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The UN's atomic watchdog says it has removed seals and surveillance cameras from part of North Korea's main nuclear complex at Pyongyang's request.



North Korea says the move is part of a plan to reactivate the Yongbyon plant, and that it plans to return nuclear material to the site next week.

The move comes amid a dispute over an international disarmament-for-aid deal.

A similar step in 2002 sparked a crisis which eventually resulted in Pyongyang testing a nuclear weapon in 2006.

The removal of seals and cameras "was completed today" at the site, a spokeswoman for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said.

IAEA inspectors will have no further access to the reprocessing plant, she added.

The US said North Korea's decision to exclude UN monitors was "very disappointing" and urged Pyongyang to reconsider the move or face further isolation.

"We strongly urge the North to reconsider these steps and come back immediately into compliance with its obligations as outlined in the six-party agreements," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.

He said that Washington remained "open to further discussions" with the North on their obligations for denuclearisation.

The North has been locked in discussions for years over its nuclear ambitions with five other nations - South Korea, the US, China, Russia and Japan.

Symbolic gesture

Pyongyang began dismantling the reactor, which can be used to make weapons-grade plutonium, last November.

However, on Friday it announced that it was working to reactivate it.

North Korea was expecting to be removed from the US terror list after submitting a long-delayed account of its nuclear facilities to the international talks in June, in accordance with the disarmament deal it signed in 2007.

It also blew up the main cooling tower at Yongbyon in a symbolic gesture of its commitment to the process.

However, the US said it would not remove North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism until procedures by which the North's disarmament would be verified were established.

North and South Korea have been technically at war since their 1950-53 conflict ended without a peace treaty.

Fuel rods

Experts say the Yongbyon plant could take up to a year to bring back into commission, so there will be no new plutonium production for a while.

However, there is plenty already available in the form of the spent fuel rods, taken from the reactor core, but only removed to a water-cooled tank on the site, says the BBC's John Sudworth in Seoul.

It is this nuclear material that will now be introduced into the separate plutonium reprocessing plant, according to the information given to the IAEA.

Some estimates suggest the fuel rods could yield about 6kg (13lbs) of plutonium within two to three months - enough for one atomic bomb to add to North Korea's existing stockpile.

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The Iraqi parliament has passed a law which paves the way for provincial elections, after months of wrangling.



The decision brings to an end months of debate over how the law would be applied to the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.

As a compromise, parliament has agreed to deal separately with the issue of Kirkuk, so that elections can go ahead in other parts of the country.

Agreement over the drafting of the laws has been seen as a key part of political reform in Iraq.

One member of parliament told the BBC the agreement was a sign of national reconciliation.

The law must now go before the country's three-man presidency council, headed by President Jalal Talabani.

The head of the Iraqi parliament's legal committee, Bahaa al-Araji, told reporters that a compromise deal had been reached on Kirkuk.

"We tell our brothers in the south, the centre of Iraq and Kurdistan that this is an achievement by parliament," he said.

"The elections will be soon, so the people of Iraq can put forward their votes to select new local government."

Correspondents say provincial elections are part of an American-backed plan to reconcile rival groups, particularly the Sunnis, who boycotted the last round of provincial elections in 2005.

Disputed city

Control of Kirkuk is disputed between Iraqi Arabs, Kurds and ethnic Turkmen, and disagreements over how to treat the city held up debate in parliament.

Iraqi Kurds believe they should control the city, which has a Kurdish majority but which lies outside their semi-autonomous northern enclave.

They believe any deal should reflect what they say was the "artificial Arabisation" of the city under Saddam Hussein.

But Kirkuk's ethnic Arabs and Turkmen say it should be under the control of the central government.

Parliament adopted a draft provincial election law in July, despite a boycott by Kurdish and some Shia Muslim MPs, but it was rejected by the presidential council.

Deep apathy

Polls had been scheduled for October this year, but were cancelled after MPs failed to reach an agreement.

Mahmoud Mashhadani, speaker of the Iraqi parliament, said the new deal was "what the Iraqi people want" and had been "written for them by the Iraqi politicians".

Parliament has now set a deadline of 31 January 2009 for elections to be held in 14 of Iraq's 18 provinces.

However, that excludes Kirkuk and three other Kurdish provinces, which will hold elections at a later date, reports say.

