Bangladesh's 18-party opposition coalition confirmed Monday it would boycott a general election scheduled for January just hours before a final deadline for nominations, plunging the volatile country into political uncertainty.

"There is no question of us filing nominations for the January 5 election under the present circumstances. We're not going to take part in the January 5 elections," Shamsher Mobin Chowdhury, a vice president of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), told Agence France Presse.

Australia's spy agency offered to share information about its own citizens with foreign intelligence partners, according to leaked documents published Monday, sparking calls for an inquiry.

The latest revelations by U.S. intelligence fugitive Edward Snowden, reported by The Guardian Australia, show that the Defense Signals Directorate (DSD) discussed the option of sharing "medical, legal or religious information".

A suicide attacker rammed an explosives-laden truck into a police base near Kabul on Monday, killing four officers and wounding 17 other people including a local police chief, Afghan officials said.

The Taliban, the main Islamist militant group behind Afghanistan's 12-year insurgency, claimed responsibility for the attack in the Nerkh district of Wardak province, southwest of the Afghan capital.

Ukrainian protesters launched a nationwide strike and began to blockade government buildings Monday after violent clashes in which more than 100,000 sought early elections over the authorities' rejection of a historic EU pact.

About 10,0000 supporters of the ex-Soviet state's closer alliance with the European Union and disavowal of old master Russia camped out overnight into Monday on Kiev's iconic Independence Square.

A controversial state secrets bill is expected to become law in Japan this week despite objections from a broadening coalition who say the legislation is being rushed through parliament.

Lawyers, journalists, religious leaders and a Nobel physicist are among a growing group of opponents who think the act is worryingly vague and gives too much power to the government.

Some 40,000 teachers, union members and anarchist activists took to Mexico City's streets Sunday in a demonstration on the first anniversary of President Enrique Pena Nieto's inauguration.

The protesters joined a rally held by Pena Nieto's former rival Andres Lopez Obrador of the Party of the Democratic Revolution.

Thailand's prime minister on Monday rejected the demands of anti-government protesters locked in street battles with police, saying what they want is unacceptable under the constitution.

In a televised news conference Monday, Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra said she is willing to "open every door" for negotiations to find a peaceful resolution to the Thailand's biggest political crisis in years.

Mourners lit candles as Scotland remembered those who were killed when a police helicopter plunged through the roof of a Glasgow pub, killing at least nine people, police said Monday.

Emergency service workers earlier began attempts to winch the police aircraft back through the roof of The Clutha, where it is feared further corpses may be found under its carcass, further raising the death toll.

A suicide bomber staged a botched attack on foreign forces in northern Mali overnight Saturday, killing himself but causing no other casualties, Malian and French military officials said.

A senior Malian official described the bomber's target as a "French army position," but a French army spokesman said the attack was against a battalion of the U.N'.s peacekeeping mission for Mali, MINUSMA, and that only 24 French troops were present.

A Canadian naval engineer was arrested and charged for taking steps to transmit sensitive information to China related to shipbuilding procurement strategy, police said Sunday.

Authorities say Toronto resident Qing Quentin Huang, 53, shared details about the country's shipbuilding procurement strategy, including patrol ships, frigates, naval auxiliary vessels, science research vessels and ice breakers.