Lahore, Sept 29: Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has said that if Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden and his deputy Al Zawahiri were caught in his country, he might hand over the duo to the US for trial, but would do so only on the advise of “friends”.

“The two Al Qaeda leaders could also be handed over to the US to face trail if ‘friends advise’ Pakistan to do so,” the Daily Times quoted Zardarin as saying in an interview with the CNN.

Jakarta - Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said he would run for a second term in next year's presidential election, so that he could press on with economic and political reforms, media reports said Monday.

"God willing, I will run again for president in 2009," Yudhoyono was quoted as saying by the state-run Antara news agency. He said he wanted to be re-elected so that he could finish the reforms he started.

Minsk/Moscow - Parliamentary elections in Belarus were passing off peacefully Sunday.

By midday, one-third of the country's 7 million eligible voters had cast their ballots, Elections Supervisor Lidiya Yermoshina was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying from the capital Minsk.

The opposition has expressed fears that the polls would be fixed by the Belarusian leadership.

London - Britain's Conservatives were set to start their party conference Sunday, with party leader David Cameron and other top leaders focusing on the economy and mapping out how they would handle it differently than the Labour government.

In remarks before the meeting in Birmingham, Cameron promised he would set out an "alternative" to the government's economic policies and that he backed "short term" action to protect peoples' savings and give the Bank of England powers to rescue failing institutions.

Phnom Penh - Cambodia's Prince Norodom Ranariddh returned home Sunday from a self-imposed exile three days after a royal pardon was granted by his half-brother, King Norodom Sihamoni.

Ranariddh was convicted last year of embezzling 3.6 million dollars from his former political party, the royalist Funcinpec, through a private sale of the party headquarters.

His Funcinpec won the country's first democratic elections after 30 years of civil war in 1993, but was forced into a coalition with Prime Minister Hun Sen and ultimately ousted in what the government calls "factional fighting" in 1997.

He fled to Malaysia to avoid an 18-month prison term on the embezzlement charges which he claims were politically motivated.

Tokyo - Japan's new government was off to a bad start Sunday: just four days after starting work, Transport and Tourism Minister Nariaki Nakayama, 65, resigned because of controversial remarks he made, broadcaster NHK reported.

The same day he was elected prime minister by the Japanese parliament on Tuesday, Taro Aso named Nakayama to the post.

With his resignation, the conservative former education minister took full responsibility for a series of controversial remarks, the report said.

His missteps apparently included disparaging remarks about the country's largest teachers' union Nikkyoso, which he called a "cancerous tumour" that should be removed.