The BBC's Hugh Sykes, in Baghdad, says that the low level of registration on the electoral roll prior to the earlier cancelled polls suggests a deep level of apathy among voters.

Many people wonder what the point is of turning out to vote when they still have to endure limited electricity supplies, high unemployment and poor facilities, says our correspondent.

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The chairman of the US Federal Reserve has urged politicians to "act quickly" to support the proposed $700bn (£378bn) bail-out of the financial markets.



The US economy risked "very serious consequences" if measures were not taken, Ben Bernanke added.

Mr Bernanke said Congress must "address the grave threats to financial stability" which were being faced.

On Tuesday politicians expressed strong scepticism about the bail-out following a five-hour Senate hearing on the plan.

'Work together'

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson had told already the banking panel that delaying the bail-out would put the entire US economy at risk.

The White House has called on Republicans and Democrats to work together to approve the plan, under which a federal fund could buy bad debt from financial institutions with "significant operations in the US".

The fund would aim to sell off these mortgage-related debts in the future when, the Treasury says, their value might have risen.

But congressmen from both sides said they wanted assurances that the plan would benefit ordinary American home-owners as well as Wall Street.

Some have gone further, calling the plan a potential waste of public money.

'Stresses intensified'

For the economy to pick up required a "return to more normal functioning" of the financial system - allowing credit to flow and giving a boost to the housing sector, Mr Bernanke said.

"Despite the efforts of the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, and other agencies, global financial markets remain under extraordinary stress.

"Action by Congress is urgently required to stabilize the situation and avert what otherwise could be very serious consequences for our financial markets and for our economy."

He added that the US economy continued to face substantial challenges, including a weakening labour market and elevated inflation.

"Notably, stresses in financial markets have been high and have recently intensified significantly," he said.

"If financial conditions fail to improve for a protracted period, the implications for the broader economy could be quite adverse."

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The Bank of East Asia has denied rumours that it is in financial trouble, after thousands of customers queued to withdraw their savings.



After weeks of global market turmoil, lines of people quickly formed outside the bank's branches in Hong Kong.

In a statement, the bank said the rumours were malicious and untruthful, and they had informed the police.

The speculation was believed to have been spread by mobile phone, and drove the bank's share price down by 11%.

The rumours started earlier this week and customers descended on branches on Wednesday, despite bank staff handing out leaflets to the crowds denying that the bank was in financial difficulty.

'Sound and stable'

"The management of Bank of East Asia hereby states in the strongest possible terms that such rumours have no basis in fact" said the statement.

The origins of financial rumour

"The management further confirms that the bank's financial position is sound and stable," it added.

It also said that its total outstanding exposure to US bankrupt bank Lehman Brothers was HK$422.8m (£29m), and to US insurer AIG was HK$49.9m (£3.5m).

On Friday, Moody's Investors Service changed its outlook on the Hong Kong bank's credit rating from stable to negative, citing a recent insider trading case that exposed "lacklustre internal controls" at the bank.

Last week, the bank revealed a trading loss of HK$93m (£6.5m) that it says was incurred by a rogue equity derivatives trader who "manipulated" valuations to hide losses.

The discovery forced the bank to revise down its earnings for the first half of the year.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority also dismissed the speculation and said the banking system as a whole was "safe and sound."

"I can confirm, categorically, that these rumours are unfounded," said Joseph Yam, the authority's chief executive.

"It is a very sound bank", he added.

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The United States military says US and Afghan forces have exchanged gunfire with Pakistani troops across the border with Afghanistan.



A senior US military official says a five-minute skirmish broke out after Pakistani soldiers fired warning shots near two US helicopters.

No one was hurt in the incidents and the US maintains its troops did not cross the border from Afghanistan.

Cross-border action by US-led forces has angered Pakistan in recent weeks.

The latest incident took place along the Pakistani border with the eastern Afghan region of Khost, an area which is a hotbed of militant groups.

Forces from the US-led coalition and the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) patrol the frontier, but Pakistan has been angered by reported US operations across the border in pursuit of insurgents.

A BBC correspondent says the border between the two countries is very unclear and in effect is marked by a 3km-4km (one to two mile) stretch of no-man's land.

