Several dozen heavily armed militants killed nine Pakistani troops in the northwest on Monday, spotlighting the insurgent threat, with Islamabad under US pressure to take tougher action.

About 30 gunmen armed with mortar shells and rifles ambushed the paramilitaries in the Bara district of Khyber, part of the lawless tribal belt on the Afghan border used by NATO troops to truck supplies into Afghanistan.

About 3,000 U.S. and Filipino marines started two weeks of annual military drills in the Philippines on Monday that will include a hostile beach assault exercise near the disputed Spratly Islands.

U.S. Marine 1st Lt. Nick Eisenbeiser said the Oct. 17-28 maneuvers would focus on honing their joint capability to ensure regional security and were not aimed at China or any country as an imaginary target.

Afghan security forces are showing "significant progress" with a swell of new recruits and better training, NATO's head of training said Monday before leaving his post.

Lieutenant General William Caldwell said he was optimistic about the country's ability to "sustain the force we've built them... over the long term" after NATO troops hand over security responsibility to Afghan forces by the end of 2014.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez left for Cuba on Sunday for what he said would be a thorough medical exam after undergoing multiple rounds of chemotherapy in his battle with cancer.

In brief remarks before departing for Havana, Chavez told official VTV television that the visit was to "continue a process we have been following for about four months," but did not reveal further details of his health.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said Monday she was determined to hold on to power until the next election in 2013 as two new polls showed she would be dumped by voters if one was called now.

Amid rising speculation that former Labor leader Kevin Rudd, ousted by his then deputy Gillard in a sudden party coup in mid-2010, will challenge for the leadership, the prime minister said she would stand firm.

A suicide bomber targeted a provincial head of Afghanistan's intelligence agency on Monday, wounding the spy and killing a child in the increasingly volatile north of the country.

The bomber detonated next to a car carrying the National Directorate of Security (NDS) official at 8:20 am (03:50 GMT) in Maymanah in Faryab province, Lal Mohammad, police spokesman for the northern region, told Agence France Presse.

French Socialist lawmaker Francois Hollande was crowned favorite for next year's presidential election on Sunday, winning the left's primary to choose a challenger for Nicolas Sarkozy.

The center-right incumbent is expected to stand for re-election, but all recent opinion polls show him on course to lose to any left-wing challenger, and Hollande's victory will serve as a springboard for his campaign.

U.S. President Barack Obama drew inspiration Sunday from the civil rights struggles of Martin Luther King in facing down today's political gridlock in Washington.

"When met with hardship, when confronting disappointment, Dr. King refused to accept what he called the 'is-ness' of today. He kept pushing towards the ought-ness of tomorrow,'" Obama told a crowd of thousands.

Liberian incumbent Ellen Johnson Sirleaf's party vowed Sunday that she will contest a run-off presidential vote even if the opposition boycotts the polls, fanning fears of new violence in the war-torn west African country.

"If the opposition wants to boycott the process, that will not stop the process," Unity Party campaign director Musa Bility told AFP after the opposition on Saturday rejected as "flawed" provisional results of the October 11 vote placing Sirleaf in the lead.

Kenyan troops have crossed the border into war-torn Somalia to attack Islamist Shebab rebels they accuse of being behind several recent kidnappings of foreigners, Kenyan officials said Sunday.

"We have crossed into Somalia in pursuit of the Shehab, who are responsible for the kidnappings and attacks on our country," government spokesman Alfred Matua told AFP.