A small aircraft with 18 people on board crashed on Thursday in Indonesia's Sumatra island, officials said.

The Casa 212, carrying 15 passengers and three crew, left Medan city in North Sumatra at 7:18 am (0018GMT) bound for the nearby province of Aceh, before losing contact with air traffic control, transport ministry aviation head Herry Bakti told Agence France Presse.

Two Afghan policewomen and a civilian were killed by a mine on their way to work Thursday, a day after another five NATO soldiers died in the 10-year war against the Taliban.

The policewomen and civilian died when their vehicle was blown up by a remote-controlled mine on their way to work at the civilian airport serving the western city of Herat, officials said.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who has been fighting cancer, was rushed to a military hospital for emergency care following kidney failure, El Nuevo Herald newspaper reported late Wednesday.

The leftist, staunchly anti-U.S. stalwart Chavez went into the Military Hospital in Caracas on Tuesday morning, the report on the newspaper's website said, citing anonymous sources with knowledge of the case.

A U.S. follower of al-Qaida was arrested Wednesday on charges of planning to fly explosive-packed, remote controlled airplanes into the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol, authorities said.

Rezwan Ferdaus, 26, was arrested and charged with the aerial bombing plot to attack Washington and attempts to deliver bomb-making materials for use against U.S. troops in Iraq, U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz said in Boston.

The White House Wednesday treated an Iranian claim that it would send ships close to U.S. waters with derision, saying it did not reflect Tehran's ability to project sea power far from its shores.

"We don't take these statements seriously, given that they do not reflect at all Iran's naval capabilities," President Barack Obama's spokesman Jay Carney said.

Serbs attacked three Kosovo Albanians Wednesday in the northern part of the ethnically divided town of Kosovska Mitrovica, a police official said.

"Three Albanians were attacked in the Cesmin Lug neighborhood by a group of Serbs," Kosovo police spokesman Besim Hoti told AFP.

Swiss parliamentarians approved Wednesday a far-right move to impose a ban on the burqa or other face coverings in some public places, including on public transport.

With 101 votes against 77, the lower chamber of the house approved the motion titled "masks off!"

Tens of thousands of people in the Philippines battled neck-deep floodwaters on Wednesday in a chaotic aftermath to a ferocious typhoon that claimed at least 23 lives.

With some areas on the outskirts of Manila deluged with floods up to 1.5 meters (five feet) deep, authorities sent out boats to rescue people stranded on the roofs of their houses.

Eight Afghan police were killed early Wednesday when Taliban militants apparently helped by an insider overran their checkpost in troubled southern Afghanistan, an official said.

Daud Ahmadi, a spokesman for the local administration in Helmand province, blamed the insurgent group for the killings but said the militia had help from at least one police officer conspiring in the attack.

The humanitarian situation in Somalia remains "highly critical," as the war-torn nation struggles from drought and famine, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warned Wednesday.

"The situation in Somalia remains highly critical. Hundreds of thousands of Somalis are still displaced from their homes in search of security and food," the ICRC said in a statement.