South Korea fires warning shots, second incident in days

South Korea's navy fired warning shots to drive away a North Korean fishing boat at a maritime border on Wednesday, the second incident in six days, jangling nerves in Seoul ahead of next week's G20 summit.

The South Korean capital, about 100 km (60 miles) south of the demilitarized zone dividing the peninsula, is on heightened alert ahead of the summit over concerns Pyongyang may try to create an incident to embarrass its rival.

Washington has pressed Beijing to use its influence over the North not to create an incident in the run up to the meeting.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak told a news conference in Seoul that he was not expecting any trouble from across the border.

"I don't think the North will try to do anything when leaders of the international community are meeting to discuss..........

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Greek parcel bomb targets Merkel

German police disarm potentially harmful package at chancellor's office hours after similar parcels go off in Athens.

A spokesman for the German chancellor said the package from Greece 'would have been able to harm people' [AFP] Police have disarmed a potentially harmful package at the German chancellor's office that arrived from Greece, just hours after similar small parcel bombs exploded outside the Russian and Swiss embassies in the Greek capital of Athens. A spokesman for Angela Merkel, the chancellor, said the suspicious package, intercepted in the mailroom of her office, was personally addressed to the German leader and "would have been able to harm people''. Thomas de Maiziere, the German interior minister, said that not only did the package have a Greek return address, but authorities had been able to trace that it had been sent from Greece two days ago. "It contained an explosive device. Based on everything that we know, it was built in the same way and visually resembled the package that exploded at the Swiss embassy in Athens,'' de Maiziere said. Meanwhile in Greece police detonated suspect packages found at the cargo terminal of

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Indonesia tsunami deaths top 400

At least 408 people have been confirmed dead after a tsunami triggered by a powerful earthquake hit Indonesia's western Mentawai Islands earlier this week, but officials say the death toll could be much higher.

Harmensyah, the head of the West Sumatra provincial disaster management centre, said on Friday that rescue teams "believe many, many of the bodies were swept to sea".

Bodies have also been found buried on beaches and even stuck in trees across the islands.

More than 400 people are believed to be still missing after three-metre high waves battered the small group of islands, about 280km to the northwest of Sumatra, on Monday.

"Of those missing people, we think two-thirds of them are probably dead, either swept out to sea or buried in the sand," Ade Edward, a local disaster management official, said on Thursday.

"When we flew over the area ... we saw many bodies. Heads and legs were sticking out of the sand, some of them were in the trees. If we add another 200 to the toll it would be at least 543 dead.

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Pakistan flood food running out, warns UN

Water-borne diseases are putting millions of children displaced by the floods at risk

The United Nations has warned its supply of emergency food aid for victims of Pakistan's summer floods will run out by the start of December.

UN humanitarian co-ordinator Martin Mogwanja said up to six million people relied on the aid every month.

With winter on the way, seven million people still do not have adequate shelter or quilts, blankets and warm clothing, he told the BBC.

The monsoon floods affected 20 million people and one fifth of the country.

At least 1,500 people died in the deluge.

Appealing for further donations from the international community, Mr Mogwanja said malnutrition was also increasing as food stocks dwindled.

And winter would bring fresh misery for the homeless, he said.

Those most in need of shelter are said to be........

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World's big enough for India and China, says Chinese PM

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (right) is expected to visit India in December

Chinese PM Wen Jiabao has told his Indian counterpart, Manmohan Singh, that there is "enough space" in the world for both countries to develop.

His comments came during a meeting on the sidelines of a regional meeting in the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi. Mr Wen said he would visit India this year.

China is India's largest trading partner; two-way trade volumes surpassed $50bn (£31bn) in 2008.

The two nations fought a brief border war in 1962, but ties have improved.

Tensions remain, however, between the rising regional powers over their shared 3,500-km (2,170-mile) border, decades on from the conflict, which China won.

Another bone of contention is the presence in India of exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama.

Beijing and Delhi have had a "strategic and co-operative partnership" since 2005.

"There is enough space in the world for.......

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Southern groups accused of vandalism

vandalism

	Former parliamentarian M. K Sivagilingaum.

Travellers from the South are creating problems for residents in Jaffna said former parliamentarian M. K Sivagilingaum.

He said that the local government administration and the library staff are to meet on Friday to discuss a incident that took place last Saturday.

“A group of people from the South who were denied access to the library as a seminar of medical staff was in progress made their way after arguing with the library staff caused damaged to books and reading material” said Sivagilingam.

Army Spokesman Major General Ubaya madewala said he was not aware of such incident.

Sivagilingam said that groups from the South were......


Read more : http://www.bbc.co.uk/sinhala/news/story/2010/10/101028_jaffnavandal.shtml

Al Qaeda cell leader killed in Afghan north: NATO

(Reuters) - An al Qaeda cell leader who may have been training suicide bombers was among two insurgents killed in an air strike in northern Afghanistan at the weekend, NATO-led forces said on Monday.

While the Osama bin Laden-led movement is widely believed to be funding and training the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan, the capture or killing of senior al Qaeda figures is relatively uncommon.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said a Abu Baqir, a Taliban sub-commander and al Qaeda group leader, was killed when an alliance aircraft fired on a truck in northern Kunduz province.

ISAF said the air strike was called in after insurgents attacked a police station in Aliabad district.

"The air weapons team tracked the insurgents from the police station and, when they determined no civilians were in the area, they engaged the truck," ISAF said in a statement.

"The air weapons team killed two insurgents including Baqir, who was reportedly housing four potential suicide bombers for upcoming attacks on the city of Kunduz," it said.

When contacted, ISAF in Kabul had no more details immediately available.

Once a relatively peaceful area, Kunduz has been slowly drawn into the insurgency in recent months as the Taliban spread out of their traditional strongholds in Kandahar and Helmand provinces in the south.

Last October, White House national security adviser James Jones estimated there were fewer than 100 al Qaeda militants operating in Afghanistan. He said the question of Afghanistan once again becoming a haven for al Qaeda was "a hypothetical."

Apart from training and funding the Taliban in Afghanistan, al Qaeda is also closely linked to the Haqqani network, operating mainly in the east of the country.

The Haqqani network has staged several high-profile attacks, including a failed assassination attempt against Afghan President Hamid Karzai in 2008. It also has close links with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency.

Source - Reuters