Britain's defense secretary said Monday the government will invest 1.5 billion pounds ($2.4 billion) to boost the army reserves over the next 10 years.

The lively morning calls of a rare species of gibbon has led to the discovery of the only known "viable" community of the talkative primates in remote Vietnamese forests, conservationists said Monday.

An Indonesian Islamic youth group has set up a unit to counter radicalism in Muslim communities and even help police defuse homemade bombs, its chairman said Monday.

Japan's second-biggest retailer said on Sunday it had sold beef from cattle that ate nuclear-contaminated feed, the latest in a series of health scares related to radiation leaking from the quake-crippled nuclear power plant.

Britain's top police chief resigned and the former head of Rupert Murdoch's UK newspaper business was arrested on Sunday over a phone-hacking scandal that is lapping at Prime Minister David Cameron's door.

General David Petraeus, who has been designated as the Director of the CIA, handed over command of American and coalition forces in Afghanistan to General John Allen on Monday, transferring responsibility for the nearly 10-year long war as Kabul's international allies draw up plans to exit the conflict.

Pakistan's army says the Taliban has released a video showing fighters executing 16 Pakistani policemen captured in a raid in the northwest.

At least 30 people were killed in Syria at the weekend in clashes between residents in Homs, the first reported factional fighting since protests against President Bashar al-Assad erupted in March, a human rights group said.

Thousands of residents have been forced back into emergency shelters after a volcano in central Indonesia unleashed its most powerful eruption in weeks.

Spot gold touched a record high on July 18, on track for an eleventh straight day of gains, reflecting persistent worries about the euro zone debt crisis spreading and a growing threat of a US government default.