Escorting troops

Nato said the helicopters - which belong to its Isaf mission - came under fire from a Pakistani checkpoint.

A US Central Command spokesman, Rear Admiral Greg Smith, said Pakistani soldiers at the checkpoint were observed firing on two US OH-58 Kiowa helicopters that had been covering a patrol of Afghan and US troops about a mile (1.6km) inside Afghanistan.

"The ground forces then fired into the hillside nearby that checkpoint, gained their attention, which worked," he said.

"Unfortunately, though, the [Pakistani] unit decided to shoot down a hillside at our ground forces. Our ground forces returned fire."

However, the Pakistani military gave a different account.

In a statement, commanders said troops fired warning shots at the helicopters when they strayed over the Pakistan border.

"When the helicopters passed over our border post and were well within Pakistani territory, our own security forces fired anticipatory warning shots," a statement said.

"On this, the helicopters returned fire and flew back."

In New York, Pakistan's new prime minister gave another version of events when he said that Pakistan forces had fired "flares" to warn the helicopters they were near the border.

Later, in an address to the UN General Assembly, he referred to the cross-border tension when he said that his country could not allow its territory to "be violated by our friends".

An Isaf spokesman said he believed the incident was a misunderstanding, but he was certain the helicopters had been operating on the Afghan side of the border.

The BBC's Syed Shoaib Hasan, in Islamabad, says that the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan is very unclear.

The Afghan-Pakistan militant nexus
US attacks raise stakes in Pakistan

There is an imaginary border called the Durand line which each side marks differently.

Pakistan says that the area of no-man's land along the border is its territory and Afghanistan makes similar claims.

Tension between Washington and Islamabad has risen since 3 September, when the US conducted a ground assault in Pakistani territory, its first, targeting what it said was a militant target in the tribal region of South Waziristan.

Pakistan reacted angrily to the action, saying 20 innocent villagers had been killed by US troops.

Local officials have said that on two occasions since then Pakistani troops or tribesmen have opened fire to stop US forces crossing the border. The claims were not officially confirmed.

On Wednesday, a drone believed to be operated by the CIA crashed inside Pakistan.

The US and Nato have called on Pakistan to do more to curb militants operating in the border area.

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Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has urged the lifting of what he called illegal sanctions against his country.



Speaking at the UN General Assembly in New York, he said the sanctions were hampering Zimbabwe's economy.

After his re-election in disputed polls this year, Western countries tightened measures against individuals and firms seen to be supporting Mr Mugabe.

At the UN, he also called for reform of the Security Council, saying it had become the tool of powerful countries.

Zimbabwe's economy has gone into a sharp crisis in recent years, with inflation now standing at 11,000,000%.

'False accusations'

"Once again, I appeal to the world's collective conscience to apply pressure for the immediate removal of these sanctions by Britain, the United States and their allies, which have brought untold suffering to our people," he said.

Mr Mugabe frequently blames the limited sanctions for his country's economic woes.

An attempt to tighten the sanctions earlier this year failed to get UN backing after China and Russia refused to support them.

Mugabe calls for an end to sanctions against Zimbabwe

He said powerful nations on the Security Council - which he did not name - had falsely accused his government of human rights abuses.

Supporters of Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF party were accused of mounting a campaign of intimidation against the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) during the elections earlier this year.

"By the way, those who falsely accuse us of these violations are themselves international perpetrators of genocide, acts of aggression and mass destruction," he said, referring to the invasion of Iraq.

Mr Mugabe said the Security Council had become undemocratic and should be re-organised to include greater geographical representation with permanent seats for African nations.

He also thanked South Africa's former President Thabo Mbeki for brokering a power-sharing agreement reached earlier this month with the MDC.

Under the deal, a new government is to be formed with ministers from both Zanu-PF and the MDC.

Mr Mugabe said the agreement showed Africans could solve African problems, which, he said, were often the legacy of the West's colonial involvement in the continent.

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A Canadian man has been found guilty of participating in a terrorist group that allegedly planned to storm parliament and behead the prime minister.



The 20-year-old was arrested in 2006 along with 17 others in a massive anti-terrorism operation in Toronto.

Delivering the verdict, the judge said there was "overwhelming" evidence that a terrorist group existed and that the accused "knew what it was about".

