The Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) has confirmed fuel meltdown in three reactors at its crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the Kyodo news agency said on Tuesday.

With just four days left before a potential constitutional meltdown, Nepal's communist-Maoist government on Tuesday clamped prohibitions near the Parliament building, banning all protests and rallies within a 50m radius.

Former Australia batsman David Boon will replace retiring compatriot Alan Hurst on the elite panel of International Cricket Council (ICC) match referees.

An accidental blast at Iran's Abadan's oil refinery killed at least one person and injured more than 20 during a visit today by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was not affected and went on to make a televised speech, reports said.

A complaint registered with police by the Pakistan Navy on the terrorist assault on a naval airbase said the attack was carried out by 10-12 militants, contradicting interior minister Rehman Malik's assertion that only six attackers were involved.

Several blasts and gunshots were heard late on Sunday inside a Pakistan Air Force base in Karachi, the country's largest city, the police said as interior minister Rahman Malik confirmed it as a terrorist attack.

Afghanistan's Taliban on Monday dismissed as "pure propaganda" claims that their leader Mullah Omar was dead after an Afghan intelligence source said he had been killed in Pakistan.

Fifteen hours after brazenly storming into Pakistan Navy's key Mehran airbase in the heart of the port city of Karachi, heavily-armed Taliban militants were still holding onto parts of the base after destroying two US-made surveillance aircraft and killing 13 security personnel.

A painting by Chinese contemporary artist Qi Baishi was sold for $65 million, a record high price for contemporary and modern Chinese paintings and calligraphy by Beijing-based China Guardian .

A suicide bomber struck a crowded Afghan bazaar on Monday , killing four civilians and wounding another 14 in a remote town in the East of the country.