New Delhi - At least 23 passengers were killed and 33 injured Saturday when a bus plunged into a gorge in India's western Maharashtra state.

The government-run bus was negotiating a steep curve and fell into a 31-metre gorge in the Raigad district district, 150 kilometres south-west of state capital Mumbai, police told the IANS news agency.

Many of the passengers succumbed to their injuries on the spot, while 20 injured were moved to a hospital in Mumbai.

Kabul - Four Afghan security forces and 30 Taliban fighters including a female militant were killed in the latest series of clashes and attacks in Afghanistan, officials said Saturday.

Two Afghan soldiers were killed and two were wounded when their vehicle was blown up by a roadside bomb blast in the Yakhchal area of Gerishk district in southern Helmand province on Friday, the Afghan defence ministry said in a statement.

Guwahati, Nov 1 : The Centre has assured its full cooperation to the Assam Government on Saturday in finding and punishing the perpetrators of the serial blasts in the state.

Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil, who visited the blast sites at Kokrajhar and Barpeta District of the state, said both the Centre and the state government would ensure that such incidents do not recur.

He also visited Barpeta civil hospital to inquire about the well being of the injured in the blasts and spoke to senior police officials as well.

New Delhi - Police in India's north-eastern state of Assam have arrested three men and are investigating whether separatist militants received support from terrorist groups to carry out multiple bombings that claimed 81 lives, news reports said Saturday.

Among those arrested overnight were a man whose car was used in one of Thursday's bombings in the state's capital city of Guwahati, the IANS news agency reported quoting the state's senior police official Bhaskar Jyoti Mahanta.

Another arrested man's motorcycle was used in a bombing in the western Bongaigaon district.

Washington  -
Democratic party presidential candidate Barack Obama
is increasing his lead over Republican rival John McCain as the US presidential election campaign enters its final phase, according to a poll published Saturday by the Washington Post.

It said 53 per cent of the electorate would vote for Obama, compared to 44 per cent for McCain. Obama also led in several key states seen as decisive in next Tuesday's election.

McCain campaign manager Rick Davis predicted a "comeback" in the final days, as both sides ramped up their advertising and volunteer operations.

London - Deployment of British and other European troops might be necessary if diplomacy fails to stem the conflict in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, a senior British government official told the BBC Saturday.

"We have certainly got to have it as an option which is developed and on the table if we need it," Mark Malloch-Brown, Minister for Africa, told the BBC.

He said that if diplomacy fails, the first step should be the redeployment of United Nations troops already operating elsewhere in the Congo.