The trials of 10 others, including the alleged ringleaders, are still pending.

Charges against the remaining suspects have since been dropped.

Undercover operation

The man, a convert to Islam, cannot be identified under Canadian law as he was a minor at the time his arrest in 2006.

He had denied all terrorism-related charges, and his lawyer argued that the bomb plot was a "jihadi fantasy" that the accused knew nothing about.

However, Superior Court Justice John Sproat found him guilty of attending terrorist training camps and described him as an eager "acolyte" of the ringleader.

"He clearly understood the camp was for terrorist purposes," the judge told a court in Ontario.

"Planning and working toward ultimate goals that appear unattainable or even unrealistic does not militate against a finding that this was a terrorist group," he said.

He found the defendant guilty of participating in a terrorist organisation rather than the more serious crime of plotting bomb attacks - a charge faced by some of the group.

The cell members were arrested in the summer of 2006.

Prosecutors said the group conspired to obtain several tonnes of ammonium nitrate - a fertilizer that can be used to make explosives - and bomb key Canadian landmarks including the parliament buildings in Ottawa.

Canada's intelligence agency described the alleged campaign as "al-Qaeda inspired".

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Pirates who seized a Ukrainian ship off the coast of Somalia have reportedly demanded a ransom of $35m (£19m) to release the vessel and its crew.



The pirates earlier warned against any attempt to rescue the crew or cargo of the MV Faina, which is carrying 33 battle tanks destined for Kenya.

Pirates have seized dozens of ships near Somalia's coast in recent months.

A Russian Navy vessel is heading to the region and the US says it is monitoring developments in the area.

A spokesman for the pirates, who gave his name as Jalal Jama Ali, told a Somali website that the group were prepared to negotiate with the Kenyan government, but would not release the vessel unless the ransom was paid.

'Global security problem'

On Friday, Ukrainian Defence Minister Yury Yekhanurov confirmed 33 Russian T-72 tanks and "a substantial quantity of ammunition" were aboard the Faina.

Ukraine's foreign ministry said the ship had a crew of 21 and was sailing towards the Kenyan port of Mombasa.

The ship's captain had reported being surrounded by three boats of armed men on Thursday afternoon, it said.

Earlier reports suggested that the cargo had been destined for south Sudan, but Kenyan government spokesman Alfred Mutua confirmed the tanks were heading to Kenya.

"The cargo in the ship includes military hardware such as tanks and an assortment of spare parts for use by different branches of the Kenyan military," he said.

Security analyst Knox Chitiyo told the BBC the latest incident showed the waters off Somalia's coast had become a "global security problem".

"Piracy has become big business and there seems to be no concerted response to the problem," said Mr Chitiyo, from the London-based Royal United Services Institute.

Authorities in Somalia's semi-autonomous region of Puntland say they are powerless to confront the pirates, who regularly hold ships for ransom at the port of Eyl.

Senior UN officials estimate the ransoms pirates earn from hijacking ships exceed $100m (£54m) a year.

Pirate "mother ships" travel far out to sea and launch smaller boats to attack passing vessels, sometimes using rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs).

Last week, France circulated a draft UN resolution urging states to deploy naval vessels and aircraft to combat such piracy.

France, which has troops in nearby Djibouti and also participates in a multi-national naval force patrol in the area, has intervened twice to release French sailors kidnapped by pirates.

Commandos freed two people whose boat was hijacked in the Gulf of Aden earlier this month and in April, six arrested pirates were handed over to the French authorities for trial.

Russia announced on Friday it would start carrying out regular anti-piracy patrols in the waters off Somalia to protect Russian citizens and ships. A warship had been sent to the area earlier this week, it said.

Somalia has been without a functioning central government for 17 years and has suffered from continual civil strife.

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A bomb blast at a market in India's capital has killed one person and injured at least 15 others.



The market, in the Mehrauli area, was packed with shoppers when, according to eyewitnesses, two men drove up in a motorcycle and dropped a package.

Police have described it as a low intensity explosive device.

Two weeks ago, five bombs ripped through busy shopping areas in Delhi, killing at least 20 people. Nearly 50 were killed in Ahmadabad in July.

Police say they have arrested the head of a group claiming the attacks.

