Pakistan will investigate alleged links between the Times Square bombing accused and militant groups operating in the country.

Guns, temples and French replicas punctuate Laos, says Brett Atkinson.

Laos' bizarre capital is a languid collection of wide French-style avenues furnished with cruising tuk tuks, and plane-tree studded neighbourhoods dotted with Buddhist temples and French colonial architecture.

Indian Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said that "the judgement in itself is a message to Pakistan that they should not export terror to India."

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il was believed to be making a rare trip to China amid tensions over the sinking of a South Korean warship and stalled nuclear disarmament negotiations, South Korean reports said.

A major hospital has evacuated patients and suspended all but emergency surgery.

In Manipur, locals coyly point out that, unlike many varieties of chilli, umorok burns while entering the body but not on the way out.

China is undergoing an awful wave of frenzied attacks on schoolchildren by knife-weilding men.

A Chinese gymnast, now living in Huntly, has been stripped of an Olympic bronze medal for being too young during the Sydney 2000 Olympics.