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.

Turkey will start Monday to explore gas and oil in the eastern Mediterranean following a move by Greek Cypriots to press ahead with offshore gas drilling, the Anatolia news agency reported.

"We expect the ship to arrive at noon to the region where exploration will start. The team will start seismological research in the afternoon, after it reaches the region whose (geographical) position was specified," said Huseyin Avni Benli, the head of the institute that owns the ship, Anatolia reported.

China said Monday that any successor chosen by the Dalai Lama would be "illegal" after the Tibetan spiritual leader announced that he, and not Beijing, would decide whether he should be reincarnated.

The Dalai Lama, who is 76, said on Saturday he would decide when he was "about 90" whether he should be reincarnated, in consultation with other monks, and that China should have no say in the matter.

Pakistan will not launch an offensive against Haqqani extremists despite Washington ramping up the pressure after a series of attacks on U.S. targets in Afghanistan, an official said Monday.

The U.S. and Pakistan are key allies in the war against Islamist militants in Afghanistan, but their relationship is often troubled and hit new depths after the killing of Osama bin Laden in a covert U.S. raid in Pakistan in May.

Russia risks six lost years when Vladimir Putin returns to the Kremlin if he does not undertake wholesale change of its political system, the Soviet Union's last leader Mikhail Gorbachev said Monday.

Gorbachev wrote in a commentary for the Novaya Gazeta, which he part owns, that the decision for Putin to stand for the presidency in 2012 elections instead of incumbent President Dmitry Medvedev was wholly expected.

Two U.S. hikers accused Iran Sunday of using them as "hostages" in its power struggle with the West and described hearing the anguished cries of fellow inmates being beaten in Tehran's Evin prison.

Speaking at a press conference in New York hours after landing back safely on American soil following their release to Oman on Wednesday, Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal laid bare the extent of their harrowing two-year ordeal in Iran.