Newsmakers of the week: International

Lahore: President Asif Ali Zardari may pardon a Christian woman sentenced to death in Pakistan for allegedly committing blasphemy, amid growing outrage in the country and abroad.

Washington: Indira Gandhi, world's longest serving woman prime minister, has been ranked by the Time magazine as the 9th most powerful woman of the past century, a list that also includes Mother Teresa.

Abu Dhabi: President Pratibha Patil arrives in the UAE capital on the first leg of her visit to the Gulf country and Syria aimed at exploring ways to further expand trade and investment ties and enhance bilateral cooperation especially in the petroleum sector.

Washington: "Operation Hemorrhage," the latest al-Qaeda terror plot involving parcel bombs on cargo flights, cost just $ 4,200 and achieved its goal of putting a further drag on an already weakened US economy, claims an online magazine of the terrorist outfit.

Phnom Penh (Cambodia): Thousands of Cambodians celebrate a water festival on an island in a river in the capital stampeded leaving at least 190 people dead and the area littered with hundreds of injured.

Abu Dhabi: President Pratibha Patil launches a 24-hour helpline and counselling service dedicated to help Indian workers in distress in the UAE, which is home to one of the largest Indian expatriate communities.

Seoul: North Korea fires barrages of artillery onto a South Korean island near their disputed western border, setting buildings ablaze and killing at least one  marine after warning the South to halt military drills in the area, South Korean officials said.

Greymouth (New Zealand): All 29 men missing in a New Zealand coal mine die after a powerful second blast tears through the pit.

Incheon (South Korea): South Korea's troops are on high alert as their government exchange threats with rival North Korea following a frightening military skirmish that ratcheted tensions on the peninsula to new extremes.

Peshawar: Pakistani police claim that an Indian national arrested in Bannu district in the country's troubled northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province was a spy.

Toronto: Canada has begun talking to the families of the 329 victims of the Kanishka bombing about financial compensation as it tries bring to closure the 25-year-old terror case, the worst in country's history.

Colombo: With India seeking a "meaningful" devolution package for the minority Tamils, Sri Lanka assures it that the issue was not out of its radar as the two neighbours discussed resettlement of thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the post LTTE-era.

Yeonpyeong (South Korea): North Korea warns that US-South Korean plans for military manoeuvres put the peninsula on the brink of war, and appeared to launch its own artillery drills within earshot of an island it showers with a deadly barrage this week.