Mohammed Arif Sheikh, described as the founder of the Indian Mujahideen (IM), was arrested along with four others, Mumbai (Bombay) police said on Thursday.

Blood and glass

Television footage showed shards of glass in the market area, with people walking about in blood-stained shirts.

The site has been cordoned off and fire fighters have rushed to the area.

Ambulances are ferrying the injured to hospital. Some are said to be in a serious condition.

The brother of the 13-year-old boy who died said he had sent his brother to buy eggs when the blast went off.

"He had barely entered the shop to buy the crate (of eggs), smoke started coming out of a tiffin and suddenly there was a blast and he died on the spot," he said.

Delhi police spokesman Rajan Bhagat said they were questioning eyewitnesses who saw two men throw something from a passing motorcycle.

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A cargo ship, believed to be Ukrainian or Russian, sank in stormy waters off the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria with 13 crew members aboard, authorities say.



The 5,000 tonne Tolstoy, carrying scrap metal, did not send out a distress call, said Nikolai Apostolov, head of the Bulgarian maritime office.

Bulgarian authorities were alerted by a Russian satellite centre, he said.

News agencies report that the ship's crew, believed to be Ukrainian with a Russian captain, are all missing.

Rescue helicopters and ships were searching the waters 20 kilometres (12 miles) off Cape Emine on Bulgaria's northern Black Sea coast, but their efforts were hampered by rough weather.

The ship sank at about 0400 (0100 GMT).

The Tolstoy, which sailed under a North Korean flag, departed from the southern Russian port city of Rostov-on-Don on 21 September and was destined for Turkey.

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The authorities in Mexico have arrested three people suspected of throwing grenades that killed eight people and wounded more than 100 last week.



The grenades exploded during independence day celebrations in the city of Morelia, in western Mexico.

Investigators say the three men are members of a unit of the Gulf drug cartel, known as the Zetas.

The attacks shocked Mexico, because they appeared to target civilians, not security forces or other criminals.

The explosions went off in the main square of Morelia as the crowds celebrated the independence day on 16 September.

Police say the three arrests came as a result of an anonymous tip-off.

The city is the capital of Michoacan, a state hit by a wave of drug gang violence in recent years.

Drug-related violence in Mexico has claimed the lives of more than 2,700 people so far this year.

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Thanks for the news!

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Austria's Social Democrats won the most votes in the country's early election but far right parties made significant gains, the interior ministry has said.



Preliminary official results from Sunday's poll show Social Democrats with 29.7% of the vote.

But the country's two far right parties made large gains, winning a total vote share of 29% between them.

The conservative People's Party, which was in a faltering coalition with the Social Democrats, won 25.6%.

The interior minister, Maria Fekter, said the far right Freedom Party had won 18.01% percent of the vote and the Alliance for the Future of Austria had 10.98%.

The elections were called after Austria's 18-month-old coalition collapsed.

The BBC's Bethany Bell, in Vienna, described the far right gains as a "slap in the face" to the centrist parties.

Full official results will not be known until absentee and postal ballots, making up about 10% of the votes, are counted.

Outrage across Europe

For the first time in an EU country, 16 and 17-year-olds were able to vote. This bloc represented about 200,000 of the 6.3 million-strong electorate.

Elections were last held in October 2006. It took a further six months for the government to form a cabinet.

The far right showing was its strongest showing in Austria since 2000, when the Freedom Party won 28% and gained a place in the coalition government with the conservatives.

That development sparked outrage across Europe and for several months Austria was placed under EU sanctions.

In this election, the shape of any future governing coalition is hard to predict, our correspondent said, before the vote.

Analysts say the far right could re-enter government but only after all other options are exhausted.

These include another grand coalition or pacts with the Greens or the two other smaller parties.

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Sudanese officials say their forces have shot and killed six of the kidnappers who abducted a group of European tourists in Egypt last week.



Two other suspected kidnappers have been taken into custody, but the tourists themselves remain in captivity in Chad, officials in Sudan said.

The hostages - 11 tourists and eight Egyptian guides - were taken on 19 September and are said to be unharmed.

They include five Germans, five Italians and a Romanian.

A spokesman for Sudan's military said that the kidnappers were killed following a high-speed desert chase.

