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

The floods are Pakistan's worst-ever natural disaster in terms of the amount of damage and the number of people affected, with more than six million people forced from their homes, about a million of them in the last few days as the water flows south.

Up to 30 Taliban insurgents, including suicide bombers, attacked a US base in Afghanistan's east on Saturday, officials said, but there were no details available about possible casualties or damage.

The attack began overnight at the well-fortified Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost province near the southeastern border with Pakistan, where U.S. and other foreign forces have been stepping up operations against a resurgent Taliban.

senior Obama administration official said on Wednesday the US troop strength in Iraq was now 56,000, not 50,000, as he had told Reuters earlier.

"I had incorrect information," the official said.

The Obama administration has said it expects to draw down troop levels to 50,000 by August 31, with those who remain continuing to train Iraqi armed forces and police units.

President Barack Obama on Friday backed construction of a proposed mosque and Muslim cultural center near the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in New York -- a project opposed by US conservatives and many New Yorkers.

"As a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country," Obama said to applause at an event attended by diplomats from Islamic countries and members of the US Muslim community.

Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan apologised on Tuesday for suffering under Japan's colonisation of the Korean peninsula, despite criticism from lawmakers that the gesture would lead to renewed calls for wartime compensation.

Seeking to build on improving ties with South Korea, Kan adopted language from a former Socialist premier and said he wanted to be sincere in confronting history.

Districts in Pakistan's Sindh province were on high alert on Saturday for floods which have devastated other parts of the country and cast fresh doubts over President Asif Ali Zardari's leadership.

At least 1,600 people have been killed by the flooding. The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said 12 million people had been affected in two provinces, s figure that does not include, for the moment, southern Sindh.

A fire at a gold mine in eastern China has killed 14 miners, while more than 300 have been lifted to safety, state news agency Xinhua said on Saturday.

Rescue operations were proceeding with eight miners still trapped underground and believed to be alive, it said. The fire broke out on Friday afternoon at the mine near Yantai city in Shandong province, Xinhua said.

The new commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan issued a directive on Wednesday that could facilitate use of air strikes but also called on troops to do everything possible to avoid putting civilians at risk.

General David Petraeus, who took command of the nine-year-old war in Afghanistan in July, did not rewrite the rules guiding the use of force in his new "tactical directive."

China's air force begins a five-day exercise starting on Tuesday with fighter jets, spy planes and helicopters, state media said, against a backdrop of increased diplomatic and military tensions with Washington.

Chinese media has announced several military drills over the past few weeks, including of naval forces. Such events are normally shrouded in secrecy and little reported on, but the military has recently said it is trying to be more open.

At least 34 people have been killed in the Pakistani commercial hub of Karachi, after a member of the dominant political party in the city was shot dead, police said on Tuesday.

Raza Haider of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), was gunned down on Monday along with his bodyguard while attending a funeral, an attack that apparently set off a new round of ethnic and sectarian-related clashes in the city of 18 million.

The US and South Korean militaries kicked off large exercises on Sunday to underscore deterrence against North Korea after accusing the reclusive communist state of sinking a warship. Pyongyang warned that the drill had pitched the peninsula onto the brink of war.

US naval vessels, including the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington, began the drills by setting off from South Korean ports where they had called last week in a show of force timed with a high-level meeting between the two allies.

The United States on Wednesday announced new sanctions against North Korea, targeted against its leadership, and warned of serious consequences if it again attacked the South.

Relations across the divided peninsula have turned increasingly hostile after South Korea accused the North of sinking one of its warships in March, killings 46 sailors.

North Korea said Friday that an American serving eight years' hard labour for an illegal border crossing has tried to commit suicide and is being treated in hospital.

Aijalon Gomes was "driven by his strong guilty conscience, disappointment and despair at the US government that has not taken any measure for his freedom", the communist state's official news agency said.

Afghan police, backed by US-led troops, have killed dozens of insurgents and seized several tons of illegal drugs in an operation in southern Helmand province, the interior ministry said on Sunday.

The two-day operation took place in the Desho district of Helmand, the key drug-producing region of Afghanistan, which is the world's leading supplier of heroin. The province is a bastion of Taliban insurgents being targeted by US-led forces.

The US Congress on Thursday sent President Barack Obama a sweeping package of tough new energy and financial sanctions on Iran, aiming to force Tehran to halt its suspected nuclear weapons program.

The US Senate and House of Representatives approved the legislation -- which backers described as the toughest ever unilateral US sanctions against the Islamic republic -- by crushing 99-0 and 408-8 margins, respectively.

Pakistani military intelligence not only funds and trains Taliban fighters in Afghanistan but is officially represented on the movement's leadership council, giving in significant influence over operations, a report said.

The report, published by the London School of Economics on Sunday, said research strongly suggested support for the Taliban was the "official policy" of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI).

South Korea and Japan on Saturday vowed to stand united against North Korea ahead of a regional summit likely to press China over its reluctance to taken on Pyongyang over the sinking of a South Korean ship.

Leaders of the three big northeast Asian powers are meeting in Seogwipo, a honeymoon resort on the South Korean island of Jeju, with the original intention of boosting plans for greater regional cooperation and economic integration.

North Korea threatened to close the last road link with the South if Seoul goes ahead with propaganda broadcasts across the militarized border, as Washington pressured China to help persuade the North to change its ways.

The mounting antagonism between the two Koreas has shaken investors, uncertain how far they are ready to take their bitter rivalry after the South accused the North of torpedoing one of its warships.

Investigators on Sunday sifted through the charred wreckage of an Indian passenger plane that overshot the runway and plunged into a ravine, killing 158 people on board.

The Air India Express Boeing 737-800, carrying 160 passengers and six crew on a flight from Dubai, careered off the "table-top" runway at Bajpe airport on Saturday and ploughed into a forested gorge, bursting into flames.

Thai troops fired at protesters on Saturday in a third day of fighting that has killed 17 people on Bangkok's streets as soldiers struggle to isolate a sprawling encampment of demonstrators seeking to topple the government.

Soldiers, many crouched behind sandbags, fired live rounds at hundreds of protesters who fought back with petrol bombs, rocks and crude homemade rockets in clashes on Bangkok's usually congested Rama IV road near the business district.