World

TENS of thousands called on Moscow to recognise the independence of Georgia's breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia on Thursday at mass rallies in the cities of Tskhinvali and Sukhumi.

INVESTIGATORS sifted through the wreckage on Wednesday to discover what caused a Spanish airliner to crash on take-off from Madrid, killing 153 people.

TWO suicide bombers blew themselves up at the gates of Pakistan's main weapons complex on Thursday, killing 59 people and wounding 70.

SLOVAKIAN Prime Minister Robert Fico warned foreign energy corporations on Thursday that their stakes in the country's utilities could be seized if they overcharge Slovak consumers.

PIRATES hijacked a German-operated cargo ship, a Japanese-operated tanker and an Iranian ship off the coast of Somalia on Thursday.

NATO ignored protests from Ankara and sent warships steaming into the Black Sea on Thursday for what the military alliance insisted were "long-planned exercises" and "routine visits" to ports in Romania and Bulgaria.

FRANCE'S broadcast authority banned French channels from marketing TV shows to children under the age of three on Wednesday, warning that "television viewing hurts the development" of toddlers.

A FORMER top Indonesian state intelligence official went on trial on Wednesday for allegedly ordering the murder of the country's most prominent human rights activist four years ago.

A POWERFUL car bomb exploded in the Turkish port of Izmir on Thursday, injuring 18 people, including policemen and soldiers.

TWO car bombs rocked a hotel and military headquarters in Algeria on Wednesday, killing 12 people, a day after a nearby suicide bombing killed 43.