Peshawar - At least five security personnel and seven rebels were killed when Taliban rebels ambushed a troop convoy in Pakistan's restive Swat Valley, police said Wednesday.

The caravan of several vehicles of paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC) and police carrying supplies for the troops came under attack in Sarsinai area of sub-district Kabal Tuesday afternoon.

"Four FC soldiers and a policeman were martyred (killed) in the attack, while security forces killed seven militants in the clashes that lasted for several hours," said Swat police chief Dilawar Khan Bangash.

Washington, Oct 22 : Astronomers from the University of Florida (UF) and University of California-Santa Cruz have discovered the onset of a huge flow of gas from a quasar, or the super-bright core of an extremely remote young galaxy still being formed.

The gas was expelled from the quasar and its enormous black hole sometime in the space of four years around 10 billion years ago – an extremely brief and ancient blip noticed by the unlikely convergence of two separate observational efforts.

“It was completely serendipitous,” said Fred Hamann, a UF astronomy professor. “In fact, the only way it could have happened is through serendipity,” he added.

Kathmandu, Oct 22: Nepal’s Commerce Secretary Purushottam Ojha has said that both Nepal and India have agreed to amend the bilateral trade treaty within three months.

Talking to media after the meeting in Delhi on Tuesday, Ojha said the parties had agreed on the clauses to be amended in the existing bilateral trade treaty.

He further said the meeting to work out the amendments would be held in Kathmandu. The treaty has been renewed twice since it was signed in 1996.

The two countries have been discussing the amendments for the last two years.

Taipei - A senior Chinese official cut short his Taiwan visit and returned to China Wednesday, after he was shoved to the ground by pro-independence activists during a visit to a temple the previous day.

"I feel bad that police have to deploy so much manpower to protect my safety and I don't think I should cause them so much trouble, but the public will tell right from wrong," said Zhang Mingqing, vice chairman of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS), at the airport.

Washington, Oct. 22: A new study from North Carolina State University shows that there are definite limits on the government's use of the "war on terror" as a rhetorical tool for advancing federal land-use projects and other policy objectives.

"The government can no longer rely solely on the ''war on terrorism'' and ''national security'' as arguments to maintain a crisis situation where local people willingly sacrifice protection of their ''homeland''," claims the study’s author, Dr. Kenneth S. Zagacki.

New Delhi, Oct.