PAKISTAN

The meeting between the three Pakistan players at the centre of spot-fixing allegations and the country's High Commissioner has been postponed until Thursday, officials said on Wednesday.

Floods have ravaged Pakistan's economy, the prime minister said on Wednesday, with massive job losses and soaring inflation expected to hurt a nation whose stability is vital to the U.S. war against militancy.

British customs officials said on Tuesday they had had arrested three people as part of an investigation into money laundering.

Victims of Pakistan's floods on Tuesday queued at hospitals where scant resources were available to treat a rising number of patients.

Pakistan's top crime investigative agency will send a team to Britain this week to look at corruption allegations against some of the country's cricket players, a senior official said on Tuesday.

Pakistan will not suspend any players being investigated for alleged corruption without proof of wrongdoing, Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Ijaz Butt says.

A car bomb killed a district chief in eastern Afghanistan on Monday as he entered a provincial headquarters, but the governor escaped unhurt, officials said.

Flood-stricken Pakistan urgently needs more international aid to combat potential instability and extremism, influential U.S. Senator John Kerry said, as hunger and disease threaten millions of victims.

Pakistan could release any players under investigation for alleged corruption from their squad for the one-day series against England, a source in the team told Reuters.

Indian soldiers on Monday shot dead six separatist militants trying to cross over from Pakistan into the disputed region of Kashmir where popular protests against Indian rule have mounted in recent weeks.

Pakistan endured the worst day in their turbulent cricket history on Sunday when a corruption scandal erupting overnight was succeeded by their heaviest test defeat.

Pakistan intend to complete their England cricket tour despite a police investigation into corruption allegations involving the fourth test which concluded at Lord's on Sunday.

Play began as scheduled on the fourth day of the fourth and final test between England and Pakistan at Lord's on Sunday after a man was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud bookmakers.

A month after torrential monsoon rains triggered Pakistan's worst natural disaster on record, flood waters are starting to recede -- but leaving countless survivors at risk of death from hunger and disease.

Flood waters threatened to engulf two towns in southern Pakistan on Saturday, a month after the disaster began, as the United Nations warned that tens of thousands of children risked death from malnutrition.

Foreign and Afghan troops killed 24 insurgents as they fought off pre-dawn attacks on two bases in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday, officials said, with the Taliban saying suicide bombers the fighters.

England number three Jonathan Trott finally succumbed for 184 on Saturday after he and Stuart Broad had broken the world eighth wicket partnership record on the third day of the fourth test against Pakistan at Lord's.

Flood waters threatened to engulf two towns in southern Pakistan on Saturday, a month after the disaster began, as the United Nations warned that tens of thousands of children risked death from malnutrition.

Pakistan ordered fresh evacuations from Sindh province on Thursday as the country struggled to bring relief to millions displaced by flooding and sought international help to rescue its economy.

Britain faces a new wave of attacks from poorly trained but highly motivated homegrown militants, as the al Qaeda threat shifts from big, sophisticated bomb plots to acts by individuals, a report said on Friday.

Worst floods in Pakistan's recent history hit hard on the world's fourth largest cotton producer as it is likely to lost more than 15% of 2010-11 cotton harvest. According to International Cotton Advisory Committee (ICAC), cotton output in Pakistan now looked likely to come in at 1.9m tones, some 300,000 tones less than originally expected.