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ASTANA (Reuters) - Kazakhstan's president promised the West on Sunday his country would pursue democratic change before its chairmanship of Europe's main human rights watchdog in 2010.

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan will not be secure as long as insurgents are allowed to operate freely in sanctuaries on the Pakistan side of the border, a NATO spokesman said on Sunday.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's foreign minister said on Sunday he did not believe Israel was in a position to attack his country over its nuclear programme, while an Iranian general announced plans to prepare 320,000 graves for enemy soldiers.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Anti-G8 summit protesters danced to blaring music and marched down the streets of Tokyo in heavy rain on Sunday, accusing the Group of Eight rich nations of causing poverty and world instability.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The U.S. military faced Iraqi anger on Sunday over a raid near the holy Shi'ite city of Kerbala in which a distant relative of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was killed.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi officials have expressed outrage over a U.S. raid near the holy Shi'ite city of Kerbala, which they said should have been approved by local authorities since security for the area is under Iraqi control.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Rebels killed three policemen and three civilians in Russia's volatile province of Chechnya early on Sunday, Interfax news agency quoted police sources as saying.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert won his cabinet's approval on Sunday for a prisoner swap with Hezbollah under which two soldiers held by the Lebanese guerrilla group, and believed to be dead, would be recovered.

VILLAHERMOSA, Mexico (Reuters) - Guatemala's interior minister died when a helicopter crashed on Friday in bad weather north of the Guatemalan capital, officials said.

DUJIANGYAN, China (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, under pressure to raise human rights and Tibet with Chinese officials, emphasized friendship over friction during a visit to China on Sunday.

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysia's de facto opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim took refuge at the Turkish embassy on Sunday due to fears he could be assassinated after fresh accusations of sodomy.

LANDIKOTAL, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistani security forces have secured an area in the Khyber region, where a key supply route passes into Afghanistan, a day after launching an offensive to push back militants threatening Peshawar.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israel reopened three of its border crossings with the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Sunday following a halt to Palestinian cross-border shelling attacks that had strained an Egyptian-brokered truce, officials said.

ULAN BATOR (Reuters) - On horseback, foot and motorcycle, Mongolians cast their ballots on Sunday in a tight race that will see the election of a government tasked with fighting inflation and tapping into huge mineral wealth.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. congressional leaders agreed late last year to President George W. Bush's funding request for a major escalation of covert operations against Iran aimed at destabilizing its leadership, according to a report in The New Yorker magazine published online on Sunday.

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe will confront his critics at a summit of the African Union on Monday, fresh from victory in a one-candidate election which observers said was scarred by violence and intimidation.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Thousands of rioters torched police and government office buildings in southwest China on Saturday, in unrest triggered by allegations of a cover-up over a girl's death, residents and state media reported on Sunday.

NIAMEY (Reuters) - A leader of Niger's Tuareg-led rebel movement was killed when government troops backed by helicopters captured a rebel position in the north of the West African state, a government army officer said on Saturday.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Rioters torched a police building and vehicles in southwest China on Saturday, in unrest triggered by allegations of a cover-up over a girl's death, according to Chinese accounts on the Internet.

ROME (Reuters) - Italy said on Saturday it had expelled 38 Egyptians as part of a crackdown ordered by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's government on illegal immigration.