At least five people were killed on Sunday in an explosion in central Saada, a town in northwest Yemen at the focus of a Shiite revolt, a witness said.

Video filmed during the rescue shows the hostages filing grim-faced toward the helicopter in a grassy clearing fringed with a coca field, then embracing and weeping with joy after they are aloft and realise they are free.

Mongolia Saturday was set to lift a state of emergency imposed after deadly election riots engulfed the capital Ulan Bator, but residents feared renewed violence.

Activists from around the world were gathering in Japan for a major protest ahead of next week's summit of the G8 nations.

A four-day state of emergency in Mongolia ended after violent election riots last week left five people dead, 300 injured.

Gunmen killed parliament member Habibullah Jan after he visited an Afghan army compound in Zhari district of Kandahar province.

Several thousand opposition supporters rallied in the Armenian capital Yerevan to call for a series of anti-government protests.

Rescue crews recovered 29 bodies from a raging, rain-fed river that swept a bus carrying members of an evangelical church off a bridge in San Salvador.