RIGA: Rescue workers pulled two more bodies out of the ruins of a collapsed supermarket in the Latvian capital, Riga, early on Friday, bringing the death toll to eight amid fears that more people may be buried in the rubble.

WASHINGTON: The United States said Thursday that Afghanistan should sign a new security pact as soon as possible, but warned it had not yet decided on a post-2014 troop presence.

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama: Alabama granted posthumous pardons on Thursday to three of the Scottsboro Boys, a group of black teenagers whose fight against false charges that they raped two white women in 1931 helped initiate the modern civil rights movement.

NEW YORK: Afghan President Hamid Karzai wants a letter written by US President Barack Obama that will acknowledge military mistakes made during 12-year war in his country in return for allowing American counterterrorism raids on private Afghan homes, a media report said. Karzai's spokesman Aimal Faizi has said the letter would be tantamount to an apology, though not directly using that word, a report in the New York Times said.

ISLAMABAD: A US drone strike targeting a seminary in Hangu district's Tal area in northwest Pakistan on Thursday killed at least eight persons and injured five others, in a rare attack outside the country's tribal areas.

KABUL/WASHINGTON: The United States and Afghanistan on Wednesday reached a draft agreement on a crucial security pact, a day before thousands of Afghan elders are set to debate whether to allow US troops to stay in the country after 2014.

TONGAAT, South Africa: A roof at a South African shopping mall that was under construction collapsed with a thunderous bang on Tuesday, killing two people and injuring 29 as survivors screamed for help, police and witnesses said. Rescue teams used cranes, sniffer dogs and spotlights as the search for any more survivors stretched into the night.

BEIJING: Beijing authorities say 11 people have been killed and four other injured in a late-night warehouse fire in the city's southeast.

CAIRO: At least one person was killed when Egyptian riot police stormed Cairo's Tahrir Square late Tuesday to disperse stone-throwing protesters, a health ministry official said.

GENEVA: Talks between Iran and world powers stretched into a third day on Saturday as top diplomats pressed for a deal on Tehran's nuclear programme, warning that major obstacles remain.