Russia Russia's FSB security service said that it has paid a 10-million-dollar reward for information that led to the killing of Chechen rebel chief Aslan Maskhadov last week. Kosovo A strong blast hit and damaged the car of Kosovo President Ibrahim Rugova in central Pristina, injuring one of his escorts. Lebanon Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is expected to hold talks in Damascus with his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad a day after 800,000 people took to the streets of Beirut to demand an end to the Syrian military presence. Mideast An Israeli pullback from the West Bank city of Jericho and the surrounding area is to begin and is to be carried out in stages over the next four weeks. China China's new anti-secession law heightens fears of war, Taiwan Premier Frank Hsieh said as the United States and the European Union voiced concern over escalating tensions in the region. North Korea North Korea said it would strengthen its atomic arsenal in an angry response to upcoming joint US-South Korean military exercises which the communist state denounced as nuclear war games. India US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice started a six-nation Asian tour in New Delhi, where her talks were expected to be dominated by the peace process between India and Pakistan. Philippines Twenty-three people including three top leaders of an Al-Qaeda-linked Islamic group were killed when Philippine police stormed a maximum security prison to end a day-old revolt. Iraq A car bomb exploded near the health ministry and a Sunni mosque in Baghdad wounding at least four people while a US marine was killed in action in the west of the country. Indonesia Indonesia's navy has deployed three ships to seek the release of five hostages -- two Japanese, one Filipino and two Indonesians -- kidnapped from two ships by armed pirates in the Malacca Strait which carries a third of world trade.