Russia said Monday it was premature to set the date for a new round of nuclear disarmament talks on the short-range missiles whose reduction is sought by the United States.

U.S. President Barack Obama's administration is keen to launch talks over so-called tactical weapons that have remained uncovered by previous nuclear disarmament agreements with Russia.

Gunmen in southwestern Pakistan attacked five oil tankers carrying supplies to NATO troops in Afghanistan, officials said Monday.

The incident took place near the town of Mithri, some 230 kilometers southeast of Quetta, the capital of the restive oil and gas-rich Baluchistan province which borders Iran and Afghanistan.

Cambodia called for U.N. peacekeepers to help end the fighting along its tense border with Thailand, where artillery fire echoed for a fourth day Monday near an 11th century temple classified as a World Heritage Site.

The crumbling stone temple, several hundred feet (meters) from Thailand's eastern border with Cambodia, has fueled nationalism on both sides of the disputed frontier for decades and conflict over it has sparked sporadic, brief battles in recent years. However, sustained fighting has been rare.

Wildfires destroyed at least 59 homes in Perth, Australia's fourth largest city, officials said Monday, as soldiers fanned out for massive cleanup operations across the cyclone-hit northeast.

A natural disaster was declared in areas of Perth on the country's west coast, where two major blazes raged out of control for a second day, triggered by heat and high winds brought by last week's ferocious Cyclone Yasi.

Chilean authorities evacuated passengers and crew from an Iberia airline flight to Madrid, Spain, following a bomb threat Sunday. Police said later they arrested a Chilean woman in the case.

Authorities said a team from Chile's civil aviation agency searched the airliner and found no explosives.

Fresh clashes broke out on the Thai-Cambodian border Sunday around a disputed temple a day after both sides agreed a ceasefire, a Cambodian military commander told AFP.

"We are fighting now, they started firing at us first," the source, who declined to be named, said, referring to Thai troops across the border.

Some 500 people demonstrated Saturday in the streets of Montreal, calling for the resignation of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who has resisted pressure to quit despite an unprecedented uprising.

Joining Egyptians on the peaceful march to the Egyptian consulate were groups of Tunisians and Algerians, as well as civic leaders from Quebec and Amnesty International activists.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton launched a landmark nuclear arms reduction pact with Russia on Saturday, a showpiece of Washington's "reset" of ties with its former Cold War enemy.

The new START nuclear arms reduction treaty officially came into force when Clinton and Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov exchanged ratification documents at a security conference in the German city of Munich.

An Italian woman tourist traveling with a driver and a tour guide has been kidnapped in the Sahara desert region of, security sources said Friday.

The 56-year-old Italian who has not been identified was abducted Wednesday around 6:00 pm (1700 GMT) in Alidem, an area 130 kilometers south of Djanet, the main town in southeastern Algeria, the security official in the region contacted by Agence France Presse said.

DR Congo's army repulsed an assault by gunmen on Lubumbashi airport in the south of the country Friday in which one member of the security services was killed, witnesses said.

The security agent died after gunfire erupted between the army and the unidentified attackers who launched their assault on the airport around 4:00 am (0200 GMT), said an Agence France Presse journalist at the scene.