Asia A powerful earthquake of measuring up to 8.5 on the Richter scale hit Indonesia's tsunami-devasted Sumatra island, causing major panic and power blackouts. Mideast A majority of MPs in the Israeli parliament have voted against a bill calling for a referendum on the government's plans to pull out from the occupied Gaza Strip later this year. Kyrgyzstan Kyrgyzstan's deposed president Askar Akayev has accused post-revolutionary leaders of putting their Central Asian state on the road to ruin after parliament confirmed a former opposition figure was now in charge. Taiwan China welcomed the first ever delegation from Taiwan's largest opposition party, just days after a quarter of a million Taiwanese demonstrated against the military threat from the mainland. Iraq Gunmen shot dead an Iraqi police colonel in Baghdad while at least 13 other people, many of them security force personnel, were killed in violence around the country. Iraq Iraqi forces arrested over 90 suspected rebels in a raid on the insurgent stronghold of Salman Pak on the edge of Baghdad, the US military said in a statement. Zimbabwe Zimbabweans toiling under the "oppression" of long-serving President Robert Mugabe will know no peace until he dies, one of the country's most senior Roman Catholic clerics said. Angola The death toll after an outbreak of a deadly Ebola-like disease in Angola has climbed to 122, as the country turned to civilians and the military, saying it did not have enough doctors to fight the Marburg virus. Afghanistan A bomb exploded in the Afghan capital Kabul, injuring at least four people including two inside a passing Canadian diplomatic car, officials and sources said. India Indian Foreign Minister Natwar Singh accused the world's superpowers of turning a blind eye to nuclear commerce in South Asia, saying it was having an "adverse impact" on his country's security and on global peace. Japan Sony Computer Entertainment said it has been fined 90 million dollars and ordered to halt sales of its blockbuster PlayStation consoles in the United States due to an alleged patent infringement. NKorea North Korea said it was taking countermeasures to prevent the spread of deadly bird flu amid fears that an outbreak could wipe out the country's poultry industry. Russia The Russian cosmonaut and US astronaut manning the International Space Station made a four and a half hour space walk to fix <a href="http://www.rmf.fm" target="_blank">radio</a> antennae to the orbiter and manually launch a small science satellite, Russian ground control told AFP.