A Russian cargo plane crashed into mountains in eastern Afghanistan overnight, senior officials said Wednesday, giving no indication of possible casualties on board.

Transport and interior ministry officials said the plane was chartered by NATO's International Security Assistance Force on Tuesday but a spokesman for the military said it was not yet clear who had been running the flight.

Women around the world enjoy more rights than ever before but still face discrimination in the workplace and far too often fall victim to violence at home, a U.N. report said Tuesday.

The document issued by U.N. Women, the new agency headed by Chile's former president Michelle Bachelet, hailed the progress women have made at the ballot box, noting that "virtually universal" suffrage now is the rule around the world, compared to a century ago when just two countries allowed women to vote.

Attacks killed nine Pakistani soldiers on Tuesday, targeting troops in the militant-infested tribal badlands near Afghanistan and further south on the border with Iran, officials said.

The deadliest attack killed five paramilitary troops traveling in a routine convoy between the towns of Turbat and Mand, some 680 kilometers (370 miles) southwest of Quetta, the capital city of Baluchistan province.

Prime Minister Najib Razak is due to meet Pope Benedict XVI mid-July as Malaysia embarks on a plan to establish diplomatic relations with the Vatican, a top official said Tuesday.

"The meeting with Pope Benedict XVI is set for July 18. The meeting with the pope is to show that Malaysia respects all religions," the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Two soldiers were shot dead Tuesday in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast in an attack believed to be the work of Kurdish rebels, security sources said.

The soldiers, wearing civilian clothes, came under fire while walking on the main street of Yuksekova town, a hotbed of Kurdish militancy in the province of Hakkari, which borders Iran and Iraq, the sources said.

A French writer is set to launch legal action for attempted rape against former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn, just days after he was released from house arrest in New York on sexual assault charges.

Tristane Banon, 32, indicated she would send "a complaint for attempted rape" against Strauss-Kahn to prosecutors, likely on Tuesday, her lawyer David Koubbi told the news magazine L'Express on its website.

At least 13 gunmen were killed Monday in a gun battle with soldiers in Mexico's far northeastern state of Tamaulipas, an army source said.

The afternoon shootout took place near the border town of Rio Bravo, the military source told Agence France Presse, speaking on condition of anonymity.

A South Korean Marine who killed four colleagues in a shooting spree had been found to have mental problems and was drinking alcohol before his rampage, a military official said Tuesday.

The 19-year-old corporal identified only as Kim fired at least a dozen rounds Monday at a Marine Corps barracks on Gangwha island west of Seoul, killing four Marines and injuring one other.

Russia and NATO on Monday failed to narrow their differences over the Western air campaign in Libya, as alliance warplanes stepped up their bombing of regime targets.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused NATO of interpreting a U.N. resolution any way it wished, after talks with NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen that showed up differences rather than secure any agreement on a solution.

A British soldier reported missing in Afghanistan on Monday has been found dead with gunshot wounds, the defence ministry in London said.

The soldier's body was found following an extensive search of the Nahr-e Saraj district in Afghanistan's troubled southern Helmand Province after he was reported missing from an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) checkpoint.