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MOSCOW (AFP) - Russia test-fired three long-range missiles on Sunday and pronounced its nuclear deterrent strong in a show of force that experts said had not been seen since the days of the Cold War.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistani tribesmen are raising armies to battle al-Qaida and Taliban militants close to the Afghan border — a movement encouraged by the military and hailed as a sign its offensive there is succeeding.

BAGHDAD - Suicide car bombers struck twice Sunday in the northern city of Mosul, killing at least six people and wounding dozens of others, U.S. and Iraqi officials said. A car bomb killed seven other people in Baghdad.

SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea said Sunday it will resume disabling its key nuclear complex after the U.S. dropped the country from a terrorism blacklist — a breakthrough expected to help energize stalled talks aimed at ending the country's atomic ambitions.

LONDON (Reuters) - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was quoted on Monday as saying it was time for British combat forces to leave the south of the country because they were no longer needed to maintain security and control.

PARIS - President Nicolas Sarkozy said he expects a meeting of 15 European leaders Sunday to produce an ambitious, coordinated plan to battle the effects of the global financial crisis.

BEIJING - China's ruling Communist Party on Sunday said it would seek to expand its massive internal market to counter the global economic slowdown that has reduced international demand for Chinese goods.

VILNIUS, Lithuania - A conservative opposition party won the most votes in Lithuania's parliamentary election, but strong support for populist groups set the stage for tricky coalition talks, an exit poll and partial results showed.

OL PEJETA, Kenya - The text message from the elephant flashed across Richard Lesowapir's screen: Kimani was heading for neighboring farms.

Ignacio Alvarado, 40, is a freelance investigative reporter and Reuters contributor in the northern Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez where he was born and now lives with his wife and two children. He has been a journalist for 20 years -- seven in Mexico City, the rest in Ciudad Juarez.

As of Sunday, Oct. 12, 2008, at least 4,181 members of the U.S. military have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

PLESETSK COSMODROME, Russia (Reuters) - President Dmitry Medvedev oversaw the test firing of an intercontinental Topol missile on Sunday and vowed to commission new generation weapons for Russia's armed forces.

DOHA (AFP) - Muslims should take advantage of the global financial crisis to build an economic system compatible with Islamic principles, influential Sunni cleric Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi said on Sunday.

QUITO, Ecuador - In a matter of weeks, a Russian naval squadron will arrive in the waters off Latin America for the first time since the Cold War. It is already getting a warm welcome from some in a region where the influence of the United States is in decline.

PUERTO SAN CARLOS, Mexico - Norbert dissipated into a tropical depression over the northern mountains of mainland Mexico on Sunday, after ripping off roofs, flooding streets, and forcing thousands to seek shelter in Baja California.

OTTAWA (AFP) - Campaigning in Canada's parliamentary elections entered the home stretch Sunday with the governing Conservatives still the front-runners amid voter jitters over how the global financial crisis will hit the economy.

TOKYO (AFP) - Six Japanese jets scrambled Wednesday as two Russian military planes came close to Japanese airspace, a defence ministry official said here.

BAGHDAD — Christians in Mosul are fleeing their homes after a spate of killings this week that left 12 Christians dead in one of the largest Christian communities in Iraq.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - World finance and development ministers warned on Sunday that developing countries risked serious and lasting setbacks from the global financial crisis and urged major economies to deliver on aid pledges.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel's Kadima and Labour parties are close to a deal on a coalition government led by Tzipi Livni, a move that sets her on course to form a new centrist administration, Army Radio said on Sunday.

CAIRO (Reuters) - Hamas officials met Egyptian mediators in Cairo on Wednesday to hear proposals for resolving the Palestinian Islamists' stand-off with President Mahmoud Abbas's secular Fatah group, a Hamas official said.

BAGHDAD - While the rest of the world is facing a financial meltdown, the Iraq Stock Exchange is booming.

HONG KONG (AFP) - Almost half of Hong Kong's aid package to help China's quake-stricken Sichuan will be used to restore a giant panda reserve, the government said Sunday.