WORLD

With one week to go until voters head to the polls, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg leads his main rival in the mayoral race by 18 points, a survey found on Monday.

Pakistani forces detained 11 Iranian Revolutionary Guards on Monday for crossing into Pakistan days after an Iranian commander was reported saying his men should be allowed to confront terrorists in Pakistan.

The death toll from Sunday's two suicide bombs in Baghdad, one of Iraq's bloodiest attacks in years, has risen to 155 with more than 500 wounded, police said on Monday.

President Hamid Karzai's rival in a November 7 run-off presidential vote demanded on Monday that Afghanistan's chief election official be sacked, laying out a ultimatum that could complicate the pre-election process.

Intelligence agencies estimate that it would probably take Iran a minimum of 18 months to develop a nuclear weapon if it chose to build one, Western diplomats and intelligence officials said.

Two helicopter crashes in Afghanistan killed 11 U.S. soldiers and three U.S. civilians on Monday, NATO-led forces said in a statement.

British Airways , American Airlines and Iberia may have to give up take-off and landing slots for their Oneworld trans-atlantic alliance to go ahead, the Financial Times reported on Monday.

Israeli police stormed Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque compound on Sunday, hurling stun grenades at Palestinians who threw rocks at them, in another outbreak of violence at the holy city's most sensitive site.

South Korea will make a small grant of humanitarian aid to North Korea, ending its suspension of handouts after a series of conciliatory gestures from its destitute rival, an official said on Monday.

The U.S. healthcare system is just as wasteful as President Barack Obama says it is, and proposed reforms could be paid for by fixing some of the most obvious inefficiencies, preventing mistakes and fighting fraud, according to a Thomson Reuters report released on Monday.

Afghan police fired into the air on Sunday to break up a protest by thousands of people who had gathered in the capital, Kabul, to protest against what they said was the desecration of a copy of the Koran by foreign troops.

India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh rebuffed China's wishes that it bar the Dalai Lama from traveling to a disputed border area, telling Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao the Tibetan spiritual leader was an honored guest.

Police are following several lines of inquiry into the Lockerbie bombing focusing on possible accomplices of convicted former Libyan agent Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, Scottish authorities said on Sunday.

Asia-Pacific leaders called on Sunday for regional-wide free trade and other measures to reduce dependence on the United States and big Western markets as Asia leads the way out of the global economic downturn.

A team from the U.N. nuclear watchdog inspected a nuclear site in Iran on Sunday that has heightened Western fears of a covert program to develop atomic bombs, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported.

Two suicide bombs tore through Baghdad on Sunday, killing 132 people, wounding more than 500 and leaving mangled bodies and cars on the streets in one of Iraq's deadliest days this year, police said.

President Robert Mugabe has shrugged off the former opposition's boycott of Zimbabwe's unity government, saying he would not yield to pressure to make concessions, state media reported on Saturday.

Pakistani forces backed by helicopter gunships and artillery recaptured a strategic town from Taliban militants after fierce fighting, officials said on Saturday.

Chancellor Angela Merkel sealed a coalition deal with the Free Democrats (FDP) on Saturday, promising to revive the German economy with billions of euros in tax relief but failing to spell out how the government will pay for the cuts.

The East Asia Summit, bringing together the 10-member Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and six dialogue partners, will be held in the Thai seaside resort of Hua Hin on Sunday.

Japan's prime minister backed a U.S. role for a proposed EU-style Asian community on Saturday, telling Southeast Asian leaders Tokyo's alliance with Washington was at the heart of its diplomacy.

The Taliban called on Afghans on Saturday to boycott next month's presidential election run-off and vowed to disrupt voting in a repeat of their threat to derail the disputed first round.

Influential Iranian lawmakers on Saturday criticised a U.N.-drafted agreement that requires Tehran to send its atomic stockpile abroad for further processing, the student news agency ISNA reported.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Saturday he was pressing ahead with January elections but held out hope that reconciliation with his Hamas rivals could still be achieved.

Health reform negotiations have moved behind closed doors in Congress, but chances are high that a bill will pass this year -- even if it doesn't do all that much to revamp the nation's swelling $2.5 trillion health care system.

Revitalized credit markets have cast a funding lifeline to U.S. companies and banks, but many companies are still hoarding their cash, a practice that may delay a full-fledged recovery.

Central banks that worked hand in hand with governments to contain the financial crisis may succumb to political pressure and delay unwinding ultra-loose monetary policy, risking igniting inflation and speculative bubbles.

Iran ignored a U.N. deadline on Friday to respond to an international draft deal for it to cut an atomic stockpile the West fears could be used for weapons, and challenged the basis of the pact.

Renewed talks to resolve Honduras' deep political crisis collapsed on Friday over whether leftist President Manuel Zelaya could return to power after he was toppled in a June coup.