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KERBALA, Iraq (Reuters) - A roadside bomb struck a minibus packed with pilgrims bound for Iraq's holy Shi'ite city of Kerbala on Friday even as authorities deployed over 40,000 police and soldiers to avert new violence in the annual rite.

HARARE (Reuters) - Botswana's president will boycott a weekend summit of southern African leaders because the country does not recognize Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's re-election, the Foreign Ministry said on Friday.

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand's Supreme Court denied a request on Friday by the lawyers of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to have a corruption case against him and his wife suspended after they skipped bail and went into exile.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf is ready to resign rather than face impeachment but is seeking immunity from prosecution for imposing emergency rule, a coalition government official said on Friday.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The bombing of India's embassy in Kabul last month has cast a shadow over a peace process with Pakistan, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Friday in a key speech in which he urged Islamabad to clamp down on terrorism.

MIDSAYAP, Philippines (Reuters) - Displaced farmers in the southern Philippines returned home to rubble and ash on Friday after fierce fighting between government troops and Muslim separatists destroyed their villages.

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Four people have been killed in flooding and landslides in Laos, where the Mekong river has hit its highest level in at least 100 years after several months of unusually heavy rain, officials said on Friday.

SEOUL (Reuters) - President Lee Myung-bak, stung by months of protest against his brief rule, marked South Korea's 60th anniversary on Friday with a call for a fresh start and a warning to demonstrators who have hobbled his plans for change.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan marked the 63rd anniversary of its surrender in World War Two on Friday, but Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda was expected to avoid visiting a shrine for war dead seen by Asian neighbors as a symbol of Tokyo's past militarism.

BUCHAREST (Reuters) - The school priest wanted to convert Andrei to Romania's Orthodox Christianity, because his school could not hire a teacher for religion classes for the 12-year-old Adventist.

SARAJEVO (Reuters) - The narrow tunnel that ran beneath Sarajevo airport was people's only escape route during the longest siege in modern history, a symbol of a brutal war that split families and pitted neighbors against each other.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Stepped-up international pressure and sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program are hurting its economy, making trade financing and payments difficult and discouraging foreign investment, according to an IMF report published on Thursday.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan marked the anniversary of its surrender in World War Two on Friday, but Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda was expected to avoid visiting a shrine for war dead seen by Asian neighbors as a symbol of Tokyo's past militarism.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf will resign rather than face impeachment by parliament, the Financial Times said on its Web site, citing government officials and a member of his circle.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India rolled out a security clampdown on Friday ahead of annual Independence Day celebrations following recent bomb attacks on some of its cities and violent protests in its northern region of Kashmir.

LONDON (Reuters) - Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf will resign rather than face impeachment by parliament, the Financial Times said on its website on Thursday, citing government officials and a member of his circle.

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) - Hooded gunmen dressed in black burst into a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center in northern Mexico, dragged patients out of a prayer session and shot them dead in an attack that killed eight people.

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - Police shot dead a Muslim protester as huge crowds shouting "we want freedom" took to the streets of Kashmir on Thursday over a land row that is testing New Delhi's hold on the troubled Himalayan region.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. court will take the unusual step of rehearing a lawsuit it earlier rejected from a Canadian who claims the U.S. government sent him illegally to Syria where he was tortured for a year, lawyers said on Thursday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A female suicide bomber killed 19 people, mostly women, and wounded 75 on Thursday when she detonated an explosive vest in a crowd of pilgrims being escorted by police to a shrine south of Baghdad, police said.