A senior US official says the United States is prepared to “put it in writing” that a missile defence system for Europe will not target Russia.

A roadside bomb has killed at least five policemen and three civilians in southeastern Turkey.

Students and police have clashed in the Chilean capital Santiago during the latest protest over education reform.

Thailand's cabinet met on October 18 to discuss the mounting economic cost of floods that have killed 315 people, and residents of Bangkok were told not to drop their guard even if the immediate danger to the capital had passed.

Syrian tank forces killed at least 25 people in a thrust into the opposition hotbed of Homs aimed at stemming growing armed resistance to President Bashar al-Assad's crackdown on a seven-month-old popular uprising, residents said.

Hamas has handed over Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was seized by Hamas militants in 2006, to Egyptian mediators after five years' captivity, as part of a prisoner swap deal with Israel, said Hamas officials.

Pakistan will only hold peace talks with Taliban insurgents if they give up their arms first, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said on October 18.

There has been a fall of nearly 40 percent in the number of deaths from malaria worldwide in the past decade, according to a new World Health Organization report, which said that one-third of the 108 countries where malaria was endemic were on course to eradicate the disease within 10 years.

One of Thailand's oldest and largest industrial estates has been evacuated after flood waters breached its recently-fortified defences.

Fighters with Libya's interim government have captured the town of Bani Walid, firing their guns into the air and hoisting the country's new flag over the centre of one of the final bastions of Muammar Gaddafi's loyalists.