Islamabad - Pakistan's army said on Monday it had killed at least 10 Taliban militants in troubled Swat district, while one civilian also died in the offensive against insurgents.

The casualties came one day after 37 rebels reportedly died in shelling by helicopter gunships on their hideouts in the country's lawless tribal region.

The army launched a search-and-cordon operation in the Khwazakhela area of Swat valley Saturday night after an attack by heavily armed rebels on a check post, military spokesman major Murad Khan told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

It continued through Sunday and was completed early Monday, leaving 10 militants dead, he added.

Peshawar, Oct 13: The NWFP government is planning to increase economic activity through offering more government jobs in the province in a bid to curb the wave of Talibanisation, the ruling party the ANP (Awami National Party) has said.

In a statement, ANP working committee member Gul Mina Bilal said that the Taliban were “misguiding unemployed youths, who were joining their ranks”.

Islamabad - Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari warned that any breach of a river water-sharing treaty by India will be detrimental to the peace process between the nuclear-armed neighbours, media reports said on Monday.

The statement came two days after Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh inaugurated the controversial 450-megawatt Baglihar hydroelectric project over the Chenab River that flows from Indian-administered Kashmir into Pakistan.

Peshawar, Oct 13: Pakistani security forces claimed to have killed 27 Taliban, including 12 bombers, in an air-strike in the Orakzai Agency, here last evening.

The Frontier Corps (FC) described it as a “highly successful action”.

“In a highly successful action in Orakzai Agency, a combat aviation strike killed 27 Taliban,” a statement from the Frontier Corps (FC) headquarters said and added that those killed included two important Taliban commanders.

Credible sources confirmed that 12 persons among those killed were “would-be suicide bombers”, the Daily Times quoted the FC statement as saying.

Washington, Oct 11 : A new study has suggested that the collision between India and Asia set off events that likely caused long-term cooling in Earth''s climate.

According to a report in Science News, the study determines that when the tectonic plate carrying India slammed into Asia about 50 million years ago, the ensuing geological changes triggered a long-term cooling trend.

That trend later enabled Antarctic ice sheets to grow.

Before the collision, volcanoes along the rim of southern Asia spewed immense quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Budapest - NATO was expected to approve a controversial plan to help Afghanistan fight its thriving drugs industry, whose profits are used by the Taliban to fund the insurgency, diplomats said Friday.

"We are confident that a deal can be reached," a source close to the negotiations told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

On Thursday, Afghan Defence Minister Abdel Rahim Wardak asked his NATO colleagues meeting in Budapest to target drugs laboratories and seize imports of the chemicals that are needed to turn opium into heroin.

"We have asked NATO to support our efforts to destroy the laboratories and to interdict the chemical precursors which are coming from outside the country," Wardak said.