A major 7.3-magnitude offshore earthquake rattled Japan on Wednesday, swaying Tokyo buildings, triggering a small tsunami and reminding the nation of the ever-present threat of seismic disaster.

Police reported no casualties or property damage, and operators of nuclear power plants and Shinkansen bullet trains quickly gave the all-clear, while the wave hitting the Pacific coast measured just 60 centimeters.

A French court Tuesday suspended the trial of former president Jacques Chirac on charges of embezzling public funds as mayor of Paris in the 1990s, following a constitutional challenge.

Chirac, 78, the first former French president ever to go before a judge, is accused of using the money to pay people working for his party ahead of a successful election bid in 1995.

A U.S. missile strike targeting a compound killed five militants in a Pakistani tribal region near the Afghan border on Tuesday, security officials said, updating an earlier toll of four.

The strike took place in Landidog village, 20 kilometers west of Wana, the main town in South Waziristan tribal region.

A massive bomb blast by suspected Islamic militants at a gas station in Pakistan's central Punjab province Tuesday killed at least 20 people and wounded 127 others, senior officials said.

"Now the death toll is 20. We have 127 wounded," city administration official Naseem Sadiq told Agence France Presse by telephone.

Jacques Chirac on Monday became the first former French president to go on trial as a court heard charges that he embezzled public funds while he was mayor of Paris in the 1990s.

The 78-year-old, one of France's most popular political figures, did not attend the start of the trial that will examine whether he misused public money to pay people working for his party ahead of a successful election bid.

The French finance ministry confirmed Monday it had come under cyber attack in December from hackers mainly targeting G20 documents.

The attacks sought "chiefly dossiers linked to the G20" and forced the finance ministry to "significantly strengthen its security systems," Dominique Lamiot, secretary general of the finance and budget ministries, told Agence France Presse.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates flew into Kabul on Monday to assess the U.S.-led war effort amid tensions with Afghan President Hamid Karzai over the deaths of nine children in a NATO air strike.

In an unannounced trip, Gates planned to visit troops in Afghanistan's east and south and confer with Karzai and top commander General David Petraeus, press secretary Geoff Morrell told reporters travelling with the Pentagon chief.

A roadside bomb ripped through a car in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, killing 12 civilians, as hundreds of people protested angrily in Kabul over the deaths of nine children in a NATO air raid.

The Taliban-style home-made device struck the car in the province of Paktika, killing five children, two women and five men, the provincial administration said in a statement.

A truck and a bus collided in the southern state of Santa Catarina Saturday, killing at least 22 people as Brazil celebrated Carnival, Folha de Sao Paulo reported.

Police told the daily the bus was carrying 47 passengers when it struck a truck near the town of Descanso, 690 kilometers west of the state capital of Florianopolis near Brazil's border with Argentina.

At least six crew members, including two citizens of Myanmar, died when a plane they were testing crashed in central Russia on Saturday, Russian news agencies reported.

Six crew members died when the AN-148 plane crashed and burst into flames on Saturday morning around 160 kilometers east of the city of Belgorod, the emergency ministry said in a statement, citing preliminary data.