Japan's Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda is set to become prime minister after winning a party vote Monday, taking on responsibility for rebuilding after the quake, tsunami and nuclear disasters.

Noda is expected to be confirmed in parliament Tuesday as the nation's sixth new premier in five years, replacing outgoing Naoto Kan who quit last Friday after his approval rating tumbled over his handling of the triple crisis.

A major fire broke out Monday at a refinery in northeast China owned by state-owned oil giant PetroChina, the official Xinhua news agency reported, in the latest disaster to hit the country's oil industry.

It took nearly 300 firefighters several hours to put out the blaze, which broke out when an oil storage facility caught light at at around 10:00 am (02:00 GMT), Xinhua said, adding that no casualties had been reported.

Terrified passengers jumped out of a plane in India on Monday after it skidded to halt on landing, trying to escape before emergency ladders were put in place, officials said.

Seven passengers were injured in the pre-dawn incident when the Gulf Air flight from Bahrain to Kochi in the southern Indian state of Kerala landed badly in wet weather conditions and veered onto muddy grassland.

A team of Taliban suicide attackers struck at a U.S.-led NATO reconstruction team in unstable south Afghanistan Sunday, officials said.

The attack hit the provincial reconstruction team (PRT) in Qalat, the capital of Zabul province. Initial reports suggested that a couple of people were injured.

Heavy rains that caused a dam to overflow in southwestern Nigeria and led to houses being submerged has killed 20 people and displaced thousands, an emergency management agency spokesman said on Sunday.

"Twenty confirmed dead," said Yushau Shuaib of the flooding in the city of Ibadan. "A dam overflowed its boundary ... It's a very serious situation."

Indian anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare ended his 13-day hunger strike on Sunday triggering wild celebrations among supporters after parliament agreed to consider his demands.

Hazare's fast at an open-air venue in New Delhi attracted tens of thousands of people every day as a nationwide protest movement emerged to back his cause, leaving the government appearing badly out of touch with public opinion.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez checked in to a military hospital Saturday night to begin a third round of chemotherapy, this time getting the cancer treatment at home rather than Cuba.

Chavez walked into the Dr. Carlos Arvelo Military Hospital accompanied by his daughter Maria and aides. He said his treatment has been going well and aims to prevent reappearance of cancer cells more than two months after he underwent surgery.

Super-typhoon Nanmadol killed at least seven people and left flattened bridges and blocked roads in its wake as it slowly moved away from the Philippines, officials said on Sunday.

The toll of dead and missing is likely to rise as officials assess the full impact of the storm, the strongest to hit the country this year, said Emilia Tadeo of the civil defense damage report section.

The death toll from Irene has risen to 12 across five eastern U.S. states, emergency officials said Sunday, as the hurricane was downgraded to a tropical storm, passing New York City.

Half of the deaths were in North Carolina, where Irene made landfall early Saturday morning with 85 mile (140 kilometer) per hour winds, before heading up the eastern seaboard and scoring a rare direct hit on New York.

Al-Qaida's number two Atiyah abd al-Rahman has been killed in Pakistan, the United States said Saturday, claiming another "tremendous" blow to the group following the death of Osama bin Laden.

A senior U.S. official said that Rahman was killed in tribal Waziristan on August 22 after being deeply involved in directing operations for al-Qaida. The official did not divulge the exact circumstances of his death.