Turkish police on Tuesday detained over 140 people with suspected links to Kurdish rebels in three main cities, media reports said.

Police early Tuesday morning arrested 90 people in Istanbul after raiding several addresses around the city, Anatolia news agency reported.

Somalia's Shebab rebels vowed more attacks after a deadly car bomb killed more than 70 people in Mogadishu, spokesman Ali Mohamud Rage said in speech broadcast Wednesday by the group's radio.

"We are promising that attacks against the enemy will be routine, more in number and will increase day by day," Rage said over radio al-Andalus.

Thailand's worst monsoon floods in decades have killed 224 people and affected three quarters of the country, including part of the ancient city of Ayutthaya, officials said Tuesday.

Authorities were meanwhile battling to stop the floods reaching the center of low-lying Bangkok, as forecasters warned of more wild weather to come.

A Spanish baby boy has died four days after being born in an emergency caesarian when his mother was shot dead by a deranged gunman, a hospital official said Tuesday.

The new-born was delivered by emergency workers just minutes after the gunman shot his 36-year-old mother in a Madrid church, a drama that gripped the Spanish capital.

Gunmen attacked a bus carrying Shiite Muslims in Pakistan's insurgency-torn southwest on Tuesday, killing 13 people in the second major sectarian attack to hit the area in two weeks, police said.

Pakistani has faced mounting criticism from its minority Shiite community and human rights groups for failing to prevent thousands of sectarian murders, which further destabilize the fragile U.S. ally in the war on al-Qaida.

U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday said that it would be "very difficult" over the next two years for Al-Qaeda to stage a spectacular terror attack on the scale of the September 11 strikes in 2001.

Obama said that given America's open society, it would always be vulnerable, but argued that as a result of a stepped-up U.S. campaign which had "decimated" Al-Qaeda's leadership, the country was safer.

A public inquiry into a Cyprus munitions blast that killed 13 people and crippled the island's main power plant found Monday that President Demetris Christofias was responsible for the disaster.

The head of the inquiry, Polis Polyviou, handed over his findings -- which are not legally binding -- to the president and attorney general before giving a news conference.

A senior North Korean official is due to visit the United States amid signs of an easing of relations between the two countries, a report said Monday.

Ri Jong-Hyok, vice chairman of the Korea Asia-Pacific Peace Committee, has been allowed to attend a forum at the University of Georgia on October 17-20, Yonhap news agency said.

Judges at the world war crimes court Monday gave prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo the green light to investigate atrocities committed after Ivory Coast's disputed elections last year.

The Hague-based International Criminal Court said in a statement that it had "granted the Prosecutor’s request to commence an investigation in Côte d’Ivoire". It said the decision was made last Friday.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan suggested a resumption of talks with Kurdish rebels was possible despite a recent surge in attacks, the Turkish press reported Monday.

"If we deem it necessary, we will make a decision and tell our colleagues to do what is needed," Erdogan said, referring to talks with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).