Three passengers were injured in an emergency evacuation from a China Eastern jet at Beijing's main airport yesterday, after controls warned of a fire while the plane was taxiing to the runway, Chinese media reported.
The reports did not say how many passengers and crew were on board the Boeing B737-800, which was bound for Wuhan in Hubei province.
After the controls indicated a possible fire, the crew ordered all passengers to exit the plane, during which three passengers were injured, including one who suffered a bone fracture.
Troops ambushed outside Mogadishu
Islamist insurgents killed five government soldiers in an ambush outside the capital Mogadishu yesterday, adding to days of bloodshed that have cast a pall over rare peace talks.
More than 35 people have died since Thursday in clashes between rebels and allied Somali-Ethiopian troops that broke out a week after a militant leader was killed in a US air strike.
Residents said the insurgents targeted government troops in Yaqbaraweyne, a small town west of the capital, and also fought with Ethiopian forces in Towfiq, north of the city.
"The Islamists opened fire on government troops as they passed the same place Ethiopians were ambushed two days ago," witness Ali Diriye told Reuters by phone from Yaqbaraweyne.
"Five soldiers were killed on the spot. One pick-up truck escaped with the driver and two of the injured. The other two vehicles were captured by the insurgents."
Washington has listed Somalia's al Shabaab militia as a terrorist group and says it has close ties to Al-Qaeda.
In Towfiq, locals said the rebels attacked Ethiopian troops supporting Somalia's fragile interim government.
"I saw an Ethiopian military vehicle burning and three dead bodies that looked like insurgents lying nearby after the fighting stopped," said one resident, Abey Issa.
"Thank goodness most people in this area had already evacuated."
The surge in violence raised further doubts over the prospects for tentative peace talks brokered by the United Nations that got underway yesterday in Djibouti.
Gaza-Egypt border opens temporarily
The main border crossing between the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and Egypt was temporarily opened yesterday under a deal between the Islamist group and Cairo, Palestinian officials said.
The crossing at Rafah had been largely closed since early February, when Egypt resealed the border after Hamas gunmen blasted it open in defiance of an Israeli-led blockade of the coastal enclave.
With US backing, Egypt has been trying to broker an unofficial truce between Israel and Hamas to stop violence that has imperilled peace talks. That proposed deal calls for Rafah to re-open under Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' control.
Yesterday's opening would allow Palestinians wounded in clashes with Israel, and other medical cases, to leave Gaza for treatment, Hamas officials said.
They said the crossing would remain opened for two further days, in which Gazans stranded in the Egyptian Sinai since the January border breach would be allowed to return. Palestinians with other nationalities would also have the option of leaving.
Brown takes tips from Blair
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is taking advice from his predecessor Tony Blair on how to win the next general election despite pressuring him out of office, the wife of the former prime minister said yesterday.
In interviews with two newspapers - the Times and the Sun - Cherie Blair laid bare the tempestuous relationship between the two men who worked side by side in Downing Street for a decade.
She described the crisis of confidence Blair suffered in April 2004 at the height of unpopularity over his decision to take Britain to war with Iraq and accused Brown of "rattling the keys above his head".
"I thought he was putting too much pressure on Tony to quit when Tony wasn't ready," she told the Sun.
She also revealed Blair would have stood down earlier than last year if Brown - then running Britain's finances as Chancellor of the Exchequer, had been prepared to back him on key public service reforms.
"Instead of which Tony felt he had no option but to stay on and fight for the things he believed in," she told the Times. "There had been many times before when he'd thought he might stand down and I told him I didn't think it was the right time," she told the Sun.
"I'm really proud Tony left Number 10 on his own terms."
Shell pulls out of Iran gas deal
Oil major Royal Dutch Shell has pulled out of a planned gas project in Iran, after coming under pressure not to participate from US lawmakers who were concerned about Iran's nuclear programme. A spokeswoman said yesterday that the world's second-largest non government-controlled oil company by market capitalisation was pulling out of Phase 13 of the giant South Pars gas field but may yet join later stages of the field's development.
Shell, Spain's Repsol and the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) signed a Memorandum of Understanding in January 2002 to develop Phase 13 in a project to be known as Persian LNG.
At the time, Shell said deliveries of liquified natural gas - gas cooled to liquid under pressure for transportation in special tankers - could begin in 2007.
However, United Nations sanctions on Iran related to its nuclear programme, which it claims is for power generation but which the US and European states believe is aimed at developing weapons, and criticisms of the deal from US politicians and investors, slowed progress.
Meanwhile Iran grew impatient and threatened Shell with eviction from the project if it did not commit formally.