Bushfires raged across Australia's most populous state Tuesday, fanned by intense heat and high winds in "catastrophic" conditions that have put thousands of firefighters on high alert.

President Barack Obama could announce former Republican senator Chuck Hagel as his pick for defense secretary as early as Monday, despite senior GOP figures raising questions over the seemingly imminent nomination.

A major 7.7-magnitude earthquake shook an area in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of the US state of Alaska early Saturday, triggering a potentially destructive local tsunami, the US government said.

Six Russian tourists were killed and two seriously injured on Friday when a snowmobile tipped over and plunged down a steep ski slope in the Italian Alps, rescue workers said.

Police formally charged five men Thursday with the gang-rape and murder of a 23-year-old student, a crime which appalled India and led to national soul-searching about the treatment of women.

Regime warplanes bombed the town of Moadamiyet al-Sham, southwest of the capital, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The country's four largest systemic lenders, who hold a key role in the recapitalization process, will need some 27.5 billion euros, according to BoG's report which includes data from an earlier audit on the Greek banking sector conducted by BlackRock. The report's release clears the way for share capital increase in Greek banks in coming weeks under the recapitalization plan endorsed by Greece's international lenders. The plan, which is backed by 50 billion euros from bailout rescue loans granted to Athens from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, aims to stabilize the banking sector in the framework of overall efforts to address the Greek debt crisis. The process which will cover losses accumulated from spring's restructuring of part of the Greek debt load owned by private investors, this December's voluntary bond buyback and in general from the three- year crisis, should be wrapped up by April 2013, according to the time table set. By late January the four top banks, namely National Bank of Greece, Alpha Bank, Eurobank and Piraeus Bank, are expected to get 6-7 billion euro European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) notes, which will raise to some 25 billion euros the total aid they will have received within a year. (1 euro= 1.32 U.S. dollars)

 Preah Vihear temple According to the Supreme Commander of the Royal Thai Army, General Tanasak Patimapakorn, the Thai-Cambodian Joint Working Group (JWG) has agreed to survey the provisional demilitarised zone (PDZ) around Preah Vihear temple and clear all landmines in the area by April of next year.

A military transport plane crashed in southern Kazakhstan on Tuesday, killing all 27 people on board, including the commander of the Central Asian nation's border guards, local media and the KNB security service said.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's condition has "improved slightly" after a cancer operation in Cuba, the information minister said on Monday, amid doubts over whether the former soldier is in good enough health to continue governing.

 Putin's trip, his first to India since he started a new Kremlin six-year term in May, is a chance to reaffirm Russia's interest in India, long a regional ally and now a partner in the BRICS group of emerging market nations. Russian President Vladimir Putin looks on during a joint news conference with European Council President Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso (unseen) following a European Union-Russia summit in Brussels December 21, 2012.

Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) won a landslide victory in the December 16 parliamentary election, meaning the Party’s President Shinzo Abe will become the country’s Prime Minister.