Asia News

TOKYO (AFP) - The United Nations on Friday launched a bid to designate Iraq's famed marshlands, which were ravaged by Saddam Hussein, a World Heritage site after a four-year restoration project.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan's new president, almost certain to be the widower of Benazir Bhutto, will have to contend with a host of critical problems including militant violence and an economy in crisis.

PATNA, India (AFP) - Rescue workers in flood-hit northern India have brought over 800,000 people to safety, but tens of thousands more are still believed to be trapped, officials said Friday.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - An Egyptian cargo ship with 25 crew members has been hijacked by pirates off Somalia's coast, the 10th vessel to be seized in less than two months, a global maritime watchdog said Friday.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Does Chinese President Hu Jintao give you goosebumps? Got the hots for Premier Wen Jiabao? Then Communist Party mouthpiece the People's Daily has the answer -- join their online fan club.

BEIJING (AFP) - China dispatched large numbers of soldiers and armed riot police to quell two major protests, officials and a rights group said Friday, in the latest public discontent to rock the communist nation.

NEW DELHI - The son of a wealthy Indian arms dealer was sentenced Friday to five years in prison after being found guilty of running over and killing six people, including three police officers, with his car more than nine years ago, his attorney said.

NEW DELHI (AFP) - India on Friday asserted its credentials as a "responsible" nuclear weapons state in last-minute lobbying for international backing for its atomic energy deal with the United States.

MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (AFP) - Three children and two women were killed when missiles fired by a suspected unmanned US aircraft hit a Pakistani tribal village Friday in the third such attack in as many days, officials said.

VIENNA, Austria - India pledged Friday not to engage in a new arms race as talks continued in Vienna over whether to let the United States sell India nuclear material and technology for civilian use.

MANILA, Philippines - A U.N. official said Friday his agency has increased food supplies to hundreds of thousands of people displaced by fighting between government troops and Muslim separatist rebels in the southern Philippines.

BANGKOK, Thailand - Thailand's Parliament on Friday asked the Senate speaker to mediate in a deadlock between the government and a radical protest group whose supporters have mounted an unprecedented siege of the prime minister's office.

BEIJING - The top American nuclear envoy arrived in Beijing on Friday for talks on North Korea's nuclear programs as Pyongyang took steps seen as reversing its promised disarmament.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - The real question in Pakistan's presidential election is not who the winner will be but whether the new leader will be any more successful than his predecessor in tackling extremism and economic malaise.

YANGON, Myanmar - The political party of detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi urged Myanmar's military government Friday to ensure her well-being as she continued to refuse food deliveries to protest her detention.

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan - An explosion possibly caused by a missile strike killed five suspected foreign militants near the Afghan border on Friday, Pakistani officials said.

TOKYO - Brash, right-leaning former Foreign Minister Taro Aso announced Friday that he will run for ruling party president in a move that would put him on track to take over as Japan's next prime minister.

PATNA, India - Authorities warned villagers in flood-ravaged northern India on Friday not to return to their homes because an unpredictable river that burst its banks could overflow again. But thousands ignored the warning and took the receding waters as a sign that the danger had passed, officials said.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A deadly American-led raid on a Pakistani village embarrassed the government and eroded support for the pro-U.S. presidential front-runner Thursday just two days before the election.

BEIJING - Nearly four months after China's devastating earthquake, a government scientist acknowledged Thursday that a rush to build schools in recent years likely led to construction flaws causing so many of them to collapse.

BEIJING - An Asian elephant that became addicted to heroin at the hands of illegal traders will return home after a three-year rehab program, Chinese state media said Thursday.

KABUL, Afghanistan - The Afghan president said a deadly raid on a village by American and Afghan commandos has put new strain on relations with the United States and promised Thursday to punish those responsible.

TOKYO - A Japanese monk trying to rid his temple of a hornet's nest panicked when the hornets attacked him and dropped a torch, burning his temple to the ground, police said Thursday.

BEIJING - A gas explosion inside a mine in northeast China on Thursday killed 24 people and injured six, local authorities and state media said. Three others were trapped inside.

BANGKOK, Thailand - Sondhi Limthongkul says he is fighting to save Thai democracy from what he calls the corrupt politicians who have abused it to remain in power.

MURLIGANJ, India - Spotting a family stranded on the roof of a partly submerged house, two Indian navy commandos swept in over the muddy floodwaters in a black rubber dinghy to save them Wednesday — only to be shooed away.

BANGKOK, Thailand - Thailand's embattled Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej has vowed in a live radio broadcast that he will not resign.

KABUL, Afghanistan - It was a weeklong journey through Afghanistan's most dangerous Taliban territory, dodging persistent attacks by insurgents and bumping over rough desert terrain riddled with mines.

BANGKOK, Thailand - Thailand's state news agency says Foreign Minister Tej Bunnag has resigned, but government officials are refusing to confirm the report.