WORLD

China will celebrate 60 years of Communist Party rule on Thursday with a massive military parade passing by Tiananmen Square in central Beijing, where Mao Zedong proclaimed the People's Republic on October 1, 1949.

In a black-and-white photo from Tiananmen Square in 1970, the four young faces are serious, the clothes drab and nearly identical, and a copy of chairman Mao Zedong's little red book is clutched in every hand.

The Chinese capital Beijing is under lockdown on the eve of a massive military parade to mark six decades of Communist Party rule, with gun-toting police manning street corners to ensure nothing spoils the event.

A powerful earthquake struck off the city of Padang on Indonesia's Sumatra island on Wednesday, killing at least 21 people and trapping thousands under rubble, an official said.

A series of tsunamis smashed into the Pacific island nations of American and Western Samoa killing possibly more than 100 people, some washed out to sea, destroying villages and injuring hundreds, officials said on Wednesday.

A series of tsunamis smashed into the Pacific island nations of American and Western Samoa killing possibly more than 100 people, destroying villages and injuring hundreds, officials said on Wednesday.

NATO's chief assured President Barack Obama on Tuesday of the alliance's commitment to the Afghan war as the U.S. administration weighs sending more troops to try to turn the tide on a resurgent Taliban.

Iran said on Tuesday it would not discuss a previously secret nuclear plant at international talks this week but Washington vowed to bring it up and demanded Tehran prove it is not developing an atomic weapon.

A tsunami warning was issued for New Zealand and other small Pacific islands after a major 7.9 magnitude quake struck in the ocean off American Samoa, U.S. government agencies said on Tuesday.

Honduras' de facto government came under mounting pressure on Tuesday to restore civil liberties and negotiate an end to a three-month crisis sparked when President Manuel Zelaya was toppled in a coup.

The four cities bidding for the prize honor of hosting the 2016 Summer Olympics began three intensive days of lobbying on Tuesday with the Obama factor looming large ahead of Friday's vote by the IOC.

The Afghan-born man at the center of a U.S. anti-terrorism probe pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to conspiring to set off a bomb in the United States, and a federal judge ordered him held without bail.

South African President Jacob Zuma on Tuesday urged police officials from across the country to crack down harder on one of the world's highest rates of violent crime, and shoot to kill if needed.

If President Barack Obama decides to send 30,000 to 40,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, he will be doing it against the advice of some advisers and leading Democrats in Congress.

A roadside bomb killed 30 people in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday, officials said, in the deadliest strike on civilians since a NATO air raid earlier this month.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown will promise Tuesday to clean up British politics, get tough on crime and heal the economy, in a blizzard of policy moves aimed at avoiding a crushing election defeat next year.

Philippine authorities braced on Tuesday for another storm as the toll from rain and floods from a weekend typhoon, now bearing down on Vietnam, rose to 246 dead while damages climbed to nearly $100 million.

Shortly after the Communist Party took power in China, capitalists in Shanghai paraded through the streets with drums and flags, asking the Party to take over their businesses.

Iran said on Tuesday it would refuse to discuss a newly declared nuclear plant at forthcoming international talks and cautioned Western powers it could curb cooperation further if they repeated past mistakes.

Guido Westerwelle, who is widely expected to become foreign minister in the next German government, admonished a reporter who asked him a question in English on Monday, saying: We're in Germany here.

North Korea would give up its nuclear weapons if its national sovereignty were respected and it did not face a nuclear threat, the country's ambassador to Britain said Monday.

Philippine capital Manila was hit by the heaviest rain in more than four decades over the weekend.

An Obama administration task force has so far cleared 75 of the remaining 223 Guantanamo prisoners for release as part of its effort to close the detention camp, a military spokesman said on Monday.

Honduras' de facto government sent troops on Monday to shut down two media stations loyal to ousted President Manuel Zelaya, digging in to resist international pressure for his return to power.

According to Exit polls, German Chancellor Angela Merkel won a new term in elections Sunday and looked set to be able to form her preferred center-right coalition.

William Safire, the former speechwriter for Richard Nixon who won a Pulitzer Prize for columns on politics and language for The New York Times, died on Sunday, the newspaper said. He was 79.

Indian police have blocked 89 employees of a Chinese company from leaving the country following a chimney collapse that killed 46 laborers in central India last week.

Pope Benedict, ending a trip to this highly secular nation, said on Monday the fall of communists who tried to erase religion was proof that God cannot be excluded from public life.

After his efforts at diplomacy on the international stage last week, President Barack Obama faces some particularly daunting foreign policy decisions about the Afghan war, a nuclear Iran and an elusive Middle East peace.