Bulgaria's new conservative government may broaden its role in Afghanistan to include participation in the European Union's police training mission, Defence Minister Nikolay Mladenov said Monday. Speaking at a security conference in Sofia, Mladenov said although Bulgaria's defence budget for 2010 has been decreased to 1.44 per cent of gross domestic product, the country would continue to finance its foreign missions.

On Saturday, the Navy's newest warship, The New York, a $1 Billion manufacture which incorporates 7.5 tons of steel from the World Trade Center, was commissioned. The ceremony was an emotional one for the country and the ship is being viewed as a symbol of fortitude.

An explosion ripped through a restaurant in Pakistan's troubled North-West Frontier Province on Friday, killing at least five people and wounding dozens of others, police said.

The powerful explosion took place at a roadside restaurant on the outskirts of the garrison town of Kohat, 60 kilometres south of the provincial capital, Peshawar.

German Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung said Wednesday that he was confident that the troubled Airbus A400M military transport plane project could be saved, despite repeated cost overruns and production delays.

Four US soldiers were killed in a roadside bombing in eastern Afghanistan, a military spokeswoman said Tuesday.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Kabul had said in a statement that four of its soldiers were killed in the blast on Monday, but did not reveal their nationalities.

Somali authorities have opened negotiations with the abductors of two French government advisors abducted Tuesday in Mogadishu, Defence Minister Mohamed Abdi Gandhi said Wednesday.

The Iranian proposal which is supposed to be presented to world powers does not include anything on the nuclear dispute, official news agency IRNA reported Monday.

Up to 15 Taliban died and several were injured overnight in a US missile strike in Pakistan's tribal region and clashes with troops in the neighbouring south-western province of Balochistan, officials said Saturday.