AFP - A top US automotive safety official flatly rejected charges Thursday that his agency had bungled its handling of deadly Toyota defects or acted as "a lapdog" to the Japanese auto giant.

AFP - Pakistani authorities on Thursday said unidentified gunmen killed five people including the head of a hardline religious organisation in two separate shooting incidents in Karachi.

AFP - Myanmar's detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi Thursday called on her people to respond to an "unjust" election law issued by the junta that bars her from the vote, her lawyer said.

AP - A homemade bomb placed outside a store in northwestern Pakistan where locals watch movies exploded Thursday, killing four people, including a child, said officials.

AFP - Human rights violations in Myanmar may amount to crimes against humanity and could warrant a UN inquiry, a UN expert said in a report to be examined next Monday at the Human Rights Council.

AFP - World leaders should follow the example of US President Barack Obama and meet the Dalai Lama despite China's objections, the Tibetan spiritual leader's envoy to Europe said Thursday.

AFP - China's human rights record worsened last year as authorities increased harassment of activists and repression in the Xinjiang region, the US State Department said Thursday.

AFP - Australia defeated the Netherlands 2-1 on Thursday to qualify for a third successive final against defending champions Germany in the men's field hockey World Cup.

AP - Pakistan will play a major role in peace talks with the Taliban, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Thursday, apparently trying to dismiss speculation that Kabul was trying to sideline Islamabad, once a close ally of the militants.

AP - An elephant calf that was believed to have died during a nine-day labor is feeding itself and has earned the nickname "Mr. Shuffles" since learning to stand, Taronga Zoo officials said Thursday.

AP - A homemade bomb killed four children and a civilian adult in northeastern Afghanistan on Thursday, NATO forces said.

AP - U.S. troops who would be tasked with eliminating North Korea's weapons of mass destruction in the event of armed conflict are participating in military drills with South Korea, the top U.S. commander in the country said Thursday.

China and Iran steps up their abuses of human rights, targeting both anti-government activists and the free flow of information over the Internet, U.S. official says.

Suspected militants attacked the offices of a U.S.-based Christian aid group helping earthquake survivors in northwestern Pakistan, killing six Pakistani employees.

A bomber strikes a building where police interrogate high-value suspects in Pakistan's eastern city of Lahore, killing at least 12 people and wounding dozens, officials say.

Pakistani officials reverse course on a recently captured American suspected of being a member of al-Qaida, saying the man is not the terror network's U.S.-born spokesman.