A powerful 7.3-magnitude earthquake struck off the western Pacific nation of Vanuatu on Sunday, triggering a small tsunami exactly six years after giant waves killed 220,000 people around the Indian Ocean.

At least 40 people have died in a suicide bomb attack on a large crowd receiving aid in north-west Pakistan.

Pope Benedict has prayed for peace as he delivered his traditional Christmas Eve homily in Rome.

Russia's State Duma on Friday preliminarily approved the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) by a 350-58 vote in the first of its three required readings, but the final approval of the treaty would have to wait until 2011.

At least five people have been killed in an explosion near Nigeria's central city of Jos, officials say.

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) accused the Republic of Korea (RoK) of raising the "abductees" issue, calling it "another vicious political provocation," the official KCNA news agency reported Friday.

At least 11 soldiers and 24 militants have been killed in clashes near the Afghan border in north-west Pakistan, officials have said.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismissed recent Western-imposed sanctions as ineffective here on Thursday.

At least 15 people were detained and six injured, including four police officers from the Argentine Federal Police (PFA), on Thursday night in Buenos Aires during a clash at the Constitution train station, police sources said.

Bomb blasts in the Chilean and Swiss embassies in Rome injured two staffers in attacks that officials said may have been carried out by anarchists like the ones behind a similar plot in Greece.