Pakistan International Airlines said Thursday that it was investigating emailed threats that said two of its planes had bombs on board, forcing one of them to divert abruptly to Istanbul.

PIA said it received two emails late Wednesday claiming there were bombs on the two flights and directed the pilots to land immediately at the nearest airports. No bombs were found on either plane.

Iran toughened Thursday its criticism of Turkey over its plan to host early-warning radar as part of NATO's missile defense system, saying it will create tension and lead to "complicated consequences."

"We expect friendly countries and neighbors ... not to promote policies that create tension, which will definitely have complicated consequences," foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said in remarks carried by the state television website.

The death toll from a Taliban attack that targeted security forces responsible for the recent capture of al-Qaida operatives in southwest Pakistan has risen to 27, police said Thursday.

Two suicide bombers attacked the residence of the deputy chief of the Frontier Corps in Quetta at rush hour on Wednesday, exacting maximum casualties in an area of the city packed with security guards and government buildings.

Russia on Thursday mourned the deaths of 43 people including top ice hockey players in a plane crash as President Dmitry Medvedev planned to visit the site of the disaster.

An aging Yak-42 plane carrying three-times Russian champion ice hockey team Lokomotiv Yaroslavl including several former and current NHL stars crashed on Wednesday near Yaroslavl, 300 kilometers northeast of Moscow.

Tongan King George Tupou V has undergone successful surgery in Los Angeles to remove his right kidney after a "significant" tumor was found, local reports said Thursday.

The Pacific island monarch went under the knife at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and is expected to return home on Saturday, the Mantangi Tonga website said, adding that the operation took place last month.

Somali pirates have released a Danish family, with three teenage children, and two other Danes who they took hostage in February, the Danish foreign ministry said Wednesday.

"The seven Danes have been released and brought to safety," the ministry said in a statement, adding that all were doing well under the circumstances.

Swiss President and Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey announced on Wednesday she would not be running for reelection in December, Swiss newswire ATS reported.

According to the newswire, the Socialist Party figurehead informed the head of the lower house she would be standing down at the end of the year.

A powerful bomb hidden in a briefcase ripped through a busy crowd outside New Delhi's High Court on Wednesday, killing 11 people and injuring 66, many of them petitioners waiting for legal hearings.

The device had been placed near an entrance gate reception area, where more than 100 people were queuing for passes to the court complex, located in the heart of the Indian capital.

Twin Taliban bombs targeting security forces responsible for the recent capture of senior al-Qaida operatives killed 24 people and wounded 82 others in southwest Pakistan Wednesday, police said.

One attacker detonated his bomb-laden car outside the residence of the deputy chief of the Frontier Corps in Quetta city, before a second attacker blew himself up inside the house, said senior police official Hamid Shakil.

One of the most devastating wildfire outbreaks in Texas history left more than 1,000 homes in ruins Tuesday and stretched the state's firefighting ranks to the limit, confronting Gov. Rick Perry with a major disaster at home just as the GOP presidential contest heats up.

More than 180 fires have erupted in the past week across the rain-starved Lone Star State, and nearly 600 of the homes destroyed since then were lost in one catastrophic blaze in and around Bastrop, near Austin, that raged out of control Tuesday for a third day.