Russia has warned US senators that any change to the new nuclear arms disarmament treaty between the two countries could destroy the pact.

A semi-official news agency in Iran reported on December 20 that eleven people with ties to a terrorist group have been executed in the country.

Police have arrested a dozen men accused of plotting a large-scale terror attack on targets inside the United Kingdom, the biggest anti-terrorist sweep in Britain in nearly two years.

The United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship is denying its members are divided following a meeting between its chairwoman and the prime minister on December 16.

Fifteen people, including nine nursing graduates who were supposed to take the two-day licensure examinations starting on December 18, were confirmed killed while 12 others were injured in an early December 19 blaze that gobbled up two buildings in Tuguegarao City, Cagayan province in northern Philippines, police officials said.

Fuel thieves tampering with an oil pipeline could have sparked a deadly blast in central Mexico that flooded streets with fire and killed at least 27 people before dawn on September 19, officials said.

A member of the NATO-led force in Afghanistan was killed on Sunday, taking the total number of foreign troops killed in 2010 to 700, by far the deadliest year of the war since the Taliban were toppled in 2001 .

Russian police detained hundreds of people in Moscow on December 18, including young nationalists who rallied in the north of the city, as part of a clampdown to prevent new outbreaks of ethnic violence.

NATO said its troops killed more than 20 insurgents on December 18 in fighting that broke out after a patrol came under fire in eastern Afghanistan.

China warned on December 18 that a possible fresh clash between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the Republic of Korea (RoK)  could shake regional stability and it urged both governments to avoid moves that it said would stoke tensions.