DEFORESTED REGION: Flash floods and landslides triggered by Tropical Storm Kammuri destroyed about 300 homes. Officials said that the death toll could rise
At least 125 people were dead or missing in mountainous northern Vietnam yesterday after heavy rains brought by Tropical Storm Kammuri triggered widespread flash floods and landslides.

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Philippine troops attacked Muslim guerrillas yesterday, setting off fierce exchanges of machine gun and artillery fire in a southern province after hundreds of rebels defied an ultimatum to withdraw from Christian farms, officials said.

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Sri Lankan soldiers launched a pre-dawn attack on Tamil separatists in the embattled north yesterday, killing 15 rebels, while other battles in the region left 24 rebels and one soldier dead, the military said.

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COLLATERAL DAMAGE: More than 400 non-combatants have been reported killed by NATO and US-led forces in Afghanistan this year, making US troops unpopular
Airstrikes and clashes north of Kabul have killed at least 11 people, some of whom might be civilians, Afghan officials said yesterday. In the south, five civilians died when their vehicle hit a mine, police said.

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WMD: CIA officials say al-Qaeda will be much less likely to develop weapons of mass destruction after the death of al-Masri, infamous for poison gas experiments with dogs
The killing of an al-Qaeda chemical weapons expert in a missile strike two weeks ago on a Pakistani border village has dealt a heavy blow to the group's ambitions to build weapons of mass destruction (WMD), a former CIA case officer said.

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TENSIONS: The dispute over the shooting of a South Korean woman by a soldier in the North ratcheted up a notch, with 'unnecessary' personnel told to leave the resort
South Korean personnel began withdrawing from North Korea's Mount Kumgang resort after Pyongyang asked them to leave, officials said yesterday.

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The Dalai Lama starts an 11-day visit to France tomorrow that threatened to spark a crisis between Paris and Beijing, until French President Nicolas Sarkozy quashed speculation he would meet the Tibetan spiritual leader.

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Malaysian politicians wrangled yesterday about whether to curb sensitive debates on religious disputes in the Muslim-majority nation after protests halted a conference on Islamic conversions.

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AVOIDED DETECTION: The attack occurred amid rising tensions among ethinc groups throughout northern Iraq over control of the oil-rich region of Kirkuk
The US military blamed al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) on Saturday for a suicide car bombing in the northern Iraqi town of Tal Afar, while an Iraqi official said the death toll in the attack had risen to 25.

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The muezzins' calls echo well before daybreak, summoning the Muslim faithful to daily prayers and reminding foreign tourists in the Moroccan capital how far they are from home.

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Syria on Saturday declared that UN nuclear sleuths were barred from revisiting the site of a suspected atomic reactor that was bombed by Israeli jets last year.

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The Met's most senior Asian officer to make allegations public as he takes force to tribunal Commissioner Ian Blair’s leadership of Scotland Yard looked increasingly fragile on Saturday as Britain's most senior Asian police officer announced that he was launching a legal claim against the London Metropolitan Police (known as the Met) over allegations of racial discrimination.

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PATRIOTISM: The two candidates also weighed in on the fighting between Russia and Georgia. McCain called Russia's actions in the conflict 'totally, absolutely unacceptable'
Republican Senator John McCain on Saturday portrayed Senator Barack Obama as focused on his own ambition over military success in Iraq, as the Democrat argued that McCain favors extending a war that is hurting Americans at home.

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Family and friends gathered on Saturday for the funeral of a Canadian man who was beheaded and cannibalized by another passenger aboard a Greyhound bus over a week ago.

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About 3,000 opponents of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez marched through the capital on Saturday to protest a package of laws that expand his power and accelerate his push toward socialism.

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REDRESS: The US government didn't include Japanese-Latin Americans when agreeing to apologize in 1988 for wartime injustices, but it later offered US$5,000 with an apology
Augusto Kague was only 12 when the US government reached far south to his Peruvian farming town and tore his family apart.

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'FROM A TO Z': A new president might choose to scrap the tribunal. Or he might make changes after the previous tribunals were found unconstitutional
US officials are still aiming to try the "big fish" of the Al-Qaeda terror network at Guantanamo Bay, but time is running short before a new president takes office next year.

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