At least 30 people died in overnight violence between rival ethnic groups and criminal gangs in Pakistan's financial capital of Karachi, police said Thursday.

A former MP for the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), Waja Karimdad, was among those killed in the fresh wave of violence in Karachi, where hundreds of additional police and paramilitary troops were deployed last month.

Bomb attacks killed 24 people in Afghanistan on Thursday, ripping through a minibus packed with civilians and targeting a U.S.-run base in the east bordering Pakistan, officials said.

The attacks in opposite ends of the country underscored how pernicious Taliban-led insurgents have become in fighting to bring down the Western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai and evict 140,000 U.S.-led foreign troops.

Police in London said Wednesday they have charged more than 1,000 people over rioting in the British capital last week, but warned of more to come as officers’ trawl through 20,000 hours of CCTV footage.

A total of 1,005 people have been charged with various offences out of the 1,733 arrested in London so far, although nationwide some 1,179 people had been brought before the courts by Monday afternoon.

Russia and Iran pinned their hopes Wednesday on a new Kremlin-backed nuclear proposal aimed at reviving stalled negotiations with Western powers suspicious of Tehran's weapons drive.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met his Iranian counterpart Ali Akbar Salehi to iron out the details of a "step-by-step" plan proposed by Moscow that rewards Tehran for greater transparency with a gradual easing of U.N. sanctions.

The separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party claimed responsibility for an ambush on Wednesday in which Ankara said eight Turkish soldiers were killed.

"Our forces have carried out an ambush against the Turkish army ... on the border," Doldar Hammo, a spokesman for the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) rebels which have bases in northern Iraq, told Agence France Presse.

Indian premier Manmohan Singh on Wednesday slammed the "totally misconceived" fast by an anti-graft activist whose arrest has sparked national protests and a high-stakes standoff with the government.

After a day and night of angry demonstrations in cities across India, thousands of supporters of anti-corruption campaigner Anna Hazare, 74, gathered outside Delhi's Tihar jail where he has been since his arrest Tuesday morning.

Spanish police said Tuesday they had arrested a foreign student suspected of planning to use asphyxiating chemicals to attack a protest march against a visit by Pope Benedict XVI.

Police said they had seized a laptop, portable memory, and two notebooks containing notes about chemicals not on the student's course. But they made no mention of chemicals or equipment being taken.

U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday played down prospects for a spectacular al-Qaida attack 10 years after the September 11th strikes, saying he worried more now about solitary extremists.

"The most likely scenario that we have to guard against right now ends up being more of a lone wolf operation than a large, well coordinated terrorist attack," he told CNN television during a campaign-style swing through Iowa.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Tuesday the cancer he has been battling has not spread, but admitted the chemotherapy treatment he is receiving had left him weakened.

"Chemotherapy hits hard," Chavez said in comments late Tuesday, noting that his body's defenses were down and that he had "areas of weakness" due to treatment he has been receiving in Cuba.

Soldiers and police on Tuesday surrounded a monastery in southwest China where a Tibetan monk set himself on fire and died, sparking fears of a fresh crackdown on the area's large Tibetan population.

The death of the 29-year-old monk, who campaigners said drank petrol before setting himself alight, came five months after a similar incident in a nearby area triggered protests and a huge security crackdown.