BBC: Obama hails New Orleans spirit on Katrina anniversary
US President Barack Obama has paid tribute to the people of New Orleans, five years to the day after Hurricane Katrina destroyed large parts of the city.
His administration would stand by them and continue rebuilding "until the job is done", Mr Obama said.
Katrina was a natural disaster but also a man-made one, he said, which saw a "shameful breakdown" of government.
Google: 6 US troops killed in latest Afghanistan fighting
A total of six U.S. troops have died in the latest attacks in Afghanistan's embattled southern and eastern regions, NATO said Sunday.
One serviceman died in a bombing on Sunday in southern Afghanistan, while two others were killed in a bomb attack in the south on Saturday and three in fighting in the east the same day, NATO said. Their identities and other details were being withheld until relatives could be notified.
The latest deaths bring to 41 the number of American forces who have died this month in Afghanistan after July's high of 66. A total of 61 international forces have died in the country this month, including seven British troops.
Fighting is intensifying with the addition of 30,000 U.S. troops to bring the total number of international forces in Afghanistan to 120,000 — 100,000 of them American. Most of those new troops have been assigned to the southern insurgent strongholds of Helmand and Kandahar provinces where major battles are fought almost daily as part of a gathering drive to push out the Taliban.
Jerusalem Post: 19 killed in Chechnya shootout targeting Chechen president
A shootout between the Chechen president's personal protection detail and suspected separatist insurgents left 19 people dead early Sunday, including five civilians, officials and media reports said.
At least 12 suspected insurgents and two security officers were killed when the rebels entered Tsentoroi, Ramzan Kadyrov's home village, his spokesman Alvi Karimov told The Associated Press. TV reports said five civilians were killed in the crossfire.
Kadyrov, who is thought to regularly supervise security operations in the field, was in the village at the time and directed the counter-offensive, Karimov said.
"We let them into the village so they couldn't escape," Kadyrov told Channel One television, which showed him examining the bodies of the suspected militants strewn across a road. "We forced them into a place where they could be eliminated," he said.
MSN: Top Punjabi Taliban commander shot dead in NW Pakistan
Six militants, including a top Punjabi Taliban commander, have been shot dead by unidentified gunmen in Pakistan''s unruly North Waziristan tribal region.
Taliban commander Usman Punjabi and five other militants were killed at a school in Dandey Darpa Khel area yesterday, local residents said. The militants had been living at the school for some time.
Sources said militants from another Taliban faction were behind the killings as they were opposed to the activities of the Punjabi Taliban led by Usman. There were also rumours that militants from the Mehsud tribe or the Hafiz Gul Bahadar group could have been involved in the incident.
There was no official word on the killings.
BBC: Chile miners speak to loved ones for first time
Miners who have been trapped underground in Chile for more than three weeks have had their first telephone contact with loved ones.
Families queued to use a special telephone cabin and were given one minute each to talk to the trapped men.
Psychologists have urged family members making the calls to sound optimistic.
CBS: Mayor in Violent Mexican Border State Killed
The office of Mexican President Felipe Calderon says the mayor of a town in the violence-plagued border state of Tamaulipas has been assassinated, the second killing of a mayor in the area in two weeks.
The daughter of Mayor Marco Antonio Leal Garcia was wounded in the attack by gunmen that killed her father. There is no immediate information on the motive in the slaying.
Leal Garcia's town of Hidalgo is located in the border state of Tamaulipas, where gunmen believed to belong to a drug gang massacred 72 migrants last week.
The township of Hidalgo borders on Nuevo Leon state, where the mayor of another small town was found murdered on Aug. 18. Local police allied with a drug gang are suspected in that killing.
BBC: Hong Kong protest over Manila hostage deaths
Thousands of people joined a rally in Hong Kong to express their anger at the Philippines' handling of last week's tourist coach hijacking.
They were demanding an explanation of how eight Hong Kong tourists were killed in the hostage-taking in Manila.
Their coach was hijacked by a disgraced ex-policeman, Rolando Mendoza, who was killed as police attempted to rescue the hostages.
CNN: Gadhafi arrives in Italy to observe closer ties between nations
Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi arrived in Italy Sunday, a year after his historic trip there to mark closer ties between the two countries. He was greeted by Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini.
He arrived at Rome's Ciampino Airport and waved to reporters as he walked by. He is expected to depart Tuesday.
Libya and Italy signed a pact in August 2008 that normalized relations and closed the painful chapter of Italian colonization in Libya. The pact was signed in Libya, and last year, Gadhafi made his first visit to Rome to mark its anniversary.
This year's anniversary will be marked with an equestrian show, for which Libya is sending 30 horses and riders. Italian Carabinieri, or military police, will also take part in the show with their own horses.
ABC Australia: UN hopes science review eases climate scepticism
A review due on Monday can help restore public faith in the United Nations panel of climate scientists and its finding that global warming is man made despite errors in a 2007 report, the UN's environment chief said.
Achim Steiner also said extreme weather in 2010, such as floods in Pakistan or Russia's heatwave, were a "stark warning" of the need to act to slow global warming, as outlined by the UN panel.
