Tokyo - Asia-Pacific stocks on Thursday mirrored the overnight plunges on Wall Street as credit dried up and fears rose that more financial companies would fail.

The biggest drops in the region were seen in Hong Kong, whose benchmark Hang Seng Index fell as much as 7.38 per cent before recovering; the Philippines at 4.25 per cent; and Thailand, which regained some ground after suffering losses of more than 5 per cent during the trading day.

Paris - The first EU-Central Asia Forum on security issues opened Thursday in Paris.

The forum has brought together ministers from the 27 EU member nations, the Central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan and EU member candidate nations, such as Turkey, Croatia and Macedonia.

Representatives from Russia, China and Japan are also taking part. Afghanistan is attending as an observer country because of its geographical proximity and the problems it shares with regional neighbours.

Discussions at the one-day meeting will focus on three main issues: the threat of terrorism, the fight against human and drug trafficking, and energy and environmental security.

Lakhtar (Gujarat), Sept 18: Twenty villages were submerged after heavy rains created havoc in Gujarat's Surendranagar District.

At least 2800 people were moved to safer places after the region continued to receive heavy rainfall for the second consecutive day.

Surendranagar-Ahmedabad highway too was closed.

People of the villages, who are camping in the municipal schools, complained that they are receiving no help from the government.

Washington, Sept 18: Pakistan's efforts to scuttle India’s bid to get a permanent seat in an expanded UN Security Council reportedly suffered a serious setback when the UN General Assembly recently decided to conduct ‘inter-governmental negotiations’ on reforming the Security Council, instead of leaving the matter to the Open-ended Working Group.

In the Working Group, Pakistan, Italy and Argentina have been effectively blocking the induction of any new permanent members since 2005, when India, Brazil, Germany and Japan made an official bid for permanent membership of the UN.

Landi Kotal (Pakistan), Sept 18: The Pakistan unit of Taliban, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has reportedly killed an Afghan national who, according to them, used to spy on them for the United States forces in Afghanistan.

The Afghan national who was killed in Khyber Agency was identified as one Zainullah, the Daily Times reported.

After killing him, the Taliban dumped his body near the Government Degree College in Landi Kotal.

A native of the Afghan province of Nangarhar, Zainullah had been living in Malagori area of Jamrud tehsil, the Daily Times reported.

New Delhi, Sept 18: The 12th round of the China-India border talks to resolve their decades-old border dispute issue will commence in Beijing from today.

The Indian delegation will be lead by National Security Adviser M K Narayanan while State Counsellor Dai Bingguo will head the Chinese delegation.

This is the 12th round of boundary negotiations between the two sides since they appointed Special Representatives in 2003 to resolve the decades-old issue from a political perspective after the diplomatic parleys failed to yield results.