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MOGADISHU: A health official says at least 14 people, including women and children, have been killed overnight in Somalia's capital, as fierce weekend battles have continued into the new week.Rufai Mohamed says the ambulance services he leads in Mogadishu collected the bodies of mostly civilians. Hospital officials say they have admitted at least 45 wounded people from the fighting.Battles between Islamic insurgents and pro-government forces began Monday afternoon and continued through the night. The fighting has died down early Tuesday, but sporadic gunfire can be heard in parts of the city. The weekend saw some of the worst fighting in recent weeks, with at least 35 people killed. A local human rights body says as of Monday afternoon 17,200 resident had fled their homes.

CAPE CANAVERAL: Shuttle Atlantis is racing after the Hubble Space Telescope a day after taking off on a daring repair mission.On Tuesday, the seven astronauts will spend the entire day inspecting virtually every inch of the shuttle for any launch damage. They surveyed the thermal shielding on their crew cabin Monday evening. This final trip to Hubble is especially dangerous because of all the space junk in the telescope's 350-mile-high (560-kilometer-high) orbit. Atlantis seems to have come through its launch fairly well, at least. But the analysis is continuing. Another shuttle, Endeavour, is at the launch pad and could takeoff in three to six days if the astronauts had to be rescued. Atlantis will catch up to Hubble on Wednesday.

KABUL: Disguised in Afghan Army uniforms and a burqa, Taliban fighters carried out coordinated attacks in eastern Afghanistan Tuesday, leaving at least nine people dead after a daylong hostage siege and a gun battle with American forces, government officials said.The assault, which included a bombing outside the governor’s office in Khost Province, was one of a number of increasingly audacious attacks that seemed intended to underscore the vulnerability of the government by hitting its buildings directly.It was also part of an intensified campaign by the Taliban before the arrival of more than 20,000 new American forces, and it came a day after President Obama replaced the commander of forces in Afghanistan, hoping to place more emphasis on counterinsurgency operations.On Tuesday, the insurgents employed a method that has by now become a Taliban signature: waves of attackers using suicide vests, car bombs and other weapons to storm buildings and take hostages, fighting until they blow

KABUL: Eleven Taliban suicide bombers struck government buildings in a bold, daylong assault in eastern Afghanistan, sparking running gun battles with U.S. and Afghan forces that killed 20 people and wounded three Americans, officials said.Troops freed 20 hostages taken by insurgents. The battle in Khost, a border city that houses a major American base, came as the U.S. made leadership changes that demonstrate a clear break from Bush-era appointees, with President Barack Obama taking charge of an increasingly bloody eight-year war that the Pentagon once believed had been won.

NEW DELHI: Voting began Wednesday in the fifth and final phase of India's month-long general elections.

HOUSTON: NASA was assessing damage found Tuesday on the underside of the shuttle Atlantis, but downplayed any threat to the astronauts or their mission as the craft raced toward a risky high-orbit rendezvous with the Hubble telescope.During a marathon 10-hour survey of fragile heat shielding, the seven member Atlantis crew found a string of gouges stretching 53 centimeters (21 inches) across four heatshield tiles on the underside of the forward portion of the shuttle's right wing sustained during the craft's launch into orbit.The US space agency characterized the damage, which will undergo at least two days of evaluation by imagery experts in Mission Control, as minor.

KHOST: A suicide bomb exploded near a US military base in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing seven Afghans and wounding 21, the US military said.

NEW YORK: Five men were convicted of plotting to join forces with al-Qaida to destroy Chicago's Sears Tower and bomb FBI offices in hopes of igniting an anti-government insurrection. The jury in Miami acquitted another member of the so-called "Liberty City Six" in the sixth day of deliberations. Two previous trials ended in mistrials when jurors could not agree on the men's guilt or innocence. They were arrested in June 2006 on charges of plotting terrorism with an undercover FBI informant they believed was from al-Qaida. Defense attorneys said terrorist talk recorded on dozens of FBI tapes was not serious and the men only wanted money.

CHECHNYA: The Russian Interior Ministry's branch in Chechnya says rebels planted explosive device killed two police officers and a civilian.It says in a statement that the explosion occurred Wednesday near the village of Belgatoi in the Vedeno region in southern Chechnya's mountains. Investigators believe the explosive device was attached to a vehicle the victims were riding in.The Kremlin last month formally ended a federal counter terrorism operation in Chechnya, which has seen two bloody separatist wars in the past 15 years. But insurgents continue to stage sporadic attacks on troops and authorities in Chechnya despite increased stability under Kremlin-backed regional President Ramzan Kadyrov.

NEW DELHI: Kashmir is totally closed on Wednesday to protest against holding of Lok Sabha polls being held in Baramulla and Ladakh regions. The strike was called on by Hurriyat leaders, who have been put under house arrest preventing them to lead anti-polls rallies. Streets, roads and market places presented deserted look as Indian security personnel, deployed in thousands in the valley restricted the movement of the people. Security personnel were not allowing Kashmiris to move outside their localities and roads in the cities and towns to foil any attempt of staging anti-polls rallies.The Hurriyat leaders including APHC chairman Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, Ali Shah Geelani and Yasin Malik have described the present polls as a futile exercise as the people of Kashmir want right of self determination and not sham elections being held in the presence of thousands of security personnel.

BEIRUT: Kuwaiti newspaper al-Siyasa reported on Wednesday that 35 groups suspected of spying for Israel have been uncovered in Lebanon so far. According to the report, most of their operatives have been arrested, but the case was not made public "for security reasons".

BAGHDAD: An Iraqi oil official says U.S. oilfield services company Weatherford International Ltd., has won a $224.4-million contract to drill in southern Iraq.The official with the state-run Maysan Oil Co. said Wednesday the Houston-based company has 24 months to drill 20 wells in the southern Buzurgan oil field in Maysan province.The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment, said the wells will boost current the field's current output of 80,000 barrels per day by at least 40 percent.The deal - ratified Tuesday by the Iraqi Cabinet - is part of an accelerated plan to raise Iraq's output from its current level of 2.4 million barrels per day by 2010.Maysan is about 200 miles (320 kilometers) southeast of Baghdad.

COLOMBO: Three shells slammed into a make-shift hospital in Sri Lanka's northeastern war zone on Wednesday, killing 38 civilians, a doctor said."Three shells hit the hospital today and 38 people were killed," T. Varatharajah, a doctor working at the facility in Mullivaikal, said.He said the attack followed a similar strike on Tuesday, when 47 people were reported killed and 56 wounded.He did not say who was responsible for the shelling, although the rebels blamed government forces for the attack.The Sri Lankan military denies it is using heavy weapons in the area. Sri Lankan authorities also say that doctors there are hostages of the Tigers and have questioned the credibility of their accounts.