Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad flew into Kabul on Wednesday for summit talks on a visit overlapping with US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who was in Afghanistan to review a US troop surge.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai's office confirmed Ahmadinejad's arrival as Gates toured a training centre for Afghan army officers and non-commissioned officers at Camp Blackhorse outside the Afghan capital.

"They will discuss bilateral relations between the two countries and expansion of economic relations between the two countries," Karzai spokesman Siamak Hirawi told AFP.

The biggest German power company, E.ON, said Wednesday it had produced a stable 2009 net profit of 5.33 billion euros (7.25 billion dollars).

E.ON, which is based in Duesseldorf, western Germany, also said adjusted core earnings before interest and tax was off by 2.3 percent at 9.6 billion euros, on sales that lost six percent to just below 82 billion euros.

For 2010, the group cited uncertainty similar to that which prevailed last year, but forecast that core earnings would gain up to three percent and that net income would again "be in line with the prior year."

A new play has shocked audiences in the Gaza Strip by shouting out what many in the Hamas-ruled territory mutter behind closed doors -- that Palestinian politicians are a bunch of crooks.

The biting comedy entitled "Umbilical Cord" goes after the Islamist Hamas and its secular Fatah rivals, accusing them of ignoring the suffering of their people and selling out to Iran and the United States, respectively.

China said Wednesday its exports soared for the third straight month in February and at their fastest pace in three years, which analysts said could leave Beijing more open to a stronger yuan.

Overseas shipments grew 45.7 percent on-year last month to 94.5 billion dollars, the customs bureau said, cementing a turnaround that began in December when a year-long decline ended.

China's export data is closely watched for clues to the state of the world's third-largest economy and for signs of recovery in crisis-hit markets such as the United States and Europe.

Residents of an area where hundreds were massacred at the weekend near Nigeria's city of Jos returned home early Wednesday having fled overnight gunfire, a witness said.

Speaking on the phone from her house in Bukka Uku, about four kilometres (three miles) south of Jos, Josephine Emmanuel said she and other villagers had taken cover in police barracks late Tuesday night after hearing gunfire.

Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi faces expulsion from her own party and is barred from standing in polls this year under the military junta's new election laws, a spokesman said Wednesday.

In a move that sparked outrage from rights activists, the regime said in the new political parties registration act published on Wednesday that anyone serving a prison term cannot be a party member for the polls.

They plan to become doctors, researchers and professors, but these students from Liberty University, an evangelical school, also believe God created the Earth in a week, some 6,000 years ago.

Each year, a group of biology students at the Christian university based in Lynchburg, Virginia, travels to the Natural History Museum in Washington to learn about a theory they dismiss as incorrect -- Darwin's theory of evolution.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in Kabul on Wednesday to hold talks with his Afghan counterpart, a spokesman in President Hamid Karzai's office said.

GM Daewoo, the South Korean unit of struggling US auto giant General Motors, said Wednesday it intends to return to profit this year and currently needs no further financial support from creditors.

"In 2010, GM Daewoo will be profitable. That is my target," CEO Mike Arcamone told journalists, outlining plans for more aggressive marketing and new model launches.

"We are looking at double-digit growth this year...and 2010 will be a turning point for GM Daewoo."

Indonesia's leader Wednesday confirmed that a suspected Bali bombing mastermind was killed in a Jakarta raid and vowed to keep hunting extremists in a landmark address to Australia's parliament.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said Dulmatin, an Al-Qaeda trained bomb specialist with a 10 million US dollar bounty on his head from Washington, was killed by police in a major blow to Indonesia's Islamic militants.