ALERT: A list of victims was posted in the reception of an Islamabad hospital, with five US citizens in surgery and one Japanese, one Canadian and one Briton injured
Pakistan's capital was on high alert and foreign embassies were scrutinizing security measures yesterday after a bomb exploded in an Italian restaurant crowded with foreigners, killing a Turkish aid worker and wounding 12 other people.

[ FULL STORY ]

Singaporean police rounded up six people at an opposition party rally on Saturday for holding an unauthorized protest against the rising cost of living in the city-state.

[ FULL STORY ]

Connie Speight has swayed on elephant-back through unforgiving jungle and has adopted nine of the high-maintenance beasts. At 83, the retired American teacher is back in this Southeast Asian country to help save what remains of the once mighty herds.

[ FULL STORY ]

WHY TAX THE RICH? : Wealthy nations at the meeting of the world's top 20 greenhouse gas emitters said it wasn't fair to hold them to the same standards as poorer countries
The world's top 20 greenhouse gas emitters agreed yesterday to work together to draft a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, but rich and developing nations remained divided on their roles.

[ FULL STORY ]

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) was re-elected yesterday for five more years as simmering unrest in Tibet threatened to badly tarnish his government's image just months before the Olympics.

[ FULL STORY ]

FANNING THE FLAMES? : A crowd of at least 1,000 gathered in Penang in support of proposed changes to a controversial affirmative action policy that favors ethnic Malays
Malaysian opposition figurehead Anwar Ibrahim has accused ruling party leaders of stoking racial tensions over plans to dismantle discrimination policies favoring ethnic Muslim Malays.

[ FULL STORY ]

Japan might boast universal health cover and some of the world's best medical technology, but an acute shortage of doctors is leaving some hospitals unable to treat even car crash victims.

[ FULL STORY ]

Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej said yesterday that Westerners are overly critical of Myanmar and he has newfound respect for the ruling junta after learning that they meditate like good Buddhists should.

[ FULL STORY ]

CHANGE OF ATMOSPHERE: Israeli Vice Prime Minister Haim Ramon told Israel Radio that the delays in destroying the Jewish settlements are harming relations with the US
Israel should decide within a week or two to dismantle Jewish settlement outposts and must do more to enable the Palestinians to build two industrial parks in the West Bank, Israel's vice prime minister said on Saturday, in thinly veiled criticism of Israel's defense minister.

[ FULL STORY ]

CHECKS AND BALANCES: The prosecutor's move against the political party drew widespread cries of 'consternation' and the ire of the prime minister
Turkey's prime minister hit back on Saturday at moves by a chief prosecutor to have his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) banned, while an EU official warned against "meddling" by the courts in the country's politics.

[ FULL STORY ]

Hundreds of anti-government protesters clashed with police in the Hungarian capital on Saturday as they sought to disrupt commemorations of the failed 1848 war of independence against the ruling Habsburgs.

[ FULL STORY ]

Thousands of worshippers gathered in a long and emotional ceremony on Saturday for the consecration of the first Roman Catholic church in the Gulf state of Qatar, ending decades of underground Christian worship in this Sunni Muslim and deeply conservative country.

[ FULL STORY ]

With about half of the races for the Iranian parliament decided on Saturday, more than 30 reformers appear to have won seats although most of their most prominent members had been barred from running by the country's conservative establishment.

[ FULL STORY ]

French voters cast ballots yesterday in local elections that look set to inflict heavy losses to French President Nicolas Sarkozy's right-wing party as the left vies for control of the top four cities.

[ FULL STORY ]

A court in Kiev handed long sentences on Saturday to three former police officers for the 2000 murder of Ukrainian journalist Georgy Gongadze which contributed to the Orange Revolution four years later.

[ FULL STORY ]

'FREAK ACCIDENT': The 19-story crane attached to the side of a building under construction fell from its base when a piece of falling steel cut its tie to the site
Rescue crews worked through the night on Saturday and into yesterday morning sifting through piles of rubble in search of survivors after a towering crane at a construction site toppled like a tree across a city block, destroying buildings and killing at least four people.

[ FULL STORY ]

Mexico captured a high-ranking Tijuana drug cartel hitman on Saturday, the public security ministry said, the second big arrest to hit the organization in five days.

[ FULL STORY ]

SENT TO KILL: Saudi Arabia is the single largest source of suicide bombers, who are trained outside of Iraq and then dispatched to fill orders from al-Qaeda cells there
The suicide bombers who have killed 10,000 people in Iraq, including hundreds of US troops, are usually alienated young men from large families who are desperate to stand out from the crowd and make their mark -- and they are not Iraqi -- a US military study found.

[ FULL STORY ]

Thousands of protesters marched against the Iraq War in the US and Britain on Saturday, with at least 2,000 people demonstrating in Los Angeles and 10,000 in London.

[ FULL STORY ]

Four Belgian tourists held hostage by protesting farmers were released late on Saturday after security forces in boats and helicopters located the group in Guatemala's eastern jungle, officials said.

[ FULL STORY ]

Republican presidential hopeful Senator John McCain travels to Europe and the Middle East this week ahead -- including a stop in Iraq -- to burnish his senior statesman credentials while Democratic rivals brawl back home.

[ FULL STORY ]

■ INDONESIA

[ FULL STORY ]