He said he would be surprised if the review, spurred by mistakes in a 2007 report such as an exaggeration of the thaw of Himalayan glaciers, called for any radical overhaul of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The InterAcademy Council, comprising science academies around the world, is due to hand its review and recommendations for the future of the IPCC to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in New York.
CNN: Earl becomes hurricane, reaches toward Antigua
Forecast to gain "major" Category 3 status, outer rainbands association with a strengthening Hurricane Earl were affecting the islands of Antigua and Barbuda on Sunday, with conditions forecast to deteriorate, the National Hurricane Center said.
Earl became a Category 1 hurricane on Sunday. As of 8 p.m. ET, its center was about 100 miles (160 kilometers) east of Barbuda and about 185 miles (300 kilometers) east of St. Martin. Its maximum sustained winds had increased slightly to 85 mph (140 kph) and higher gusts, and the storm was heading west-northwest at near 14 mph (22 kph).
The center of Earl is forecast to pass near or over the northern Leeward Islands Sunday night and Monday, the center said.
A hurricane warning was in effect for Antigua, Barbuda, Montserrat, St. Kitts, Nevis, Anguilla, St. Martin, St. Barthelemy, Saba and St. Eustatius. As of 5 p.m., the government of Antigua and Barbuda also had added the British Virgin Islands to the warning, forecasters said. A hurricane watch and a tropical storm warning was in effect for the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, including the islands of Culebra and Vieques.
BBC: Thousands flee Indonesia volcano on Sumatra
Thousands of Indonesians have spent the night in emergency shelters after fleeing an erupting volcano on the island of Sumatra.
Officials issued a red alert after Mount Sinabung began to spew lava shortly after midnight (1900 GMT).
Smoke and ash reportedly shot 1,500m into the air. Witnesses said they could see the lava from several miles away.
Mount Sinabung, some 60km (40 miles) south-west of Sumatra's main city Medan, has not erupted for 400 years.
Toronto Globe and Mail: Climber’s body found in Alberta Rockies 20 years later
A pair of hikers in the Rocky Mountains have discovered the thawed remains of an American climber who's been missing since he fell from a summit over 20 years ago.
William Holland, 38, of Gorham, Maine had reached the top of the Slipstream on Snow Dome Mountain on the Columbia Icefields in 1989 and was standing on a cornice when it gave way.
He fell more than 300 metres, and while his partner and other climbers managed to get help, the search for Mr. Holland was called off the next day when an avalanche covered the area.
Garth Lemke, a public safety specialist with Parks Canada in Jasper went to the scene after the hikers reported their discovery earlier this month and said the glacier ice that covered the body had melted, leaving an eerie scene.
Google: Kenya should 'clarify' on world court: Annan
Former UN chief Kofi Annan said on Sunday Kenya should clarify its position on the International Criminal Court after it last week hosted Sudan's Omar al-Bashir, wanted for genocide.
"Like many, I was surprised by the presence of President Al-Bashir of Sudan in Nairobi for the promulgation of Kenya?s new constitution," Annan said in a statement in his capacity as chair of the Panel of Eminent African Personalities.
"Kenya has specific obligations as a signatory of the Rome statute and is also cooperating with the International Criminal Court on investigations relating to the 2007/8 election violence," said the text issued in Nairobi.
"In the circumstances, the government should clarify its position and reaffirm its cooperation with and commitment to the ICC," said Annan, whose team brokered a power-sharing deal between Kenyan President Mwai Kabaki and his former foe turned prime minister Raila Odinga after the 2008 violence.
BBC: First Australian Aboriginal in House of Representatives
An Aboriginal man has won a seat in Australia's House of Representatives, becoming the first indigenous person to do so in the country's history.
Ken Wyatt, 57, took the seat of Hasluck in Western Australia for the centre-right Liberal Party.
Neither the Liberals nor the governing Labor Party gained enough seats at last week's election for a majority.
Google: Arizona police say gunman kills 5, then self
Police say a gunman entered a western Arizona home and fatally shot five people — including the mother of his two children and her boyfriend — before fleeing with the kids to Southern California where he killed himself.
The shootings in Lake Havasu City late Saturday occurred as 23-year-old Deborah Langstaff and friends were celebrating her boyfriend's birthday.
Police said Sunday that the alleged gunman, 26-year-old Brian Diez, had fathered a 4-year-old and a 13-month-old with Langstaff.
Lake Havasu City police Sgt. Joe Harrold says Diez was arrested Aug. 13 for violating a protection order Langstaff had against him.
MSNBC: 2 police officers fatally shot in Alaska village
A standoff was under way Sunday in a tiny southeast Alaska village after a man fatally shot two of the village's four full-time police officers the night before, then barricaded himself in his home, local officials said.
Hoonah police officers Tony Wallace and Matt Tokuoka died after the shooting late Saturday, said Bob Prunella, acting city administrator. Prunella didn't know what led to the shooting but said it was witnessed by Wallace's mother, who was visiting from Florida, and Tokuoka's wife and children.
The suspect, 45-year-old John Marvin Jr., barricaded himself in his home, and Alaska State Troopers and other law enforcement agencies were at the scene, authorities said.