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KURIHARA, Japan (Reuters) - A powerful earthquake rocked rural northern Japan on Saturday, killing at least five people, injuring more than 200 and sparking landslides that sliced mountains, destroyed roads and left residents cut off.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan told China on Saturday it remained concerned about its ballooning defense expenditure, an official said, as the two countries sought to build military and other ties following a historic visit by Chinese President Hu Jintao last month.

HARARE (Reuters) - President Robert Mugabe vowed on Saturday that the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) would never rule Zimbabwe and that he was prepared to fight to keep them from taking power.

PARIS (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush said on Saturday he expected to reach a long-term security pact with Iraq despite Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki saying talks were deadlocked because of sovereignty concerns.

MADRID (Reuters) - Spanish police said on Saturday they had charged 20 people with exchanging child pornography online and arrested 14 others in a nationwide operation.

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Congolese police killed prisoners and looted homes in an excessively violent crackdown on a shadowy separatist sect this year in which at least 100 people died, U.N. investigators said in a report.

ZARAGOZA, Spain (Reuters) - Expo 2008, themed on the world's dwindling water resources, opened in the Spanish city of Zaragoza on Saturday, days after the riverside site narrowly escaped flooding.

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China's earthquake-hit Sichuan province will reopen some tourist services to the public from June 15, in a bid to revive its tourism industry, official media said on Saturday.

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Twenty-seven miners were killed and another seven remained trapped after an explosion in a Chinese coal mine, state media said on Saturday.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran again ruled out suspending sensitive nuclear work on Saturday, despite an offer by six world powers of trade and other benefits to try to coax it into stopping activities the West fears are aimed at making bombs.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan's former prime minister Nawaz Sharif stepped up his attack on President Pervez Musharraf on Saturday, suggesting he could be hanged while addressing thousands of protesters outside the presidency.

BOGOTA (Reuters) - A Colombian FARC rebel has offered to release French-Colombian hostage Ingrid Betancourt and other guerrilla captives in exchange for protection from extradition, President Alvaro Uribe said on Friday.

BOGOTA (Reuters) - A Colombian FARC rebel has offered to release French-Colombian hostage Ingrid Betancourt and other guerrilla captives in exchange for protection from extradition, President Alvaro Uribe said on Friday.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union states support upgrading relations with Israel but some want the move to be linked to progress on Middle East peace, EU diplomats said before talks with Israel on Monday.

JAMMU, India (Reuters) - Separatist rebels killed four Indian soldiers, including two senior officers, and their driver in an ambush in Indian Kashmir on Friday, an army official said.

GENEVA (Reuters) - China has improved the safety of its blood supply by drawing in more volunteer donors, some of whom will be awarded Olympics-inspired "medals for life," the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Friday.

BELGRADE (Reuters) - Serbia on Friday rejected a proposed European Union police mission for Kosovo and accused U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon of overreaching his powers in its former province.

NAZRAN, Russia (Reuters) - Several people were killed in one of the worst spates of violence for months in Russia's North Caucasus, officials said on Friday.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Several thousand protesters gathered outside Pakistan's parliament on Friday for the climax of a cross-country rally by lawyers and activists demanding the reinstatement of judges fired by President Pervez Musharraf.

BEIJING (Reuters) - A blast in a north China coal mine left 34 workers trapped underground on Friday, after rescuers lifted nine to safety, Xinhua news agency reported.