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Two people have been killed and tens more wounded after the powerful Typhoon Melor struck the Japanese island of Honshu on Thursday. Melor is the first tropical cyclone to strike Japan in two years. The typhoon, with winds of up to 200 kilometres per hour (120 mph) made landfall early on Tuesday. Some train services and airplane flights had to be cancelled due to inclement weather. Electricity was cut off to 40,000 or so homes and 11,000 people were evacuated to emergency shelters, the national Fire and Disaster Management Agency reported. Bo

Large clashes erupted in Istanbul, Turkey on Tuesday between protesters and security forces, near the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. The protests came as the head of the IMF warned policymakers from 186 countries of social upheaval as the world economic crisis continues. Demonstrators — chanting against the World Bank and IMF — marched to Taksim Square, in the heart of Istanbul. The protests drew several thousand people — mostly leftists, anti-globalisation groups, liberal democrats and trade unio

Two and a half million people have been displaced and over 250 people were killed following the heaviest flooding to hit southern India in a hundred years. Karnataka was the state most heavily affected by the floods. R.V. Jagdish, a government spokesman, said that 172 deaths from the rains in the state were reported, and fifty thousand people are living in relief camps. The neighbouring state of Andhra Pradesh reported at least fifty flood-related deaths. 1.5 million people residing in 100 relief camps across that state, chief minister K. Rosa

Astronomers have found a huge new ring around the planet Saturn. The faint dust ring extends up to 7.4 million miles (12 million km) from the planet and could fit over a billion Earths inside it, making it the largest in the Solar System. It could also solve a mystery about one of Saturn's moons that has puzzled scientists for centuries. The ring was found with the help of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, with details published today in the journal Nature. It is thought to consist of ice and dust from Saturn's moon Phoebe, which is kicked up by

George Papandreou, the new Greek prime minister, and his cabinet were sworn into office on Tuesday, after winning general elections held on Sunday. Papandreou, whose socialist PASOK party won the snap general elections, will also be foreign minister, a post he held from 1999 to 2004 in the cabinet of then Prime Minister Costas Simitis. A new position — deputy prime minister — has been introduced, going to Theodoros Pangalos, who served as foreign minister between 1996 and 1999. Louka Katseli will be economy minister. She was special economy

Italy's Constitutional Court has overturned a law that granted Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi immunity from being prosecuted. There are at least three court cases that can now proceed against him, including a corruption trial. There had been speculation in the media that Berlusconi would resign if the law was struck down, but a spokesman said "Berlusconi, the government and the majority will continue to govern." The spokesman went on to call the decision "a political verdict," and Berlusconi has commented he expected the result because of le

More than forty people were injured and four were killed in Thailand following attacks in the country's south. Suspected insurgents blew up a car bomb, weighing 30 to 50 kilograms, on Tuesday at a hotel in Sungai Kolok, a small city in the Narithiwat province. They also threw grenades and opened gunfire on two restaurants in the vicinity. "The bomb was hidden in the passenger car and detonated by radio signal," said Colonel Parinya Chaidilok, an army spokesman. He added that the car the bomb was hidden in had a false licence plate and manage

According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck the Vanuatu region in the Pacific Ocean on Wednesday. The quake was followed by a large aftershock with a magnitude of 7.3. So far there are no reports of damage or injuries. Both of the quakes' epicenters were centered roughly 373 kilometres northwest of the Vanuatu city of Santu, at a depth of 33 kilometres. Vanuatu was placed under a tsunami warning after the earthquake started, however, it has since been removed, as the tremors managed to produce o

With the United States Australian rules football National Championship this weekend, Wikinews interviewed United States Australian Football League (USFooty) president Rich Mann, and Media Relations representative Kevin Smith. The USAFL Nationals will feature teams from the United States and Canada. A 50/50 rule is being implemented for the tournament. This means that an American team can have no more than nine players who aren't Americans and a Canadian team no more than nine non-Canadians. Australian rules football is played on a field 170 m

The 2009 Annual Meetings of the Boards of Governors of the World Bank Group and the IMF will be held in Istanbul, Turkey on October 6–7, 2009. The IMF and World Bank annual meetings which is held in every October with participation of finance ministers, central bankers, and other top economists of 186 member countries. These meetings are held outside Washington, D.C. in every three years. Turkey will host the meetings for a second time. It was the host country for the meetings in 1955. “All eyes will be on Istanbul,” said Murilo Portugal, De

A suspected suicide bomb blast hit the offices of the United Nations' World Food Program in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, on Monday, killing three people, including at least one foreigner. Several people were also wounded. Security officials blocked off the building in a high security zone in Islamabad, as teams with sniffer dogs entered the complex to check for more explosives. Pakistani authorities said that they strengthened security in the capital following the attack. Speaking to the Voice of America news agency by telephone shortly aft

Ugandan authorities have extradited one of the most wanted suspects from the 1994 genocide in Rwanda to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. The suspect was captured Monday in Kampala following a tip-off. The fugitive, Idelphose Nizeyimana, was flown on a chartered plane early Tuesday to Arusha, Tanzania, where the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), has its headquarters. Nizeyimana was one of the men on the tribunal's most-wanted list, accused of helping ethnic Hutus organise the mass murder of ethnic Tutsis an