JAKARTA - MARTA Karouw was one of about 2,000 Indonesians who gathered in the city of Manado, on the northern tip of Indonesia's Sulawesi island, on Saturday morning to practice and prepare for the unthinkable - a huge tsunami.

The drill comes one day after the fourth anniversary of the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami that smashed coastal villages in parts of Asia on Dec 26, 2004, killing about 230,000 people.

ISLAMABAD (Pakistan) - PAKISTAN told India on Saturday it did not want war and was committed to fighting terrorism - a move apparently aimed at reducing tensions after Pakistan moved troops toward their shared border.

Intelligence officials said on Friday that the army was redeploying thousands of troops from the country's fight against militants along the Afghan border to the Indian frontier - an alarming scenario for the West as it tries to get Pakistan to neutralize the Al-Qaeda threat.

GAZA CITY - ISRAEL blitzed Hamas targets in Gaza on Saturday with a wave of air strikes that killed at least 155 people in the besieged enclave in retaliation for ongoing rocket fire, officials said.

An Israeli man died as Hamas swiftly responded to the air raids by firing rockets into the Jewish state.

HONG KONG - FLIGHTS into and out of Hong Kong were heavily disrupted on Saturday afternoon after more than 500 airport ground staff went on strike in protest at a cut in their annual bonus.

The three-hour strike resulted in major delays to the departure or baggage delivery of 83 flights until 6pm Saturday, a spokesman for the Airport Authority told AFP.