World Round-up: Bomb site police hit by second blast

A FEMALE suicide bomber detonated her explosives-laden vest near police guarding the scene of a bombing earlier today morning in the northwestern city of Peshawar, authorities said. Four officers and a boy died in the first blast, while both attacks wounded at least 30 people.

Police said a second female suicide bomber is also believed to have been killed in the second explosion before she could detonate her vest.

Thousands face starvation without 800m global aid

The United Nations warned that the famine in East Africa hasn't peaked and hundreds of thousands of people face imminent starvation and death without a massive global response.

UN deputy emergency relief coordinator Catherine Bragg appealed to the international community for 800 million needed urgently to save lives.

"Every day counts," she told the UN Security Council. "We believe that tens of thousands have already died. Hundreds of thousands face imminent starvation and death. We can act to prevent further loss of life and ensure the survival of those who are on the brink of death."

Bragg's office, which coordinates UN humanitarian efforts, said the famine is expected to spread to all regions of south Somalia in the next four to six weeks unless further aid can be delivered. The global body says it has received 680m, just 46 per cent of the 1.5m requested from donor countries.

Bragg's appeal came as a UN food agency official warned that the number of people fleeing famine-hit areas of Somalia could overwhelm international aid efforts in the Horn of Africa.

Aid worker tells of drought horror - Page 21

A TRAIN packed with passengers travels through central Burma on its way to the Taungbyone spirit festival.

Obama hosts Muslim feast

US President Barack Obama has hosted a Ramadan break-the-fast dinner at the White House, using the occasion to recognize Muslim survivors of the 9/11 attacks.

The president said it was a good time to remember that people of many backgrounds died in the 2001 attacks.

Church fined for sex abuse

A COLOMBIAN court has ordered a diocese of the Roman Catholic Church to pay 140,000 in restitution to two youths who were sexually abused by one of its priests in 2007.

Former priest Luis Enrique Duque is already serving an 18-year prison sentence for the crime.

Bali suspect flies home

An Indonesian militant who allegedly made the explosives used in the 2002 Bali bombings was escorted home under tight security today, more than six months after he was captured in north west Pakistan.

Umar Patek had a $1 million bounty on his head when authorities caught up with him January 25 in Abbottabad - the same town where Osama bin Laden was killed in four months later.

The 41-year-old boarded an Indonesian plane sent in Islamabad.

Syria protest 'just like UK riots'

The Syrian ambassador to the UN rejected criticism of his government's crackdown and compared the protests in his country to this week's riots in Britain.

British ambassador Philip Parham immediately branded the comparison as "absurd." He said "(In Syria] some 2000 civilians have now been killed."