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PARIS (Reuters) - Vladimir Putin was treated like a president in Paris on his first visit to a Western capital as prime minister, reinforcing an impression that he still runs Russia even after leaving the Kremlin.

JALALABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A suicide car bomber killed one foreign soldier and wounded six other people, including three civilians, in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar on Saturday, the provincial governor said.

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysia's former premier Mahathir Mohamad on Saturday dismissed de facto opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim's claim that he can soon form a new government, easing worries about a change in rule that has unnerved markets.

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Defense ties between Pakistan and the United States will remain strong through the next administration despite tough talk from U.S. presidential candidates looking to review the relationship, a top Pakistan military official said on Saturday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Democratic Party panel rejected a proposal to seat all the delegates from Florida on Saturday, dealing a blow to U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

QUITO (Reuters) - A volcano in the Galapagos islands that spewed molten lava is not a threat to 100-year-old giant tortoises living around the crater, island officials said on Friday.

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - A Singapore man was jailed for three years after he faked his own death in a civil war shoot-out in Sri Lanka in 1987 to escape his creditors and claim S$331,341 ($243,600) in insurance money, a newspaper reported on Saturday.

TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - A Salvadoran passenger plane skidded off a rain-soaked runway on landing at Tegucigalpa airport in Honduras on Friday, killing five people and injuring 38 as it veered onto a road and smashed into cars and a building.

YOUXIAN, China (Reuters) - China has evacuated over 197,000 people from an area that risks flooding by landslide- blocked rivers near the epicenter of this month's earthquake in Sichuan province, Xinhua news agency said on Saturday.

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Washington will remain committed to Asia no matter who wins this year's U.S. presidential election, Defense Secretary Robert Gates told the region's decision makers on Saturday.

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thai police said on Saturday they would not break up an anti-government rally in Bangkok after an apparent reversal by Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej.

YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar must stop forcing cyclone survivors to return to their shattered homes where they face more misery or even death, rights groups said on Saturday, as a U.S. official accused the junta of being "deaf and dumb" to foreign aid pleas.

CONAKRY (Reuters) - Guinea began paying salary arrears to junior soldiers on Friday in an attempt to end a five-day bloody mutiny that had worsened instability in the world's top bauxite exporter.

GREAT FALLS, Montana (Reuters) - Democrat Barack Obama squabbled with Republican John McCain on Friday over the number of U.S. troops in Iraq in the latest disagreement between the two likely presidential nominees over the unpopular war.

MANAGUA (Reuters) - Alma, the first tropical storm of the hurricane season, lost its strength on Friday over Central America, sparing oil platforms in southern Mexico after slamming parts of the region with deadly winds and rain.

After five months of voting, 16 months of campaigning and more surprises, reversals and comebacks than any U.S. political race deserves, the grueling duel for the Democratic presidential nomination could be entering its final days.

REYKJAVIK, Iceland (Reuters) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice may have attended just four rock concerts in her life, but the rock band Kiss apparently thinks she is pretty cool.

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - A Canadian man stabbed to death a tenant in the basement of his suburban Calgary home on Tuesday evening, then went upstairs and killed his wife, two of his three young children and, finally, himself, Calgary police said on Friday.

QUITO (Reuters) - A volcano in the Galapagos islands spewed molten lava, threatening 100-year-old giant tortoises living around the crater, island officials said on Friday.

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - Haiti has been hit with a growing number of kidnappings this year as its government struggles to build a stable democracy in the impoverished Caribbean nation.