A roadside bomb tore through a police vehicle in an insurgent attack in a southern Afghanistan flashpoint on Saturday, killing seven officers, the interior ministry said. The incident took place in Registan district in Kandahar province, a hotbed for the Taliban-led insurgency, the ministry said. "A roadside bomb struck a police vehicle which resulted in the martyrdom of seven policemen," the statement said. Two other officers were wounded in the blast, which the ministry blamed on insurgents. In the north, a bomb blast killed an Afghan civilian and wounded ...

A strong earthquake measuring a magnitude of six shook Panama early Saturday, but there were no immediate reports of casuaties or damage, the US Geological Survey reported. The epicenter of the tremor, which occurred at 1:49 am (0649 GMT), was located 97 kilometers (60 miles) northeast of the capital Panama City. The reading was based on the open-ended Moment Magnitude scale, now used by US seismologists, which measures the area of the fault that ruptured and the total energy released.

North Korea has test-fired four ballistic missiles, on the eve of US Independence Day celebrations, according to South Korean officials, further fuelling regional tensions amid its nuclear standoff. Seoul's foreign ministry said all four of the weapons launched into the Sea of Japan (East Sea) were ballistic missiles, which the North is banned from firing under UN Security Council resolutions. It was the first time in three years that the communist state fired multiple ballistic missiles. South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said the missiles had a range ...