PAKISTAN: A powerful car bomb accidentally went off in a house in a former stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban in the restive north-west today, killing at least two children and five suspected militants, police said.

The explosion took place before dawn in the city of Mir Ali in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province when a militant, identified as commander Rasool Jan, was fitting a bomb in a car at his house, said Irfan Khan, a local police official.

SOUTH AFRICA:  South Africa’s government said today it will not help about 4,000 illegal miners inside a closed mine in the country’s north-west province who have been denied access to basic supplies as part of an official strategy against illegal mining.