Pakistan's Supreme Court decided on Thursday to charge the country's prime minister with contempt for his failure to reopen an old corruption case against the president, a move that could oust the premier from office and land him in prison if he is convicted.

UN experts endorsed tests designed to show Japanese nuclear plants could withstand a repeat of last year's earthquake and tsunami on Tuesday, with the government keen for public acceptance to restart reactors and avoid a summer power crunch.

China has made a solemn representation to the Japanese government over Tokyo's preliminary decision on Sunday to name four uninhabited islets adjacent to the Diaoyu Islands, Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said on Monday.

The doors to negotiation within the framework of the Arab League have not been entirely shut for crisis-torn Damascus, despite a recent decision by the league to suspend its monitoring mission inside Syria, analysts said. 

UN nuclear inspectors arrived in Iran on Sunday on a mission to clear up "all outstanding substantive issues" on suspected military aspects of Teheran's atomic work, on the day its lawmakers looked set to ban oil exports to Europe in revenge for new EU sanctions.