S Korea military drills to go ahead

As the threat of war looms, there are widespread calls for South Korea to halt military exercises with the US [Reuters]

South Korea has vowed to go ahead with artillery drills on a border island shelled by North Korea last month despite Pyongyang's threat to retaliate again.

A South Korea official said on Saturday that the military is ready to respond to any possible provocation.

He also said the drills were not expected over the weekend because of bad weather but would be conducted by Tuesday.

The one-day, live-fire drills are to be held on Yeonpyeong Island near the tense sea border with North Korea.

North Korea has warned that if the South goes ahead anyway, it will strike back even harder than in the November 23 attack that killed four people.

Meanwhile, North Korean defectors have launched propaganda flyers into the North from Yeonpyeong Island.

They released balloons with 200,000 leaflets, and one thousand US dollar bills. The pamphlets condemned the North's shelling of the island and the potential succession of Kim Jong-il's youngest son as leader.

Deadly force

North Korea ramped up the tensions on Friday with its warning of....

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Wikileaks: US monitors 'aggressive' China in Africa

The Forum on China-Africa Co-operation recently celebrated its 10th anniversary

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Wikileaks Revelations

• Q&A: Arrest of Wikileaks' founder
• Wikileaks' struggle to stay online
• Cables at a glance
• US hurdles to prosecuting Assange

The US is closely monitoring China's expanding role in Africa, the latest secret US diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks reveal.

A cable from February quotes a senior US official in the Nigerian capital, Lagos, describing China as "aggressive and pernicious".

However, the official says the US does not consider China a military, security or intelligence threat.

Wikileaks has so far released more than 1,100 of 251,000 secret US cables.

The BBC's diplomatic correspondent says the latest documents provide a fascinating insight into Washington's rivalry with Beijing in Africa.

The cable, published by the Guardian newspaper, quotes Johnnie Carson, US Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, who had been meeting oil company representatives in Lagos.

He describes China as "a very aggressive and....

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Wikileaks: Australia FM blames US

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Kevin Rudd, Australian foreign minister: "US personnel responsible for cable leak"

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Australia's foreign minister has said the US is to blame for the release of thousands of diplomatic cables on Wikileaks, not its Australian founder, Julian Assange.

Kevin Rudd said the release raised questions about US security.

Mr Rudd said he did not "give a damn" about criticism of him in the cables.

Mr Assange, arrested in the UK over sex crime allegations in Sweden, has accused the Australian government of "disgraceful pandering" to the US.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard had earlier called Mr Assange's release of the cables "grossly irresponsible".

Over the past two weeks, Wikileaks has released thousands of classified messages from US envoys around the world, from more than 250,000 it has been given.

Washington has called their.....

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Wikileaks cables show Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang details

Mr Xi - expected to be China's next president - spoke of a love of US war films

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US diplomatic cables published by Wikileaks have revealed more about the attitudes and concerns of the two men expected to lead China from 2012.

Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang - tipped as China's next president and premier - had separate dinners with US Ambassador Clark Randt in March 2007.

Both spoke proudly of economic advances in their respective regions.

Mr Xi was revealed as a US war film fan, while Mr Li said residents' biggest worry was corruption.

At that time Mr Xi was Communist Party secretary in Zhejiang province and Mr Li held the same position in Liaoning.

Both are now members of the nine-strong Politburo Standing Committee and are widely seen as China's leaders-in-waiting.

According to one cable, Xi Jinping had a "frank and friendly" conversation with Mr Randt, much of which focused on economic development in Zhejiang.

Residents were most concerned about education, affordable housing and healthcare, Mr Xi reportedly said, and also about "the working style of government and.....

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Pakistani interior minister denies flood aid corruption

The bill for floods in Pakistan earlier this year is estimated to be about $9.7bn

Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik has defended the way his country is distributing millions of dollars of flood relief.

His comments follow allegations of corruption from flood affected people.

The government has launched a huge compensation scheme under which people can withdraw cash aid from local banks using special electronic cards.

Some people say they have been denied cards, while others say payments made have disappeared from their accounts.

Under the compensation scheme, the government will eventually give more than 85,450 rupees ($1,000, £631) per household to 1.5 million families who have been directly affected by the disaster, reports the BBC's Jill McGivering.

So far, some 38,000 cases of fraud are......

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Mass grave claims investigated in Sri Lanka

The authorities in Sri Lanka have sent a team of forensic experts to Mulaithivu to investigate unconfirmed reports of a mass grave.

Imprisoned Tamil Tiger rebels told the investigators that the grave, about fifteen kilometres from Kilinochchi, contained the remains of twenty-six army and navy personnel, allegedly taken prisoner and then shot dead by the insurgents.

Cremated

A military spokesman Major General Ubaya Medawela, told......

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'No survivors' in New Zealand mine

All 29 miners trapped in a coal mine in New Zealand have been presumed dead after a "horrific" second blast tore through the colliery, plunging the country into mourning.

Police said there was now no chance of finding anyone alive, confirming the country's worst mining accident in nearly a century and prompting anguished scenes as distraught relatives wept, shouted and collapsed to the floor.

"There was another explosion at the [Pike River Coal] mine. It was extremely severe," Gary Knowles, the police official co-ordinating the rescue attempt, told reporters.

"Based on expert evidence I have been given ... it is our belief that no one has survived and everyone has perished."

Knowles said the explosion, whose cause was unknown, ripped through the Pike River coal mine at 2:37pm local time, (0137 GMT), on Wednesday, five days after the initial blast trapped the 29 men including 24 New Zealanders, two Australians, two Britons and a South African.

The victims of the blasts ranged from a 17-year-old on his................

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