SHIGAL (AFGHANISTAN): Eleven children and a woman were killed by an air strike during a Nato operation targeting Taliban commanders in eastern Afghanistan, officials in the region said Sunday.

TOKYO: Japan has ordered its armed forces to shoot down any North Korean missile headed towards its territory, a defence ministry spokesman said Monday as speculation grows Pyongyang may fire one this week.

BAGRAM, AFGHANISTAN: A top US military officer said on Sunday the Pentagon had bolstered its missile defenses and taken other steps because he "can't take the chance" that North Korea won't soon engage in some military action.

PYONGYANG: North Korea has moved a second mid-range missile to its east coast and loaded both on mobile launchers, a report said on Friday, fuelling fears of an imminent firing that will further ramp up tensions. Yonhap news agency, citing a top South Korean official, said two intermediate Musudan missiles had been transported by train earlier in the week and "loaded on vehicles equipped with launch pads".

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama has apologized to California's top lawyer for causing a stir when he called her "the best-looking attorney general" at a fundraiser they attended together this week.

SEOUL: Hackers apparently broke into at least two of North Korea's government-run online sites on Thursday, as tensions rose on the Korean Peninsula. The North's Uriminzokkiri Twitter and Flickr accounts stopped sending out content typical of that posted by the regime in Pyongyang, such as photos of North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un meeting with military officials.

DUBAI: Amnesty International has condemned a reported Saudi Arabian court ruling that a young man should be paralysed as punishment for a crime he committed 10 years ago which resulted in the victim being confined to a wheelchair. The London-based human rights group said Ali al-Khawaher, 24, was reported to have spent 10 years in jail waiting to be paralysed surgically unless his family pays one million Saudi riyals ($270,000) to the victim.

SHANGHAI: A sixth person has died of H7N9 bird flu in China, state media said on Friday, after authorities culled poultry at a Shanghai market where the virus was detected.

WASHINGTON: The Obama administration on Tuesday warned North Korea to halt a recent spate of "unacceptable" rhetoric and actions that Secretary of State John Kerry called "provocative, dangerous and reckless." Kerry also vowed that the United States would defend itself and its allies South Korea and Japan from North Korean threats.

YANGON, Myanmar: A fire engulfed a mosque housing orphans in Myanmar's largest city Tuesday morning, killing at least 13 children in the blaze that police blamed on an electrical short.