More than 150 Spanish police raided a suspected al-Qaida financing ring Tuesday, arresting five Algerian men and seizing computer material, the government said.

Police suspected the men sent money to al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, which has its roots in Algeria and carries out attacks and kidnappings in north Africa, the interior ministry said in a statement.

Two metro trains collided in Shanghai on Tuesday, injuring more than 240 people, the system operator said, just months after a deadly high-speed rail crash that shocked China.

The firm blamed the accident on a signal failure -- the same cause as a July train crash that killed at least 40 people and shook public confidence in China's vast rail network.

A passenger was beaten to death by staff on a train in eastern China, state media reported, dealing a fresh blow to the rail industry's reputation following a fatal crash in July.

Three train staff seized the middle-aged man by the throat and savagely beat him after he intervened in an argument involving another passenger, Jiangxi Television, a local station, reported on Monday.

Australia will remove all gender barriers in its military over the next five years, opening up positions that had previously been considered too dangerous for women, including front-line combat roles, a minister said Tuesday.

Australia will follow Canada and New Zealand in allowing women who meet physical and psychological criteria to perform any role they choose, Defense Minister Stephen Smith said.

A suicide car bombing killed five people and wounded two dozen others near a police headquarters in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday, officials said.

Mohammad Rasoul, a spokesman for the Afghan army, said three police were killed and three others wounded in the blast in Lashkar Gah, capital of troubled Helmand province.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi may have told a businessman to lie to investigators about paying call girls to attend parties he hosted, the Ansa news agency said Tuesday.

The businessman, Gianpaolo Tarantini, is on trial accused of having spent nearly 30,000 euros ($41,000) on recruiting dozens of women for Berlusconi's private parties in 2008 and 2009 in order to win lucrative contracts.

Two Hong Kong-bound flights carrying more than 600 people narrowly missed each other over the Asian city, officials said Tuesday, after pilots scrambled to react to warning signals.

A Cathay Pacific Boeing 777 arriving from New York and a Dragonair Airbus A330 from Taiwan were both told to hold off landing due to bad weather on September 18 but strayed into each other's path.

A man already on Indonesia's most wanted list in connection with a suicide attack five months ago was the bomber who blew himself up in a packed church on Sunday, police said Tuesday.

Ahmad Yosepa Hayat, 31 was sitting among the Bethel Injil Church congregation in central Java's Solo city during a service when he stood up and detonated a bomb strapped to his body, wounding 27 people.

U.S. President Barack Obama will further his vow to sell his jobs plan in the four corners of America Monday, after warning a Republican win in 2012 elections could "cripple" the country.

Obama was to appear in a town-hall style meeting sponsored by executive social network LinkedIn in San Jose, before tapping donors in Democratic strongholds in San Diego and Los Angeles.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao welcomed North Korean Prime Minister Choe Yong-Rim to Beijing Monday to start talks following on from a recent visit by leader Kim Jong-Il to China, his fourth in 16 months.

North Korea's economic dependence on China, its sole major ally, has grown increasingly important since South Korea froze most contacts with its neighbor.