dissent.

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Rioters turned a park in front of Napoleon's tomb into a battlefield, as youths with baseball bats clashed with police wielding batons in rising protests over a new labor law a day before crucial talks begin yesterday between top unions and the French government.

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French President Jacques Chirac led a French walkout from the opening session of the EU's annual spring summit on Thursday night when a fellow Frenchman committed the grave offence of speaking English.

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RISKY?: Some US officials are concerned by the news that a Hong Kong company is to operate the equipment used to scan cargo for nuclear radiation in the Bahamas
In the aftermath of the Dubai ports dispute, the Bush administration is hiring a Hong Kong conglomerate to help detect nuclear materials inside cargo passing through the Bahamas to the US and elsewhere.

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As an eighth grader in 1995, Tanya Nicole Kach skipped class one day and was caught by a school security guard.

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US Vice President Dick Cheney may be a rock star only to his most ardent Republican supporters, but he has on-the-road demands just like the Rolling Stones. Still, Cheney appears easier to please than Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.

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US diplomats expressed concern at suggestions by Bolivia's left-leaning president that Washington had a role in hotel bombings that killed two people, saying his comments could impede efforts to cooperate in the fight against terror.

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A US radio station has sacked a talkshow host who used a racial slur to describe US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

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