President Asif Ali Zardari on blamed national and international forces for his Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) defeat in the May 11 polls.

Russia will deliver 12 Mil Mi-17V5 military transport helicopters to the Afghanistan Armed Forces by the end of 2013, Russian state arms exporter said on Friday.

The air accident rate was at a record low this year, making 2012 the safest year in civil aviation history, a media report said.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has voiced "grave concern" at reported Israeli air strikes on Syria, and called on all sides to "exercise maximum calm and restraint".

Despite international pressure to shift the venue of a major Commonwealth Summit out of Sri Lanka, the grouping's Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma has said that the meeting in November will go ahead as planned.

An IMF team is planning to visit Pakistan next month to hold discussions with the post-election new government on financial aid and how to bail out the country from its impending economic crisis.

A South African court on Thursday cleared Oscar Pistorius for international travel after the Paralympian sprint star, charged with murdering his girlfriend, challenged his stringent bail terms.

The pilot and co-pilot of a Lion Air plane that crashed at Bali's airport have passed initial drug tests, an official said on Monday, as investigators probe the causes of the accident that left dozens injured but no fatalities.

The arrest of former President Mohamed Nasheed is an example of selective justice from the Maldives authorities and highlights their failure to investigate other serious human rights abuses in the country, Amnesty International has said.

A passenger jet operated by budget airline Lion Air -which recently sealed blockbuster orders for new planes-- missed the runway at Bali airport on Saturday and landed in the sea but everybody on board survived.