SECRET DEAL: Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto said in an interview that President Pervez Musharraf had agreed to quit as army chief in a power-sharing deal
Pakistan's Supreme Court yesterday agreed to hear an appeal against President Pervez Musharraf's position as army chief, in a fresh challenge to the beleaguered military leader.

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NEW STRATEGY: The clashes were the most intense fighting reported in weeks in Afghanistan and indicated a Taliban tactic to engage head-on
International troops mopped up yesterday after a major set-piece battle with a large Taliban force in southeast Afghanistan which the US-led coalition said left scores of militants dead.

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POWER POLITICS: President Hu Jintao is widely expected to move at the congress to strengthen his authority by maneuvering his supporters and allies into top positions
When the Chinese Communist Party holds its congress in October, the rest of the world will be watching more intently than ever, reflecting the Asian giant's rapidly growing global importance.

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A veteran unionist was chosen on Tuesday to head Hong Kong's leading pro-Beijing party, inheriting the task with polishing the party's image tarnished by his predecessor's comments that the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown was not a massacre.

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Japan estimated on Tuesday that it has more than 5,000 "net cafe refugees," a new class of working poor who live in all-night lounges and are seen as a sign of a growing rich-poor gap.

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Japan is considering sending aid to North Korea after a UN appeal following devastating floods in the impoverished nation, the new foreign minister in Tokyo said yesterday.

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BOOMERANGE: In a political culture full of conspiracy, some speculated that it might be the work of Greece's age-old nemesis Turkey or possibly even a foreign terrorist group
The fires that tore omnivorously through scores of villages and olive groves here may now also be changing Greece's political landscape: The government of Greek Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis, facing national elections next month, came under increasing criticism on Tuesday, not only over its handling of the fires but also over whether it stoked Greeks' fears about who might be to blame.

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CSI VIENNA: Forensic expert Christian Reiter claims to know that the composer's doctor used a cure for lead poisoning that went terribly wrong
Did someone kill Beethoven? A Viennese pathologist claims the composer's physician did -- inadvertently overdosing him with lead in a case of a cure that went wrong.

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FIREPOWER: With 650 million small arms held by civilians, the US tops has the most with 270 million weapons -- roughly 90 firearms per every 100 people
Three-quarters of the world's small arms are held by civilians, with rapid and unchecked urbanization a key driver behind their proliferation, a Swiss academic study said on Tuesday.

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Three Chechen brothers arrested in the killing of investigative journalist and Kremlin critic Anna Politkovskaya had nothing to do with her death, a lawyer for one of them said on Tuesday and accused police of hitting his client over the head with a bottle and threatening to cause him further harm if he refused to confess.

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The horrifying death of a soldier who was beaten by his superiors and thrown in a dog cage, has severely undermined the Russian military's claim to have improved conditions for its largely conscript force.

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REBUTTAL: The US president said one way to counter Tehran's ambitions was to win the Iraq war. Tehran denied Bush's charges and said the US should change its policies
US President George W. Bush raised the specter of a "nuclear holocaust" in the Middle East if Iran gets atomic weapons, and vowed he would not let that happen.

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The Abu Ghraib case has effectively ended, and criminal responsibility for the detainee pictures that drew world outrage ended up rising no higher on the US chain of command than staff sergeant.

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APPEAL UPHELD: Steven Truscott was the youngest Canadian ever sent to death row, although his sentence was later commuted to life in prison. He was paroled in 1969
A Canadian man jailed for murder at the age of 14 was acquitted Tuesday of raping and killing a female school classmate -- 48 years after the horrific crime.

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Brazil's Supreme Court charged one of the president's closest confidants with conspiracy in a corruption scandal that toppled members of his inner circle and severely damaged the reputation of his Workers' Party.

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Panama said on Tuesday it will fight to bring Manuel Noriega back home after a US judge approved his extradition to France, but the opposition believes a secret deal was struck to keep the ex-strongman as far away from here as possible.

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