GENEVA, July 20: The United Nations refugee agency appealed to all sides in Syria on Friday to provide safe passage for 140,000 civilians displaced by fighting in the southwest so that they can receive aid and shelter.

BEIJING, August 10: Chinese monitors say they've detected multiple landslides but no major building collapses following a powerful earthquake in the country's mountainous southwest that killed at least 20 people and injured 431.

QUETTA, Pakistan, June 23: A suicide car bomber struck near the office of the provincial police chief in southwestern Pakistan on Friday, killing at least 11 people and wounding 20, officials said. A breakaway Taliban faction later claimed responsibility for the attack.