PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) – A suicide bomber killed 16 people Thursday outside a courthouse in northwestern Pakistan, the latest attack in an onslaught by Islamist militants fighting back against an army offensive in the nearby Afghan border region. A doctor said 26 people were wounded in the blast in the main northwestern city of Peshawar.

Thursday's bombing was the sixth in less than two weeks in and around Peshawar; the attacks have killed more than 80 people. Police officers were searching a man at the gate of the city's lower court when he detonated explosives on his body, government official Sahibzada Anees said.

Several damaged motorbikes were strewn about the site, and firefighters sprayed water on a charred, smoking white car. Dr. Saib Gul said 16 bodies had been taken to the city's Lady Reading Hospital.

Russian president fires top aide for office abuse

MOSCOW (AFP) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has fired one of his top advisors for abuse of office in one of the biggest changes to his Kremlin administration since taking power, media reported on Thursday.

Mikhail Lesin, media advisor to Medvedev, “was relieved of his duties at his own request,” the Kremlin said in a statement posted in its website without giving further details. But a source in the presidential administration told the Interfax news agency that Lesin had departed his job due to “failure to observe the rules and ethical behavior of state service.” He had also used his “official position for solving questions not connected with official duties,” the source added. Since taking over from Vladimir Putin as president in May last year, Medvedev has repeatedly vowed to cut corruption in Russia and end abuses of power by officials.

However he has yet to make major changes to the administration he inherited from Putin and some analysts have criticized the president for not following his rhetoric with actions. Business daily Vedomosti said that the sacking has been initiated by Medvedev himself because Lesin's extensive business interests in the media had caused a conflict of interest.

Malaysia cops face ethnic Indian ire

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) – Activists renewed their demands Thursday for an investigation into the way Malaysian authorities treat Indian minorities following the death of a woman who committed suicide after police fatally shot her brother. R. Seetha died of multiple organ failure Wednesday, six days after she poisoned herself and her four children with weed killer.

The children survived. Seetha's family has said she became depressed after her brother and four other suspected robbers were killed by police during a car chase on Nov. 7. Ethnic Indian activists have long accused police – dominated by the ethnic Malay Muslim majority – of using excessive force against Indians. Activists see the deaths of Seetha and her brother as the biggest symbols of police brutality in recent years.

Activists wanted to take a coffin bearing Seetha's body to Parliament on Thursday to demand that lawmakers look into the case, but scrapped the plan after the family took it to be cremated, said P. Uthayakumar, the leader of the Human Rights Party, whose members are ethnic Indians.

Aseing Santa gets $100,000 Yule facelift

WELLINGTON (Reuters Life!) - A Santa in New Zealand with a droopy eye has received a $100,000 face-lift in the run-up to Christmas so that his ageing face does not scare children. The 20-meter (66 feet) tall fiberglass Santa has been among the festive decorations in Auckland since 1960 but in recent years began to struggle with one of his eyes that was made to wink and a mechanical figure that moved in a welcoming gesture.

“There was a concern the guy did look a little creepy. It was the finger and the Sad Sack, winking, droopy eye,” Heart of the City chief executive Alex Swney told local media. The Santa, that stands on a street corner in the city center, has undergone extensive facial work over the past four months at a cost of over $100,000. His face remains bandaged ahead of a public unveiling on Sunday but his mechanical figure has been replaced with a static digit.