AFP, TEHRAN - Iran is installing vending machines in Tehran to sell cheap condoms and syringes to drug addicts to prevent the spread of AIDS and hepatitis, an official said on Wednesday.

"Five of these machines which have been made will be installed in five of Tehran city's welfare shelters for addicts," the deputy head of Iran's anti-narcotics organisation, Mohammad Reza Jahani, said.

REUTERS, BEIJING - Police have found guns, dynamite, bullets and satellite receivers hidden in 11 Tibetan Buddhist monasteries in China's northeastern Gansu province, state media reported on Wednesday.

The weapons caches were found over the past two days in monasteries of the Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, where riots between March 14 and 19 injured 94 people, Xinhua news agency said.

AFP, BAGHDAD - A spate of bombings across Iraq and a fresh surge of fighting between Shiite militiamen and US forces in east Baghdad killed at least 62 people on Tuesday, Iraqi officials said.

AFP, KATHMANDU - Nepal's Maoists said Tuesday the abolition of the Himalayan nation's monarchy was now just a "matter of procedure" as they held a commanding lead in the count from last week's landmark elections.

Up for grabs are 601 seats in an assembly that will decide the impoverished country's political future, and with the count edging towards the halfway mark,

AFP, ROME - Silvio Berlusconi's victory in Italy's elections marked a breakthrough for his Northern League ally, prompting fears Tuesday that the small anti-immigration party will unduly influence his agenda.

The populist regional party nearly doubled its strength in parliament, from 4.5 percent two years ago to 8.3 percent of the national vote this time around, and more than 25 percent in its northern Veneto and Lombardy bastions.

AFP, HARARE - The Zimbabwe opposition's campaign to force the release of results from last month's presidential election suffered a fresh blow on Tuesday when a call for a general strike went largely unheeded.

Despite the stay-away call by the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), most shops and services were open for business as usual and an initial heavy security presence was eased as it became apparent the job boycott had flopped.

AFP, TEHRAN - Twelve people were killed and at least 202 wounded when an explosion ripped through a packed mosque in Iran's southern city of Shiraz during

REUTERS, KATHMANDU - Nepal's Maoists were marching to victory in the Himalayan nation's first election in nine years, latest tallies showed on Sunday, a result almost nobody had expected.

The Maoists, who ended an insurgency two years ago and entered electoral politics, had won 44 of the 81 seats declared so far and were also leading by a similar proportion in other constituencies

Agency

Some crude bombs have been found on a rail track through which the Dhaka-Kolkata Maitree Express will start rolling on Monday, Indian officials said.

The bombs were found between Ranaghat and Gede railway stations, north of Kolkata, late on Sunday evening, the officials said. Bangladesh rail officials were unaware of the "bomb discovery".

AP, NEW YORK -- Frontier Airlines, the latest airline to file for bankruptcy, was pushed over the brink by a problem that could spread to other carriers: credit card troubles.

The carrier on Friday blamed its Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on a cash squeeze caused by its credit card processing company, which has decided to keep a larger chunk of the Denver airline's ticket revenue.

AFP, ATHENS - A senior Greek archaeologist warned this week that the last original sculptures still adorning the Parthenon, Athens' iconic ancient temple, face a major pollution threat and must be removed to a museum.

"There are still 17 original metopes (sculpted plaques) which must be protected because they can no longer endure atmospheric conditions," Acropolis site supervisor Alexandros Mantis told AFP on Friday.

An emergency regional summit has opened in Zambia aimed at ending deadlock over Zimbabwe''s presidential elections, reports BBC.

However, Zimbabwe''s President Robert Mugabe is not at the summit - he said he had other business to attend to. Zambia''s president opened the forum, saying it could not turn a blind eye to Zimbabwe, but that Mr Mugabe was not "in the dock".

The head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organisation is to travel to Vienna on Monday for talks with the head of the UN nuclear watchdog, Mohamed ElBaradei, the official IRNA news agency said, reports AFP.

REUTERS, MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan - Afghan authorities have discovered a mass grave containing at least 100 bodies believed to be victims of a Taliban massacre in the 1990s, security officials said on Saturday.

The grave was discovered in the northern province of Balkh, about 15 km from the city of Mazar-i-Sharif.Provincial security official Abdurrauf Taj said about 100 bodies had been found in the grave, which is about 100 metres from a residential area.

AFP, LONDON - Top children's writers including Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling have signed an open letter calling on world leaders to take urgent action over Darfur to protect the stricken region's children.

The letter by the 15 authors, also including Judy Blume and Cornelia Funke, was released Saturday ahead of Sunday's Global Day For Darfur organised by rights groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

AFP, MOSCOW - South Korea's first astronaut, Yi So-Yeon, was to star Saturday in celebratory sing-song aboard the crowded International Space Station (ISS) as back on Earth Russia marked the 47th anniversary of sending the first man in space.

Yi, 29, docked Thursday along with Russian cosmonauts Sergei Volkov and Oleg Kononenko after a successful Soyuz space capsule journey from the Russian cosmodrome at Baikonur in ex-Soviet Kazakhstan.

AFP, BOAO - Chinese President Hu Jintao met here Saturday with Taiwan's vice president-elect Vincent Siew, according to a pool report, in the highest-level contact ever between the two sides.

The meeting is being viewed as the first major test of the ability of the incoming administration in Taiwan to improve relations with China, from which it split in 1949 after a civil war.

REUTRERS, London - A gold encrusted dagger once owned by the Indian emperor who built the Taj Mahal has sold for more than 1.5 million pounds ($3 mln) at auction in London -- three times its expected price.

The dagger, once part of Shah Jahan's royal collection, was made in the early 17th century, just after the Mughal emperor came to power.

REUTERS, KATHMANDU - Nepal's Maoist former rebels took a shock early lead on Saturday in an election aimed at cementing a peace deal that ended a decade-long civil war.

Early tallies from Thursday's elections showed the Maoists, who say they are committed to democracy but are still classified as a terrorist organisation by the United States, were leading in 61 out of 121 constituencies where counting had begun.

Iran denied Friday that it faced any "technical problems" in expanding its controversial nuclear programme, which the West fears could be diverted towards weapons development, reports AFP.

"There are no technical problems regarding the development of centrifuges," deputy head of Iran''s Atomic Energy Organisation, Mohammad Saeedi told the state IRNA news agency.