A group of 11 prominent charities is preparing a letter calling on the US to remove logos on American-funded assistance in Pakistan.

The letter, signed by charities including Save the Children, Oxfam, and World Vision says that such "branding" of aid jeopardises their neutrality.

They say that this is especially dangerous in a country with numerous anti-American militants.

The letter will be delivered later this week in Washington, officials say.

The eldest son of Kim Jong-il, North Korea's reclusive leader, has expressed opposition to hereditary transfer of power to a third generation of his family, just days after his brother has been chosen by their father as heir. But he wished his brother the best in his new career.

Kim Jong-nam's remarks come days after North Korea unveiled Kim Jong-un as successor to his father at a large military parade in Pyongyang, the country's capital.

"Personally, I am against third-generation dynastic succession," Kim Jong-nam said in an interview with Japan's TV Asahi on Sunday, the day before the parade where his brother took centre-stage and made his national and international debut.

The first man to be freed from the San Jose mine in northern Chile is expected to reach the surface later on Tuesday, Mining Minister Laurence Golborne says.

He said the rescue operation could begin in the "last quarter of the day" (from 2100 GMT), once final safety tests had been carried out.

A civilian cargo plane has crashed near the Afghan capital Kabul with at least seven crew on board, government officials say.

They say the aircraft was carrying supplies to Nato forces and had taken off from the US base at Bagram. It went down in mountains to the east of Kabul.

Police say the crash happened in a remote area and it could take rescuers several hours to reach the wreckage.

Nato planes are conducting a search and rescue mission

Eleven Egyptian officials including the head of the culture ministry's fine arts department were convicted of negligence and jailed for three years Tuesday, after a $50 million dollar Van Gogh painting was stolen in August from a Cairo museum.

Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, has met villagers of Masmut in eastern Laghman province in a bid to placate them over civilian deaths in a Nato raid last month.

Al Jazeera's Sue Turton, reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan, said that Karzai, along with senior government officials, offered the villagers condolences on Tuesday and vowed to invest in the region.

Locals had been angry over the raid on September 25, in which Nato said 30 Taliban fighters were killed. Villagers, however, say many of among the dead were civilians.

The villagers were also expecting General David Petraeus, the senior US general in Afghanistan, at the meeting.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Tuesday that the Palestinians' refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state raises concern that before reaching a peace deal, they would try to create autonomous Arab regions within Israel.

While meeting with Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb in Jerusalem, Lieberman also said that there is a possibility that the Palestinians may try to delegitimize Israel as a Jewish state.

GUATEMALA CITY, Oct 11, 2010 (IPS) - A high-level commission has been set up to look into appalling medical experiments carried out by U.S. researchers on hundreds of Guatemalans in the 1940s, and the government of this Central American country is debating alternative ways for the United States to make reparations. "These acts should be condemned and the case brought to trial," Amílcar Pop, an indigenous Guatemalan lawyer, told IPS. "We need to repudiate what happened and condemn the attitudes that made it possible. Humanity has evolved and these actions cannot be tolerated under any circumstances. What the United States did was a crime against humanity."

ACAN-EFE: The Central American countries agreed to file a complaint with the World Trade Organization (WTO) against the Dominican Republic for the high tariffs imposed on products in the region, an official source.

Colombia Reports: With 186 votes on the first ballot, Colombian joined the U.N. body for the 2011-2012 term representing Latin American and the Caribbean.  Colombia's ambition to sit on the Security Council for the sixth time in the country's history was opposed by Bolivia, which said that Colombia's presence on the Security Council would expand the power of the United States, a permanent member of the council. Bolivia was one of five countries that abstained from voting. Venezuela voted in favor of Colombia earning the seat.

Colombia Reports: The Accusation Commission of the Colombian House of Representatives has opened a preliminary investigation into former President Alvaro Uribe's involvement in the illegal wiretapping of government critics.

Argentina, BUENOS AIRES - Argentina will present to the United Nations a copy of the formal protest Buenos Aires conveyed to the British government over London's plans to hold military exercises in the disputed Falkland Islands, Ambassador Jorge Argüello said Monday.

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras - Hurricane Paula smashed homes and forced schools to close in Honduras on Tuesday as it headed toward Mexico's resort-dotted Yucatan Peninsula.

SAN DIEGO (AP) -- A federal judge issued a worldwide injunction Tuesday immediately stopping enforcement of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, suspending the 17-year-old ban on openly gay U.S. troops.

U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips' landmark ruling also ordered the government to suspend and discontinue all pending discharge proceedings and investigations under the policy.

U.S. Department of Justice attorneys have 60 days to appeal. Pentagon and Department of Justice officials said they are reviewing the case and had no immediate comment.

The injunction goes into effect immediately, said Dan Woods, the attorney who represented the Log Cabin Republicans, the gay rights group that filed the lawsuit in 2004 to stop the ban's enforcement.

"Don't ask, don't tell, as of today at least, is done, and the government is going to have to do something now to resurrect it," Woods said. "This is an extremely significant, historic decision. Once and for all, this failed policy is stopped. Fortunately now we hope all Americans who wish to serve their country can."