WORLD briefs

TBILISI/MOSCOW.U.S. Vice President Joe Biden pledged Thursday Washington's full support for Georgia a year after its war with Russia and urged Moscow to abide by a ceasefire pact and pull its troops back from two rebel regions.

Biden called on the world not to follow Russia in recognizing the rebel regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states, but told the Georgian parliament in a speech that there was no military option for winning them back.

ISLAMABAD. One of Osama bin Laden's sons was probably killed by a U.S. missile strike in Pakistan earlier this year, U.S. National Public Radio reported, citing U.S. intelligence sources.

A U.S. counter-intelligence official said it was "80 to 85 percent" certain that Sa'ad bin Laden, who was in his twenties, had been killed.

The official said the son of the al Qaeda leader was not a major figure, and would not have been important enough to target but "was in the wrong place at the wrong time."

PHUKET, Thailand. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Thursday that North Korea had "no friends left" to defend it from nuclear sanctions, triggering vitriolic defiance from the Stalinist regime.

Pyongyang hurled invective at "schoolgirl" Clinton and declared disarmament talks dead, as she told Asia's largest security forum that international efforts to squeeze the North over its atomic programme were paying off.

JERUSALEM. Tests of a missile-defense system meant to shield Israel from Iranian attack were aborted over the past week on three occasions because of various malfunctions, Israeli defense officials said Thursday.

In the latest case, an upgraded version of the Arrow II — a system being developed by state-run Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd. and Chicago-based Boeing Co. — was tested off the coast of California on Wednesday, they said.

BEIJING. A landslide triggered by heavy rain hit a county in southwestern China's Sichuan province early Thursday, killing at least four people and leaving 50 others missing, state media said.

The dead were employees of an engineering company who were working on a project in Sichuan's Kangding county.