Asia News

SEOUL (AFP) - South Korean Prime Minister Han Seung-Soo on Sunday accused Japan of damaging bilateral ties and putting regional peace at risk with its renewed claim to a group of Seoul-controlled islets.

SYDNEY (AFP) - A surgeon linked to the deaths of more than a dozen patients in Australia is expected to be extradited from the United States within days, a top politician said Sunday.

HERAT, Afghanistan (AFP) - Nine Afghan policemen were killed in international military air strikes called in after troops clashed with police in southwestern Afghanistan, provincial authorities said on Sunday.

KABUL, Afghanistan - Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama shared Sunday breakfast with American troops in Kabul ahead of an expected meeting with Afghan leader Hamid Karzai, a man Obama has criticized for not doing enough to rebuild his war-torn country.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - Fighting between government troops and separatist Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka's embattled northern region has killed 16 rebels and a soldier, the military said Sunday.

KOHAT, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistani security forces backed by helicopter gunships have killed 15 Taliban militants and captured 60 in an operation that began mid-week in a troubled northwestern town, the military said on Sunday.

PREAH VIHEAR, Cambodia - Cambodia has informed the U.N. Security Council that Thai forces have violated its territory near an ancient World Heritage Site temple where hundreds of troops continued to face off Sunday.

KABUL, Afghanistan - An official says foreign troops called in airstrikes during an apparently mistaken clash with Afghan police, killing nine police officers and wounding five in the country's west.

BANGKOK (AFP) - Valee Pancharoen watched her son transform as he became a teenager, first painting his nails, then wearing a wig and, finally, the dresses he had been wearing for years but hiding from his parents.

KABUL, Afghanistan - Barack Obama had breakfast Sunday with U.S. troops in Kabul as part of his visit to Afghanistan.

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - Cambodia has sent a note to the U.N. Security Council alleging that Thai forces intruded into its territory near an ancient temple.

MUMBAI, India - That one time, hanging out the open door of the crowded train was lucky for Mahendra Pitale. Had he been sitting inside the train car, the 34-year-old sculptor almost certainly would have been killed when the bomb exploded.

SAMUT SONGKRAM, Thailand - Rushing across a temple parking lot, British angler Rick Humphreys yells, "We've got a fish."

SEOUL, South Korea - A helicopter carrying the Rev. Sun Myung Moon crashed into a mountainside Saturday as it attempted an emergency landing, injuring the founder of the Unification Church and 15 others, officials said.

BEIJING - Beijing's Olympic shutdown begins Sunday, a drastic plan to lift the Chinese capital's gray shroud of pollution just three weeks ahead of the games.

YANGON, Myanmar - Hundreds of riot police and soldiers ringed a monument in downtown Yangon on Saturday as officials gathered to commemorate the shooting death 61 years ago of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's father.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistani rescuers in a helicopter spotted two Italian mountaineers on one of the world's deadliest peaks, where a third Italian climber is believed to have died this week, a tour operator said Saturday.

TAIPEI, Taiwan - Tropical storm Kalmaegi churned along the Chinese coast Saturday, after leaving 13 dead in heavily populated Taiwan and its president scrambling to explain the island's apparent lack of preparedness in the face of the devastation.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan - At least 10 Taliban have died in fierce fighting between two rival militant groups in northwestern Pakistan, a government official and Taliban spokesman said Saturday.

KABUL, Afghanistan - An Afghan journalist who contributes to The Associated Press was freed Friday after his pictures and video footage of two women brazenly executed by the Taliban led intelligence officials to hold him for questioning for two days.

TOKYO - A strong earthquake with a preliminary 6.6 magnitude struck off of Japan's eastern coast Saturday, the country's meteorological agency said. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.

KATMANDU, Nepal - A bus veered off a mountain road and plunged into a river Saturday in central Nepal killing 14 passengers and leaving many missing.

As of Friday, July 18, 2008, at least 476 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as a result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to the Defense Department. The department last updated its figures July 12 at 10 a.m. EDT.

DUJIANGYAN, China - Two months after an earthquake ravaged much of Sichuan province, workers are diligently salvaging bricks to restore a 6th century Taoist temple damaged in the disaster.

SEOUL, South Korea - Top diplomats from the U.S. and North Korea will meet next week along with their counterparts from regional nuclear talks, the State Department said Friday, the highest level of contact between the countries amid recent progress on Pyongyang's disarmament.

BAAN TOOM, Thailand - While movie fans the world over rave about the new Batman film, the only stir bats are causing in this poor farming village is in a cooking pot.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - Angry protesters halted trains and clashed with policemen in Sri Lanka's capital Friday as authorities began demolishing their homes, saying they were unauthorized constructions that encroached on government lands.

SRINAGAR, India - Suspected Muslim rebels threw a grenade at a crowded bus terminal in the Indian portion of Kashmir on Friday, wounding 35 people, including seven children, police said.

BEIJING - More than a hundred Chinese villagers attacked a police station to protest the death of a man they say was beaten by local Communist Party security guards, police said Friday, the latest in a recent spate of violence triggered by discontent with authorities.