Sawarmy Khaled said the missing Europeans, who were abducted in Egypt but thought to have been taken first to Sudan and are now being held in neighbouring Chad.

Leader 'dead'

Mr Khaled said the Sudanese military forces were near the Libyan border when they encountered a white vehicle carrying eight armed men.

"The armed forces called for it to stop, but they did not respond and there was pursuit in which six of the armed men were killed," he said, adding that the group's leader, who he identified as a Chadian named Bakhit, was among the dead.

The remaining two gunmen were captured and they confessed to being involved in kidnapping the tourists and their guides, who were on desert safari in southwest Egypt.

The tourists, who were seized while near Gilf al-Kebir in Egypt, are being held by 35 other gunmen in the Tabbat Shajara region of Chad, Mr Khaled added.

He said the vehicle was "full of weapons including RPGs" and documents from the Sudan Liberation Movement "about how to distribute the ransom when received".

The shootings come as negotiations continue for the release of the hostages.

An Egyptian official told the AFP news agency that the kidnappers and German negotiators had agreed to a deal but that "negotiations were still ongoing to work out details."

The kidnappers have demanded that Germany take charge of payment of an $8.8m ransom.

German officials have declined comment.

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At least 23 people have been killed and dozens more wounded in a string of bomb attacks in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, police have said.



Police said a car bomb followed by a roadside bomb killed 10 people and wounded 22 in the busy Karrada shopping district of the centre of the capital.

Earlier they reported two bombs killed 13 people in other districts.

The blasts occurred before the breaking of the fast for the evening meal during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

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Gunmen in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar have killed the country's most prominent policewoman, officials say.



Lt-Col Malalai Kakar, head of Kandahar's department of crimes against women, was shot in her car as she was about to leave for work.

Her son was also wounded in the attack, and is said to be seriously injured.

Taleban rebels, who banned women from joining the police when they were in power, said they had carried out the shooting.

"We killed Malalai Kakar," a Taleban spokesman told AFP news agency.

"She was our target, and we successfully eliminated our target."

The BBC's Martin Patience in Kabul says Ms Kakar was one of only a few hundred female police officers in Afghanistan and that she had previously received death threats.

Prominent

Ms Kakar, who was reported to be in her early 40s and had six children, was one of the most high-profile women in the country.

She has figured prominently in the national and international media, partly due to a famous episode in which she killed three would-be assassins in a shoot-out - although she said her everyday life involved tackling theft, fights and murders.

Ms Kakar joined Kandahar's police force in 1982, after her father and brothers were also police officers.

But when the hard-line Taleban regime took over Afghanistan she was prevented from working.

Working in the police force in Afghanistan has become an increasingly dangerous occupation, says our correspondent.

According to the Ministry of Interior, more than 700 police officers were killed in the first six months of 2008.

The majority of the casualties were killed in suicide attacks and roadside bombings.

In June, another woman police officer was gunned down in Herat province in a killing believed to have been the first of its kind.

Kandahar is a key battleground of the Taleban insurgency, where Afghan and foreign troops are fighting the rebels.

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Police in the US state of Maryland say they have found the frozen bodies of two children in the freezer of a house in Calvert County.



A 43-year-old woman told police the children were her adopted daughters and had been frozen since February.

The remains were found by authorities investigating reports of child abuse at the address.

The county sheriff's office told the BBC the woman was arrested and was being held without bail.

The authorities visited the house, in Lusby, on Saturday to investigate reports of abuse against a third child, a seven-year-old girl, who showed "signs of extreme abuse and neglect", the sheriff's department said.

When police arrived at her house to look for evidence of the alleged abuse, they found the children's remains in a chest-style freezer.

The woman said that the remains were those of her adopted children and had been in the freezer since she had moved to the area in February, said police.

She also admitted to hitting the seven-year-old with a "hard-heeled shoe".

"It's a tragedy, and it gets to you a little bit," County Sheriff Mike Evans told a news conference on Monday.

"You think you've seen it all, but you haven't."

Police confirmed that the woman had adopted three children but that they had not yet been able to examine and identify the bodies.

The woman has been charged with first degree child abuse and is being held in a county jail without bail.

BBC News

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At least five people have been killed in a suspected car bomb attack on a military bus carrying soldiers in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli.



