Iraqi PM Maliki has announced that the al Qaeda leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was killed in a US air attack in Baghdad."Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been killed in Baghdad during abombing raid," ABC News reported.

A 5.1 magnitude undersea earthquake struck off the western Indonesian island of Sumatra, but the state meteorology and geophysics agency said it would not generate a tsunami nor cause damage.The quake's Indian Ocean epicentre was in the same area where a massive earthquake triggered a tsunami that left 170,000 people killed and missing in Aceh province in December 2004.

A 28-year-old man from Swieqi was critically injured in a traffic accident in Xemxija, police said. The man was driving a Toyota when he lost control of the vehicle, crashed into the wall and into an oncoming Toyota Rav4, being driven by a 45-year-old from Mgarr. A passenger in the Toyota Rav4 was slightly injured.

Eight Chinese teenage schoolgirls drowned in a fast-flowing river where they were playing after attending a funeral on the southern tropical island of Hainan, state media said.Ten girls and 12 boys had taken the day off school onWednesday to attend the funeral of a friend's grandfather in the town of Wulie, on the west of the island, and waded deep into the river afterwards, Xinhua news agency said.

Workers at Peugeot Citroen's threatened Ryton plant near Coventry will protest against the launch of the new 207 model - the car they say spells the end of their factory.Workers facing redundancy criticised the French car giant for what they called an insensitive nationwide launch of the newmodel.

Embattled Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has won the approval of his Shi'ite Alliance for nominees for the interior and defence posts and he will present them to parliament, Shi'ite sources said."Last night the Alliance gave Maliki authorisation to present the candidates for interior and defence minister to parliament today," Alliance member Bahaa al-Araji told Reuters.

China has confirmed a fresh outbreak of the H5N1 bird flu virus among poultry in the western region of Xinjiang, the official Xinhua News agency reported.It said the Ministry of Agriculture had confirmed on Wednesday that poultry on a farm in Hetian country had diedfrom the bird flu virus.The report did not specify how many many birds were infected.

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