Afghanistan-air A Boeing 737 plane carrying 104 people has gone missing in Afghanistan after failing to arrive in the capital amid heavy winter snow storms, officials said. UN The head of the former UN oil-for-food programme in Iraq, Benon Sevan, received large payments of cash as well as allocations of Iraqi oil, an independent enquiry said. Vatican Pope John Paul II spent a third night in a Rome hospital amid indications that he may be on the mend fast enough to make a public address from his bed to Catholic seminary students on Saturday. Britain Seven British soldiers will face court martial over the murder of an Iraqi civilian in southern Iraq a month after dictator Saddam Hussein's fall in 2003, authorities said. Iraq Insurgent violence resurged with attacks and clashes that left at least 27 people dead after President George W. Bush said US troops would give Iraqi forces greater responsibility in countering rebels. Iran US President George W. Bush's attack on Iran as the world's primary sponsor of terror and his call for freedom for its people further enflamed tensions between Tehran and its arch-enemies in Washington. Georgia Zurab Zhvania, Georgia's widely respected prime minister seen as the driving force behind market-oriented economic reform in the restive Caucasus republic, died, apparently after breathing toxic fumes leaked by a faulty heater. Chechnya Chechen rebels called the first unilateral ceasefire of the five-year guerrilla war in Russia's war-torn republic but Chechnya's pro-Moscow leaders brushed the move off as a "bluff" while the Kremlin kept silent. Nepal Nepal's new government headed by King Gyanendra called on Maoist rebels to hold peace talks or risk "alternate steps," as the Himalayan nation entered its fourth day cut off from the outside world. Mideast Top Israeli ministers approved a pullback from five West Bank cities and the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners just days ahead of a landmark Middle East peace summit. Colombia Colombian President Alvaro Uribe was hospitalized Thursday with an ear infection which triggered stomach problems, forcing him to cancel a trip to Venezuela, the government said.