CHANGCHUN, China — China kept silent on Friday about a reported visit by North Korea’s secretive leader, Kim Jong-il, that analysts say appears intended to line up Beijing behind his dynastic succession plans.

NAIROBI — Kenya chose not to arrest Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on International Criminal Court (ICC) charges of genocide when he arrived on Friday for a ceremony for the East African nation’s new constitution.

TOKYO — Nearly 70% of Japanese voters want Prime Minister Naoto Kan to win next month’s ruling party leadership vote, dwarfing the 15.6% who back powerbroker Ichiro Ozawa, an opinion poll showed on Saturday.

DAKAR — Equatorial Guinea confirmed on Friday it had executed four former military officers convicted of an armed attack on its presidential palace last year, saying they were an “imminent” security risk.

KARACHI — Flood waters threatened to engulf two towns in southern Pakistan yesterday, a month after the disaster began, as the United Nations warned that tens of thousands of children risked death from malnutrition.

KHARTOUM — Sudan said yesterday it would monitor travel by UN/African Union peacekeepers in Darfur —a day after the UN Security Council extended the force’s mandate and told Khartoum to stop hindering its work.

STONETOWN, Zanzibar — Tanzania’s semi-autonomous archipelago of Zanzibar voted yesterday on whether to change its constitution to allow rival parties to form coalition governments, after decades of bitter party politics.

SYDNEY — Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard is heading for a shock defeat at elections on August 21, a new opinion poll showed Saturday, as government infighting and damaging cabinet leaks threatened to derail her campaign.

HOUSTON — The approach of a major storm yesterday forced BP Plc to halt efforts to permanently plug its gushing oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico and the system could regain strength after it weakened on Friday.

Gordon Brown has used his first major speech since leaving office to say the future growth of the world economy is reliant upon the development of Africa.

JOHANNESBURG — South Africa’s logistics group Transnet has shut down its iron ore rail line after a train carrying ore was derailed, the company said yesterday, threatening to slow exports of the raw material.

BAGHDAD — Al Qaeda in Iraq has claimed responsibility for two attacks against its former Sunni Muslim allies which killed at least 43 people last Sunday.

CANBERRA — Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard calls an election for August 21, with the tightly-fought poll to be decided over policies on economic management, climate and border protection.

The world is enduring the hottest year on record, according to a United States national weather analysis, causing droughts worldwide and a concern for US farmers counting on another bumper year.

PARIS — Rioters burned cars, attacked a tramway and shot at police in the French city of Grenoble overnight in protest at the death of a local man fleeing police after allegedly holding up the city’s casino.

JOHANNESBURG — The “absurd” claim by Gauteng’s police chief that South Africa’s richest province was home to as many as three million “illegal” immigrants was part of a pattern by government departments to blame undocumented migrants for their own shortcomings, Loren Landau, director of the University of the Witwatersrand’s Forced Migration Studies Programme (FMSP), told IRIN.

FIVE young Nigerian men kneel in front of police officers at Plateau State CID headquarters in the city of Jos.

WASHINGTON,Reuters - Regulators seized five U.S. banks on Friday, driving up the tally in what is expected to be a busy year for bank failures.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - U.S. ally Pakistan is reaching out to "all levels" of the Afghan Taliban in a bid to encourage reconciliation in its war-torn neighbor, Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said on Saturday.

The battle lines have been drawn in the Methodist Church of Southern Africa over its shock decision this week to suspend controversial cleric Paul Verryn.