THE Iraqi cabinet has approved a plan to offer rewards of up to $US85,000 ($93,892) for tip-offs about car bombs, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said overnight, a day after a new wave of bombings.

A BRITISH court has jailed two young men for setting fire to a stranger's beard as he slept on a train.

ASTRONOMERS have discovered a new Earth-like planet that is larger than our own and may be more than half covered with water, according to a study published today in the science journal Nature.

THE hat and shoes worn by Michael Jackson in a landmark 2001 performance in New York have sold at auction in London for STG22,800 ($40,945), auctioneers Bonhams said.

SILVIO Berlusconi must stay in hospital another night following a bloody weekend attack, his doctor says, after police revealed that an intruder was arrested trying to visit the Italian leader in a new security scare.

POLICE battled demonstrators outside the UN climate summit today as leaders of developing nations let rip at wealthy counterparts, exposing the huge obstacles facing a deal to tame global warming.

TIME magazine named Ben Bernanke its 2009 Person of the Year today, crediting the Federal Reserve Bank chairman with helping guide the United States through financial turmoil.

Britain may have had "second thoughts" about the Iraq invasion had the scale of violence been foreseen, the Iraq inquiry hears.

THE Egyptian Museum has received five stolen ancient fresco pieces that France's Louvre Museum returned under the threat of a boycott, Egypt's antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said today.

Lib Dem Jeremy Browne becomes the first MP to say he will appeal against a request to repay excessive expenses claims.

IRAN overnight test-fired what it said was a faster version of a medium-range missile which could allow it to strike Israel, drawing international censure and warnings of "serious" fallout.

A Brazilian toddler has up to 50 sewing needles inside him, which doctors suspect were deliberately inserted.

Scientists find an ancient burial shroud in Jerusalem which they say is very different from the controversial Turin Shroud.

Jacques Kallis hits a majestic unbeaten 112 as South Africa, put in by England, make an imposing 262-4 on day one of the first Test.

People watching: Photographers at work on the street

Three people are seriously hurt and another 12 injured when a lorry carrying steel girders collides with a double-decker bus.

A 16-year-old boy is found guilty of murdering a man who was hacked to death in front of his daughter and pregnant wife.

A Guinean soldier on the run from the authorities admits for the first time that he shot the country's military ruler.

Nato's secretary general asks Russia to provide helicopters for the Afghan war on his first official trip to Moscow.

Pakistan's top court invalidates an amnesty on corruption, opening the way for allies of the president to be prosecuted.