World - AFP

UGLOVKA, Russia (AFP) - An elite passenger train carrying hundreds of people from Moscow to Saint Petersburg was derailed by a bomb attack that left dozens dead and nearly 100 injured, officials said Saturday.

NANJING, China (AFP) - China's Premier Wen Jiabao kicked off a meeting with top EU finance officials Sunday in talks expected to focus on long-running rancour over the yuan currency's exchange rate.

TEHRAN (AFP) - Parliament speaker Ali Larijani warned world powers Sunday that Tehran could "seriously decrease" its cooperation with the UN atomic watchdog after it demanded Iran halt work on a second nuclear plant.

COLOMBO (AFP) - Sri Lanka's ex-military chief Sarath Fonseka on Sunday formally announced he would challenge his former boss President Mahinda Rajapakse in January 26 elections.

NAZIRPUR, Bangladesh (AFP) - Bangladeshi rescue workers on Sunday pulled more bodies from a capsized ferry as police said at least 37 people had died and warned that "scores" more corpses remained in the vessel.

TEGUCIGALPA (AFP) - Hondurans vote Sunday for the first time since President Manuel Zelaya was forced out of the country in June, in a tense climate around polls which have divided the Americas.

MONTEVIDEO (AFP) - A former leftist rebel who spent 14 years in jail appeared likely to win Sunday's runoff presidential elections in Uruguay against a conservative ex-president as voters in the northeast brave floodwaters to cast their ballots.

VIENNA (AFP) - UN atomic watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei, who once described himself as a "nuclear pope", quoted the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi in his farewell remarks at the International Atomic Energy Agency.

LONDON (AFP) - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Sunday he wanted to set President Hamid Karzai a series of three-monthly targets so that international forces can start to hand over control of Afghanistan.

PORT OF SPAIN (AFP) - Commonwealth leaders representing two billion people on Saturday threw their combined weight behind upcoming climate talks, driving momentum towards a new carbon-cutting treaty.

PORT OF SPAIN (AFP) - Britain aims to set clear goals in Afghanistan at top-level talks next year to move towards bringing its troops home, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Saturday amid public anger at the war.

ISLAMABAD (AFP) - President Asif Ali Zardari gave up control of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal Saturday in a bid to fend off mounting pressures threatening to weaken his rule further and complicate the war on the Taliban.

TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran will produce its own enriched uranium for a medical research reactor in Tehran if the UN atomic watchdog fails to provide the nuclear fuel, a senior hardline cleric said on Saturday.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US military will deploy up to 9,000 Marines to Afghanistan's Helmand province -- doubling US presence there -- in the days after President Barack Obama's war strategy announcement this week, the Washington Post said Saturday.

BRUSSELS (AFP) - Herman Van Rompuy, who will become the EU's first president this week, described himself on Sunday as a European federalist while stressing that he is not a "fundamentalist".

TEGUCIGALPA (AFP) - Fears of violence spread through the Honduran capital ahead of Sunday's post-coup elections, which have divided both the Central American country and the continent.

BRUSSELS (AFP) - Spain will seek to establish a new bilateral agreement on EU-Cuba ties, including human rights, in the first half of 2010 when it will hold the EU's rotating presidency, its foreign minister said Saturday.

NAZIRPUR, Bangladesh (AFP) - Rescue workers struggled to find survivors Saturday after at least 33 people died when a Bangladesh ferry overloaded with people returning home to celebrate a Muslim holiday capsized.

VIENNA (AFP) - The UN nuclear watchdog on Friday passed a resolution condemning Iran for secretly building a uranium enrichment plant and demanded the Islamic republic freeze construction of the facility.

PORT OF SPAIN (AFP) - Hopes suddenly rose that a new global climate pact was within reach after rich nations attending a Commonwealth summit here offered to pay poorer countries to help seal the deal.

MOSCOW (AFP) - At least 25 people were killed and 63 injured Friday when a train travelling between the Russian capital Moscow and Saint Petersburg derailed, possibly as a result of an attack, Russian media reported.

BERLIN (AFP) - Germany's former defence minister Franz Josef Jung quit the cabinet on Friday over a deadly air strike in Afghanistan, the day after claims of a cover-up took the scalp of the country's top general.

LONDON (AFP) - Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi on Friday accused the Islamic republic of acting illegally by freezing her assets and questioned the timing of its demand she pay substantial back taxes.

WINDHOEK (AFP) - Namibia, one of the last African nations to win independence, voted Friday in elections expected to return the long-ruling SWAPO to power despite a tough challenge from a new breakaway party.

QUITO (AFP) - A regional Latin American summit aimed in part at calming tensions between Colombia and Venezuela opened here Friday, but Bogota opted to stay away in a move Caracas termed a "huge mistake."

TEGUCIGALPA (AFP) - Amnesty International expressed fears Friday the Honduran de facto regime would use excessive force to clamp down on opposition to post-coup polls that have divided the Americas.

SKOPJE (AFP) - Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said Friday he did not expect a Greek veto on Macedonia's bid to join the European Union because of an 18-year-old name dispute between Athens and Skopje.

HAVANA (AFP) - Cuban President Raul Castro ordered his troops to "never give up" on Friday as his Caribbean island nation carried out war games designed to train for the possibility of a US attack.