A suicide bomber drove his explosives-packed Toyota Corolla into armoured SUVs carrying Nato troops and civilians through Kabul, killing six passengers and nine Afghan civilian passersby, two of them children.The attack was the deadliest in Kabul this year, ripping through morning traffic in the western side of the Afghan capital at the peak of the morning rush hour.The blast was so loud it echoed across the city, and a huge plume of smoke rose from the debris as helicopters, US military vehicles and Afghan security services rushed to the site.

China downplayed border tensions with India today, days before the new Chinese premier visits the neighboring country on his first foreign visit since taking office in March. Disagreements over the Himalayan frontier can be handled under existing mechanisms and should not affect overall relations, Vice Foreign Minister Song Tao told reporters at a briefing.

The Boston marathon bombing suspect wrote a message in a boat where he hid, describing victims of the attack as "collateral damage", US media report.In the note, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev also reportedly scribbled that his brother was a martyr, adding: "When you attack one Muslim, you attack all Muslims."The bombs were retribution for the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the note said, sources told US media.Mr Tsarnaev was captured in the boat during the manhunt after the bombs.The part of the vessel on which the 19-year-old wrote the message may have to be cut from the hull and pr

Former finance minister and economist say Egypt is in dire predicament as foreign investment and tourism collapse.Egypt is suffering its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, a former finance minister of the country and one of its leading economists have warned.In terms of its devastating effect on Egypt's poorest, the country's current economic predicament is at its most dire since the 1930s, Galal Amin, professor of economics at the American University in Cairo, and Samir Radwan, finance minister in the months after Egypt's 2011 uprising, said in separate interview

Labor groups representing 70 million workers worldwide have commended 31 mainly European retail chains for signing a deal to make Bangladesh's garment factories safer. A factory collapse last month claimed 1,127 lives.Two Swiss-based federations, UNI and IndustriALL Global Union, which for years have campaigned for drastic factory safety improvements in cheap-labor countries such as Bangladesh and Cambodia, said a deal signed by Western retailers marked a step forward. "This accord is a turning point," said Philip Jennings, head of UNI Global Union.