The Taliban launched an attack on the centre of the Afghan capital on Tuesday, hitting Nato's coalition force headquarters next to the US embassy in Kabul.

At least 29 people were injured when a passenger train derailed on Saturday in eastern Pakistan, Xinhua reported. The accident occurred around 5.00 am.

The post-9/11 invasion of Afghanistan by the United States and its allies "will remain a permanent stigma on the face of western democracy", the Taliban said on Saturday.

Thirty Pakistani children, who accidentally entered Afghanistan while celebrating Id, were kidnapped by militants, a media report said on Friday.

Yoshihiko Noda became Japan's sixth new Prime Minister in five years on Tuesday, starting a term in which he must push quake recovery, contain a nuclear crisis and revive the economy.

In the latest attack on convoys in Pakistan carrying supplies for Nato forces in Afghanistan, 19 Nato trucks were set ablaze in Mastung district by unidentified gunmen.

Ethnic and criminal violence blamed on gangs has killed 65 people in Pakistan's financial capital of Karachi, with police the latest victims shot dead in a brazen ambush, officials said on Saturday.

Japan on Friday issued a tsunami alert after a 6.8-magnitude undersea quake struck off the country's northeastern Honshu island, Xinhua reported.

A relief camp was set up overnight ostensibly for those affected by the rains in Pakistan’s Sindh province so that Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani could visit it to see firsthand what relief measures the government was providing, a media report said on Tuesday.

A constitutional petition has been filed in a Pakistani court seeking the disqualification of Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani for allegedly committing “high treason” by defying orders of the Supreme Court and attempting to subvert the Constitution.