A massive earthquake off the coast of Sumatra has prompted countries around the Indian Ocean to issue tsunami alerts. It was not yet clear whether the quake had generated a tsunami.

Rescuers have recovered a number of bodies after an avalanche hit a Pakistani army base in the disputed Kashmir region, burying up to 150 soldiers.

Helicopters, sniffer dogs and troops have been deployed to the remote Siachen Glacier on the Indian border in the Himalayas, according to the Pakistan army spokesman Major General Athar Abbas.

(Reuters) - A gunman opened fire at a Christian college in California on Monday, killing at least seven people and wounding three after telling former classmates: "Get in line and I'm going to kill you all."

Police said the suspect, a 43-year-old Korean-American, surrendered at a Safeway grocery store several miles away from the scene at Oikos University in Oakland after the deadliest U.S. school shooting in five years.

A Russian banker is in a coma after being shot several times as he walked into his London home in the shadow of Canary Wharf.

German Gorbuntsov, who is in his 40s, was targeted outside his apartment on Tuesday evening by a gunman dressed in black who fired several shots before sprinting away, it has emerged . He is understood to have passed information earlier this year to the Russian police about the attempted murder of another financier in Moscow in 2009.

(Reuters) - A gunman suspected of killing three children and a rabbi at a Jewish school wounded three police officers in a shoot-out at a house in Toulouse in southwestern France on Wednesday and said he was a member of al Qaeda.

Interior Minister Claude Gueant said the man targeted in the raid was a 24-year-old man who had visited Afghanistan and Pakistan, and had shot dead the four out of revenge for France's military involvement abroad. He is also suspected by authorities of having killed three soldiers of North African origin last week.

A bus carrying Belgian tourists has crashed into the wall of a tunnel in the Valais region of Switzerland, killing 28 people, 22 of them children, police said.

The bus, transporting 52 people, mostly schoolchildren from Lommel and Heverlee in Flanders, crashed on Tuesday night in the canton of Valais, which borders Italy, police said.

(Reuters) - Sixteen Afghan civilians, including nine children, were shot dead in what witnesses described as a nighttime massacre on Sunday near a U.S. base in southern Afghanistan, and one U.S. soldier was in custody.

While U.S. officials rushed to draw a line between the rogue shooting and the ongoing efforts of a U.S. force of around 90,000, the incident is sure to further inflame Afghan anger triggered when U.S. soldiers burned copies of the Koran at a NATO base.