World

President Lee Myung-Bak ordered South Korea's military on Tuesday to stay alert against North Korea, after a mystery blast sank one of its warships near the tense border.

Divers have injected oxygen into the hull of a South Korean warship sunk by a mystery blast, officials said on Tuesday, refusing to abandon hope for dozens trapped inside.

Nearly 1,000 rescuers are racing against the clock to free more than 150 workers trapped in a flooded half-built coal mine in north China, as officials warned gas was building up in the pit.

Moscow held a day of mourning today for the 38 victims of twin suicide bombings on packed metro trains as Russian leaders pledged to hunt down and wipe out those behind the attacks.

Nine members of a radical Christian militia were charged with plotting to kill police in Michigan and wage war on the government, an indictment unsealed Monday said.

Burma's opposition party led by Aung San Suu Kyi said on Monday it would boycott polls expected later this year, after the country's military rulers introduced a controversial new election law.

Abhisit Vejjajiva told protesters on Monday he would call polls before his term ends but he refused to meet their 15-day deadline, leading to stalemate after a second day of talks.

Two suicide bombers blew themselves up Monday on trains on Moscow's metro system, killing at least 34 people during morning rush-hour, emergency workers and prosecutors said.

Searchers have found the stern section of a South Korean warship that was torn apart by a mystery blast near the North Korean border and divers will try to reach it later Monday, the military said.

US President Barack Obama paid a surprise visit to Afghanistan Sunday, his first since taking office, to press Afghan leaders to end corruption and rally American troops in the war on the Taliban.

Pope Benedict XVI, under increasing fire for the Roman Catholic Church's handling of paedophile priests, urged Christians Sunday not to be intimidated by idle "chatter".

Several thousand people marched through the streets of Madrid Sunday to call for bullfighting to be outlawed amid a growing national debate over the practice which animal activists condemn as a form of torture.

An armed gang of masked men stormed a packed casino in the Swiss city of Basel Sunday and made a getaway into France with hundreds of thousands of francs (euros, dollars), authorities said.

Some 123 workers were trapped when a vast coal mine being built in northern China flooded on Sunday, in the latest accident to hit the country's notoriously dangerous mining industry.

Thailand's embattled Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva on Sunday held landmark talks with anti-government protesters aimed at ending two weeks of street demonstrations.

Ships and aircraft searched Sunday for 46 sailors missing after a mystery explosion tore a South Korean warship apart, as tearful relatives urged the military to work faster.

Some 80,000 red-shirted protesters fanned out through the Thai capital's old quarter today, reviving their campaign for new polls to replace a government they reject as undemocratic.

The US government for the first time has offered a legal justification of its drone strikes against Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants, citing the right to "self-defense" under international law.

Former premier Iyad Allawi was to begin talks on Saturday to form a government after his bloc edged out incumbent Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's coalition in declared results from Iraq's election.

Four Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers died in clashes on the Gaza border yesterday, as PM Benjamin Netanyahu consulted his security cabinet on US pressure on settlement building.

The Vatican fought on Friday to limit the damage from a report alleging Pope Benedict XVI failed to bar the transfer of a known paedophile priest.

The headless bodies of a police chief and another man presumed to be a police officer turned up in the trunk of a police car in north Mexico, local justice officials said on Friday.

The US Congress put the final touches on President Barack Obama's historic health overhaul, passing a set of technical changes to the legislation that will define his political legacy.

European leaders have clinched a deal that re-writes the 11-year-old eurozone's rule-book, with loans, backed by the IMF and under strict conditions, primed for miscreants like Greece.