PAKISTAN

Opposition fears of an unfair election in Afghanistan this year are well-founded, and a rigged poll would fuel political instability and undermine support for democracy, a top U.N. envoy has warned.

Taliban leader Mullah Omar is not hiding in Pakistan's Baluchistan province whose people will resist any U.S. attempt to extend its war against militancy there, the province's chief minister said on Friday.

The United Nations is very concerned about the health of an American U.N. official kidnapped in Pakistan last month and wants him released as soon as possible, a spokeswoman said on Tuesday.

Pakistan's government agreed on Monday to reinstate Iftikhar Chaudhry as chief justice in a surprise move to defuse a crisis and end agitation by lawyers and activists that had threatened to turn into violent confrontation.

Pakistan's year-old civilian government sought a compromise to appease opposition leaders and a lawyers movement on Friday as police detained hundreds of activists in a bid to stifle a nationwide protest.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - Taliban militants recovered 24 bodies and were searching for more on Friday, hours after suspected U.S. drones destroyed a camp in Pakistan's northwestern region, militants and officials said.

Hundreds of black-suited Pakistani lawyers and flag-waving opposition activists launched a cross-country protest on Thursday, as the year-old civilian coalition government scrambled for ways to avert a showdown.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told regional leaders on Wednesday that the capitalist system was close to collapse.

A United Nations investigator urged U.S. allies from Britain to Pakistan on Tuesday to fully investigate whether they helped in secret renditions that led to the illegal torture or disappearance of terror suspects.

India and Pakistan must change the way they treat each other and bury a dirty past to tackle growing militancy in the region together, Pakistan's former President Pervez Musharraf said on Saturday.

Pakistani authorities said on Friday they were making progress in the investigation of this week's attack on Sri Lanka's cricket team as suspicion settled on home-grown militants.

Royal Bank of Scotland is retrenching to its core businesses and plans to exit up to 36 countries, but unpicking a decade of deals in the eye of a financial storm will be a long slog.

Pakistani authorities have identified the people responsible for this week's attack on Sri Lanka's cricket team, a senior government official said on Thursday.

Pakistani investigators were following important leads to identify who was behind the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said on Wednesday.

Pakistani police hunted on Wednesday for gunmen who mounted the bold attack on Sri Lanka's cricket team in Lahore and officials scrambled to figure out who was behind it.

The attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore deepened a sense of crisis surrounding Pakistan's civilian government as it confronts political turmoil less than a year after it took office, analysts said.

Two thirds of the world's cell phone subscriptions are in developing nations, with the highest growth rate in Africa where a quarter of the population now has a mobile, a United Nations agency said on Friday.

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina drew praise on Friday for bringing a swift end to a mutiny by paramilitary troops who slaughtered scores of their officers, with bodies found in a mass grave pushing the death toll past 70.

Thousands of supporters of former Pakistan premier Nawaz Sharif protested on Thursday, a day after a court ruling to exclude him and his brother from elected office raised fears of renewed political turmoil.

Pakistan plunged toward a debilitating power struggle on Wednesday as the Supreme Court brought down a provincial government controlled by President Asif Ali Zardari's main rival, former premier Nawaz Sharif.

Indian police Wednesday charged a man they say is the lone surviving gunman in last year's Mumbai attacks with waging war against India, drawing up the first formal charges in the case, a government lawyer said.