YANGON (DPA) – Buses in Myanmar's largest city Yangon are to have female conductors for the first time, to improve the quality and safety of service, officials said Tuesday.

"We believe women are more suitable as conductors because they are more patient with commuters," said Myint Aung, a senior official at the Road Transport Administration Department.

The transport authorities have hired 19 women to be conductors, the department said, as part of a campaign to improve public transport.

"Its more difficult to regulate male conductors because after decades on the job they have become habituated to slack discipline," he said.

The hiring of women conductors is to address reported poor service and incidents of harassment on the city's crowded public transport.

The department is also hiring women drivers in response to rising accident rates.

Over the past five months there were 122 road accidents in Yangon, leaving 41 dead and 358 injured, according to state media.

There are currently 6,600 buses operating 352 routes in the former capital, Myanmar's largest city, estimated population 7.8 million.

Poor discipline among transport system staff is a main cause of congestion and accidents in Yangon, the Japan International Cooperation Agency said in a report last month.

The agency is working with city authorities on an urban transport plan which includes a new bus system, improved parking and training local officials in traffic and transport management.

By Zia Khan (DPA)

ISLAMABAD (DPA) —  A suicide car bomber killed four soldiers and wounded seven others in Pakistan's north-western tribal region on Monday, hours after the country's busiest airport was attacked by Islamist extremists.

"Four soldiers have been killed in an attack on a check post in North Waziristan," a military's statement said.

Earlier in the day flights resumed at Karachi International Airport in southern Pakistan after security forces repulsed an attack by Taliban fighters in an overnight gun battle that left 31 people dead.

"A domestic flight has just taken off for Islamabad" from the airport, civil aviation chief Shujaat Azeem announced, 16 hours after gunmen stormed the facility.

All 10 of the gunmen were among the 31 killed during the five-hour battle between security forces and Taliban militants, said General Rizwan Akhtar, the chief of the paramilitary Rangers force.

The Pakistani Taliban said their fighters carried out both the gun and bomb attack at the airport and the car bombing to avenge the killing of "innocent" people in airstrikes by security forces.

"It is a message to the Pakistan government that we are still alive," Taliban spokesman Shahidullah Shahid said after the first attack.

Around 100 Islamist militants, including some key Taliban commanders, were killed in May when Pakistani fighter jets pounded insurgents' hideouts in their tribal stronghold.

Fourteen members of the security forces and seven civilians were among the dead in the airport attack, said doctor Seemi Jamali at the city's Jinnah Medical Institute.

At least 25 people with bullet injuries were brought to the hospital, she said. Five of them were in a critical condition.

Analysts said the siege of the airport showed the Taliban still had the ability to stage spectacular attacks, despite setbacks in recent months, including the defection of a major faction.

"It is a statement by militants that they can still operate at will," said Irfan Shehzad, lead researcher at the Islamabad-based Institute of Policy Studies think tank.

"It reflects how grave the security risk is for Pakistan as international forces prepare to leave Afghanistan at the end of this year," Shehzad said.

Much of the Taliban network is believed to operate out of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region.

Karachi is Pakistan's most populous city and the capital of Sindh province.

Akhtar said terrorists wearing suicide vests and dressed in police uniform entered the airport in two groups of five and set ablaze a terminal used for cargo.

Seven of them were killed in a gun battle with military commandos, while three blew themselves up when surrounded by soldiers, he added.

The Pakistani Taliban have launched similar attacks in the past, but mostly against military facilities. In 2011, militants laid siege to the city's naval base for 18 hours, killing at least 10 people.

The Taliban have been waging a deadly insurgency since 2003 in Pakistan, killing over 40,000.

The government airstrikes in May came after months of efforts to engage the Taliban in a peace process ended without any significant headway.

SYDNEY (DPA) — A pizzeria owner in Melbourne was fined more than 330,000 Australian dollars (310,000 US dollars) for paying his mostly underage staff in pizza and soft drinks, a news report said Tuesday.

The owner of two La Porchetta pizza shops underpaid staff as young as 13 years old by a total of 258,000 Australian dollars over three years, the federal circuit court judge said.

Ruby Chand gave his staff pizza and soft drinks instead of their full pay in a practice the judge said "belongs in the dark ages," the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported.

By Emoke Bebiak (DPA)

NEW YORK (DPA) — ​The Asia-Pacific region not including Japan will become the world's second-wealthiest region this year overtaking Western Europe and is poised to take the top spot knocking out North America in 2018, according to a study published Monday.

The report completed by The Boston Consulting Group found that the Asia-Pacific region posted a 30.5-per-cent growth in private wealth in 2013, as the amount of private wealth held globally reached 152 trillion dollars, a 14.6-per-cent increase from 2012.

Private wealth growth in other regions included a 17.2-per-cent increase in Eastern Europe, a 15.6-per-cent rise in North America, which is currently the world's wealthiest region, and a more modest 5.2-per-cent growth in Western Europe.

The number of households owning assets amounting to more than 1 million dollars reached 16.3 million in 2013, which is up 19 per cent from 13.7 million households in 2012. The current number of millionaire households represents 1.1 per cent of households globally.

The United States continued to have the most millionaires with 7.1 million such households, while the number in China rose to 2.4 million in 2013, which is up from 1.5 million in 2012.

Private wealth creation was slowed down in Japan by a 15-per-cent currency fall against the dollar, which led to a decline in the number of millionaire households to 1.2 million from a previous 1.5 million.