6.4 quake shakes northern Argentina

A magnitude 6.4 earthquake has struck north-central Argentina, shaking things up enough to make people evacuate some buildings in the capital hundreds of miles (kilometres) away. The U.S. Geological Service says the quake’s epicentre was 80 miles (130 kilometres) southeast of Santiago del Estero, a provincial capital of 250,000 people and the twelfth largest city in Argentina.

Taliban kidnap 30 Pakistani children

The boys had either inadvertently wandered across the unmarked border or had been lured over according to reports and were then seized by fugitive militants.

Intelligence officials said the captors were apparently allied with Maulvi Faqir Mohammad the Taliban commander who led insurgents in Pakistan’s Bajaur tribal agency until fleeing to Afghanistan last year.

Evidence mounts Gadhafi lied about daughter's death

Since the rebel takeover of Tripoli, evidence has been mounting that Moammar Gadhafi may have lied about the death of his adopted baby daughter Hana in a 1986 American airstrike.

The strike hit Gadhafi's home in his Tripoli compound, Bab al-Aziziya, in retaliation for the Libyan-sponsored bombing of a Berlin nightclub earlier that same year that killed two U.S. servicemen. At the time, Gadhafi showed American journalists a picture of a dead baby and claimed it was his adopted daughter Hana -- the first public mention that she even existed.

Diplomats almost immediately questioned the claim. But Gadhafi kept the story alive through the years.

Medvedev urges regional solution to Afghan issues

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Friday that the fate of Afghanistan and surrounding nations should be decided by regional powers, an apparent call for reduced U.S. engagement.

The remarks appear to mark a new effort by Moscow to make strategic and economic inroads in Afghanistan at the expense of the United States, whose relations with Afghan President Hamid Karzai have become strained.

Medvedev promises big investments in regional energy projects

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev promised to invest “hundreds of millions of dollars” in joint energy projects in Central Asia and called on regional powers to take responsibility for peace and security in the region.