Myanmar has released about 20,000 prisoners this year under an amnesty program, the country's foreign minister said on Tuesday.

"Approximately 20,000 inmates from prisons and labor camps were released until the end of July 2011" under a amnesty order issued by President Thein Sein in May, Wunna Maung Lwin told the U.N. Human Rights Council.

Al-Qaida has released a video marking the anniversary of 9/11 which includes a message from its slain leader Osama bin Laden to the American people, monitoring group SITE Intelligence said Tuesday.

SITE said the 62-minute video titled "The Dawn of Imminent Victory" also includes a speech by al-Qaida's new chief Ayman al-Zawahiri who applauds the "Arab Spring" revolutions.

At least 120 people were burned to death on Monday when a pipeline burst into flames in a Nairobi slum as local people were siphoning fuel from it, and more than 100 were injured, officials said.

Scores of bodies, some burned to the bone, lay on charred grass near trenches and a filthy river in the Sinai slum following the accident.

The French government sought to play down fears of a radioactive leak after the explosion Monday at a nuclear site in the south of France in which at least one person died.

France's state nuclear regulator had said earlier that there was a risk of a leak after the blast at Codolet in the Rhone Valley near the southern city of Nimes.

A lawyer with ties to African leaders declared on Monday he had personally handed over $20 million dollars in cash to French former president Jacques Chirac and his close ally Dominique de Villepin.

Robert Bourgi said in an interview with Europe 1 radio the money came from several presidents of France's former African colonies, and was handed over to the center-right politicians in stages between 1995 and 2005.

Firefighters backed by planes and helicopters battled towering flames in southern Spain Monday, trying to tame a forest fire that forced 200 people to evacuate, officials said.

Whipped up by warm winds, the blaze spread quickly in the popular tourist province of Malaga.

Four terror suspects arrested in Sweden at the weekend have ties to the Somali Islamist movement Shebab and were plotting an attack using bombs and firearms, a newspaper reported Monday.

Neither Sweden's intelligence agency nor the police have confirmed the report, and have released few details about the arrests.

Tears flowed and bells tolled at Ground Zero as Americans marked the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in a rare moment of unity for a country still shaken by the horrific terror strikes.

President Barack Obama and his predecessor and political foe George W. Bush stood together in New York for the main ceremony at the site of the destroyed Twin Towers.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Monday defended the Syrian regime against sanctions for its crackdown on protesters and warned British Prime Minister David Cameron of the dangers of such a move.

Cameron met Medvedev for talks focusing on Syria and bilateral disputes as global frustration mounted with Russia's continued support of its ally despite President Bashar al-Assad's months-long repression of nationwide protests.

Americans united in grief on Sunday's 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks which killed almost 3,000 people and plunged the country into an era of war and bitter internal division.

President Barack Obama and his predecessor and political foe George W. Bush stood together at Ground Zero in New York for the main ceremony at the site of the destroyed Twin Towers. Obama was then due to pay homage at 9/11's other crash sites in Pennsylvania and at the Pentagon.