Witnesses said the blast happened on the outskirts of the city during morning rush hour. Some 30 people are believed to be wounded.

Several soldiers as well as civilians were killed in a similar blast on a bus in the city last month.

Lebanon's leaders said the attacks were an attempt to destabilise the country.

Efforts have been under way recently to try and reconcile Lebanon's rival factions after a wave of violence in May pushed the country close to civil war.

Pro-government Sunni fighters and pro-Syrian gunmen, whose fighting has centred on Tripoli, agreed to a peace deal earlier this month.

Threatened deal

Lebanese officials said the blast came after a car parked by a busy roadside near the southern entrance to the city was detonated by remote control.

The explosives were believed to have been mixed with nuts and bolts, and shattered nearby windows and damaged other cars.

The blast appeared to target a military bus that was passing through morning traffic in the Bahsas neighborhood at the time.

Security sources said four of the dead and at least 21 of the wounded were soldiers, the rest were civilians.

TV pictures showed soldiers sealing off the area and preventing people from approaching the scene of the blast.

Government officials said an investigation into the attack was under way, but no one had yet claimed responsibility.

At least 14 people were killed in a similar attack on a bus in the city in August. Several of the victims were off-duty soldiers.

'Terrorist act'

"Once again the hand of treachery has reached the military institution in a clear targeting of security and stability," the Lebanese military said in a statement after Monday's attack.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said the bombing was aimed at undermining efforts to reconcile Lebanon's various rival factions.

Syria too denounced the bombing, calling it a "terrorist and criminal act".

A similar bombing in the Syrian capital Damascus killed at least 17 people just two days ago.

The Syrian authorities have blamed the attack on Islamist extremists, and say the car came from a "neighbouring Arab country".

The BBC's Natalia Antelava says some analysts believe this new trend for car bombings in the region is directly linked to the changing situation in Iraq.

As the security situation improves there, analysts say, so insurgents are driving their members across the border into neighbouring countries.

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[Swinny]

There's way too much news like this on a regular basis. It's horrible. There's too many sick people out there...

[JohnCenaFan28]

A group of Western tourists and their Egyptian guides, who were kidnapped 10 days ago by gunmen, have been freed.



The 11 hostages - five Italians, five Germans and a Romanian - and some eight guides are said to be in good health.

The group, abducted in a remote border region of Egypt, have now arrived at a military base in the capital, Cairo.

Egyptian officials said they were freed in a mission near Sudan's border with Chad, and that half of the kidnappers were killed. No ransom was paid.

The freed hostages were greeted by Egyptian military and government officials on arrival in Cairo as well as foreign diplomats, and were then taken for medical checks.

Sudanese authorities had been tracking the group since early last week through a remote mountainous plateau that straddles the borders of Egypt, Libya and Sudan.

They were seized in an ambush at around dawn on Monday, Egyptian security sources said. Some 150 Egyptian special forces were then sent to Sudan, officials said.

German officials had been negotiating via satellite phone with the kidnappers, who were demanding a ransom of $8.8m (£4.9m). Egyptian officials said no money exchanged hands.

Italy's Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said that Sudanese and Egyptian forces had carried out "a highly professional operation".

He added that "Italian intelligence and experts from the special forces" in Italy and Germany had been involved.

Egypt's defence minister said that half of hostage-takers had been "eliminated", without giving precise figures.

The BBC's Christian Fraser, in Cairo, says Egypt's tourism minister will be relieved.

The abductees had been touring in an area well off the beaten track but a messy end to this crisis would not have been good for the health of the Egyptian economy, our correspondent says.

Suspects

The breakthrough comes a day after Sudanese troops clashed with alleged kidnappers in northern Sudan, killing six gunmen. Another two were taken into custody.

The two suspects claimed the tourists were in Chad but their exact whereabouts at the time of rescue remains unclear. Chad denied the group was within its borders.

In a statement, the military said the vehicle of the hostage-takers was full of weapons and documents detailing how the ransom should have been paid.

Other documents found inside led the army to believe a faction of the Darfur rebel Sudan Liberation Army was involved in the kidnapping.

None of Darfur's numerous rebel groups have said they were linked to the kidnappings.

Other reports said the abduction, near the Gilf al-Kebir plateau, was carried out by tribesmen or bandits operating in the area.

BBC News