? BAGHDAD. Seven Iraqis killed in market blast. At least seven people, including three policemen, were killed and 13 others wounded yesterday when an explosion ripped through a crowded market in Baghdad. Witnesses and hospital sources said some of the dead were blown to pieces in the blast at the Bayaa neighbourhood. A Reuters photographer at the scene saw body parts and human flesh on walls near the blast site. US soldiers cordoned off the area as ambulances rushed the casualties to a nearby hospital. A US convoy had passed nearby shortly before the explosion. A suicide car bombing at the entrance of the headquarters of the US-led administration last week killed five Iraqi civilian and one US soldier.

? AFGHANISTAN. Two foreigners stoned to death. Two foreign nationals, one of them Swiss, have been stoned to death in Kaboul, a government official said yesterday. Bodies of the men were discovered in Baghe Chilstone, an ancient garden not far from the city?s centre, Interior Ministry spokesman Lufullah Mashal, told Reuters. ?Locals showed the police the bodies and an investigation is going on as to who stoned these to death, and why,? Mashal said. ?One of them holds a Swiss passport and the nationality of the other is not known.?

? CHINA. Rare tornado kills two, injures 85 in south. A rare tornado carved a swathe of destruction through a southern Chinese district, killing two people, injuring 85 and destroying or damaging nearly 500 homes. The storm hit Qishi township in Guangdong province at around noon on Saturday. One woman died during the tornado and another person was electrocuted while trying to rescue someone buried in a collapsed home. Of those hurt, 52 had to be taken to hospital and 20 of them suffered serious injuries, Xinhua news agency said, citing a medical official. The ferocious winds picked up a car and tossed it 50 metres into a rice field. A total of 462 people were left homeless.