With a White House meeting, talks at a think-tank, and interviews with newspapers, Islamists unshackled by the Arab Spring are launching a new charm offensive to reassure a nervous Washington.

The rise to power of elected Islamists in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere has alarmed many Americans, who fear the emergence of Iran-style theocracies that would deny the rights of women and minorities and antagonize Israel.

The foreign ministers of China, Japan and South Korea met Sunday in the Chinese city of Ningbo for talks on regional security and cooperation days ahead of a planned North Korean rocket launch.

Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, Japan's Koichiro Gemba, and South Korea's Kim Sung-Hwan posed for photographers before starting talks in the eastern city near Shanghai.

At least six Colombian soldiers and three leftist rebels were killed Saturday when guerrillas attempted an ambush on a military unit in the western department of Choco, officials said.

A patrol was attacked by the "terrorists" of the FARC as it guarded a stretch road near the city of Pretoria, a military spokesman told AFP.

President Asif Ali Zardari became the first Pakistani head of state since 2005 to visit India on Sunday for a one-day trip he described as "very fruitful" in improving ties between the rivals.

During a visit billed as private but of great diplomatic significance, Zardari lunched with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and invited him to visit Pakistan.

Japan has deployed missile batteries in Tokyo and dispatched destroyers carrying interceptor missiles as it boosts its defenses against a planned North Korean rocket launch this month.

Pyongyang says it will launch a satellite for peaceful scientific research between April 12 and 16 to mark the 100th anniversary on April 15 of the birth of founding leader Kim Il-Sung.

At least 27 people were killed in a major road accident in Haiti Saturday when a truck carrying people overturned on a highway south of Haiti's capital, hospital officials said.

"By now, we have counted 27 dead," Joel Charles, hospital director in the town of Petit-Goave, told AFP by phone. "Seriously injured people have passed away, and we have other people in critical condition."

Bahrain is examining a request to transfer to Denmark a jailed Shiite activist who has been on hunger strike for almost two months, who is also a Danish citizen, the BNA news agency reported Saturday.

Seif al-Islam, son of slain leader Moammar Gadhafi, will be moved next week to Tripoli and has agreed to take a lawyer, Libya's representative to the International Criminal Court said Saturday.

"Seif al-Islam will be transferred from his prison in Zintan to an official prison in the capital Tripoli before the end of the (coming) week," Ahmed Jehani told Agence France Presse, declining to give an exact date for security reasons.

Salafist politician Hazem Abu Ismail will probably be disqualified from his bid for Egypt's presidency because his late mother was a US citizen, the electoral commission said on Saturday.

Under the country's electoral law, all candidates for the presidency, their parents and their wives must have only Egyptian citizenship.

The trial opened in Saudi Arabia on Saturday of 50 al-Qaida suspects accused of carrying out and plotting attacks in the kingdom, including U.S. and British interests, state news agency SPA reported.

It said 47 Saudis, a Syrian and a Yemeni national went on trial in the specialized criminal court in Riyadh.