A total of 35 Afghans were killed and 27 others injured on Saturday when a bus overturned on a highway in southern Afghanistan, officials said.

The smash happened just outside Kandahar city in the Daman district of Kandahar province on the main road connecting it to the capital, Kabul.

North Korea's reclusive leader Kim Jong-Il on Saturday arrived in his armored train in Russia and plans to meet President Dmitry Medvedev, the Kremlin said.

During the visit, his first since 2002, Kim is expected to meet with the Kremlin chief for talks in Siberia to discuss North Korea's nuclear program, bilateral economic projects and a worsening food crisis in the isolated state.

A bomb exploded in a mosque in a Pakistani tribal region as hundreds were gathered for prayers Friday, killing at least 40 people and wounding 85 others in the first major attack in the country during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The attack came despite a period of relative calm in Pakistan, which has suffered numerous Taliban-led insurgent attacks in recent years. No group immediately claimed responsibility, but the Taliban and other Islamist militants have previously attacked mosques.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived in Mogadishu Friday for the first visit by a major leader in nearly two decades to witness the devastation wrought by a famine in the Somali capital.

Somalia is the country worst affected in the Horn of Africa by a prolonged drought that has been officially declared a famine by the United Nations in five regions in the country, including Mogadishu itself.

A U.S. drone strike targeting a house in Pakistan's northwestern tribal belt on Friday killed at least four militants, local security officials said.

The unmanned aircraft fired two missiles, hitting a house in the Shin Warsak area of South Waziristan, part of the notorious tribal badlands that Washington calls a global headquarters of al-Qaida, the Pakistani officials told Agence France Presse.

At least 12 cars were torched in Berlin overnight Thursday to Friday, making it the fourth consecutive night such arson attacks have taken place, police said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed shock Thursday at these attacks, which officials attribute to apolitical vandalism.

Disaster-weary Japan was rattled by another strong quake Friday, which measured at a preliminary magnitude of 6.8, triggered a tsunami warning and sent people diving for cover.

The quake struck the Pacific seabed not far from the epicenter of the March 11 quake-tsunami disaster that killed more than 20,000 people and triggered the world's worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl 25 years ago.

A violent storm that lashed an outdoor rock music festival in northern Belgium killed at least five people after uprooting trees and collapsing two stages, local officials said.

Tens of thousands of people were attending the outdoor Pukkepop festival when the storm broke Thursday, toppling one stage on concert-goers at the annual event held in Kiewit near the town of Hasselt.

North Korea said Friday it would discuss with the United States the recovery of U.S. soldiers killed during the Korean War after a six year suspension.

Its foreign ministry spokesman said the North had accepted a U.S. proposal for talks on the resumption of the excavation of remains of American soldiers killed during the 1950-53 war.

The U.S. Army said Thursday it had awarded nearly $900 million in contracts to British arms manufacturer BAE Systems and U.S. firm General Dynamics to develop its next-generation ground combat vehicle.

The Pentagon said it had given $450 million to BAE and $440 million to General Dynamics to develop "competitive, affordable and executable designs for a new Army Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV)" over the next two years.