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To the Chinese military, the Taiwan question is an issue of restoring China's sovereign territory.

Attempts to salvage a cargo ship stuck on a sandbar near Australia's Great Barrier Reef will not begin until Tuesday when tides will be most favorable for a successful effort.

A Jakarta court has acquitted the former Indonesian police chief in charge of East Timor of responsibility for human rights abuses during the mass violence that swept the territory three years ago.

A court in Japan has rejected claims for compensation by a group of 180 Chinese who say their relatives were the victims of Japanese germ warfare experiments during World War II.

The son of Indonesia's former President Suharto has been moved to a top security island prison, dubbed 'the Indonesian Alcatraz', to serve out his 15-year jail term for murder.

Al Qaeda-linked Muslim extremists have beheaded two men abducted from the remote southern island of Jolo, the Philippine military says.

Two British service personnel have died from gunshot wounds at Kabul airport, according to the commander of British forces in Kabul.

Countries across Asia are on storm alert as typhoons near parts of the region and heavy rains batter others, with forecasters saying there is little hope of the weather abating.

The U.N.'s top official for human rights has criticized China for using the September 11 terror attacks to crack down on dissent.

The United States has repeated its opposition to an independent Taiwan, further distancing itself from remarks made by Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian supporting a referendum on independence for the island.

A high-ranking U.S. diplomatic delegation is in Sri Lanka to boost the fragile peace process between the government and Tamil Tiger rebels.

The United States and Pakistan have signed an agreement rescheduling $3 billion in debt owed by Islamabad.

Washington is looking into reports that hundreds of Taliban prisoners suffocated to death in northern Afghanistan and were dumped into mass graves after surrendering to U.S.-backed forces last year.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has promised Indonesia $50 million over the next few years to help the country fight international terrorism.

The United States and Southeast Asia have formally agreed to tackle terrorism together by signing a counter-terrorism pact at the ASEAN regional forum in Brunei.

Citing attacks on Christian targets in Pakistan and concern that Americans could be targeted, the U.S. State Department has strengthened a warning already in place for Americans traveling in the country.

The United States has welcomed China's new regulations on missile exports, but will not lift a ban on using Chinese rockets to launch U.S. commercial satellites, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said.

U.S. stocks rallied sharply Monday, as investors took a cue from a pair of positive quarterly reports out of the retail sector and broad-based strength in software, networking and chips.

With the worst drought in years gripping parts of India, the weather is also being made responsible for a major power outage that has left most of the country's west in the dark.

Suddenly, all eyes are on Zeng Qinghong, the main protégé and adviser of President Jiang Zemin.

Operation Mountain Sweep -- a weeklong mission in southeastern Afghanistan described as the largest in the country since Operation Anaconda in March -- has ended with the discovery of caches of weapons and Taliban documents, a U.S. military spokesman said Monday.

China's star center, Wang ZhiZhi has been dumped from the national squad for September's World Championships because of a lack of patriotism.

Thirteen people killed in a gunfight with Afghan soldiers south of Kabul were high ranking and dangerous members of the al Qaeda terror network, according to an Afghan official.

A powerful blast rocked a building belonging to a construction company Friday, killing at least 26 people and wounding as many as 80, according to the military commander in the city.

Three people, including two American teachers, were killed Saturday when armed men attacked a busload of mine employees in Indonesia, police said.

Indonesia has given rebels in the troubled northwestern province of Aceh three months to prove they are serious about peace talks before the government steps up its military campaign against them.

The central government of Afghanistan has issued a stern warning to one of the country's most disruptive warlords to make peace, or suffer the consequences.

One of China's leading AIDS activists has disappeared amid claims by his family and friends that he has been detained by Beijing police for his attempts to shed light on the country's growing health crisis.

Osama bin Laden's terrorist network is suspected to be operating bank accounts in Hong Kong, and private donations to the group are continuing, largely unabated, according to a U.N. document.

Indonesian security forces are hunting an armed gang responsible for the deaths of two Americans and an Indonesian in an ambush in the province of Papua Saturday.

Bangladesh and Indonesia are ranked among the world's most corrupt countries, according to an annual survey by German-based Transparency International.

Former Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto has had her bid to run in the nation's upcoming elections rejected, with officials saying she cannot compete because she has been convicted of a crime.

North and South Korea have ended three days of talks in Seoul with an agreement to resume construction of cross-border road and rail links.

Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian has said comments he made over the weekend describing the island as a country on equal footing with China and calling for a referendum on independence had been oversimplified.

China had an express postal service as long ago as 221 BC according to archaeologists studying recently discovered Imperial documents, state media reported Friday.

China has blasted a statement from Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian calling for a referendum on independence, saying it would 'bring Taiwan into disaster.

China's State Council has blasted Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian's weekend comments which called for an independence referendum and implied that Taiwan is a country.

Chinese officials are keeping close tabs on the swollen Dongting Lake as levees and dikes groan against the weight of the water and light rain continues to fall in the flood-ravaged Hunan province.

Tens of thousands of soldiers, workers and farmers in central China are continuing round-the-clock efforts to prepare for the flood crest of the mighty Yangtze, due to pass through the city of Jiuqiang late Tuesday.

Authorities in China are stepping up a massive anti-flood effort, mobilizing tens of thousands of people to shore up the nation's second biggest freshwater lake which threatens to burst its banks and create a disaster worse than the deadly floods of 1998.

Chinese recovery workers have discovered the body of the last missing miner from the site of an accident that killed eight men, China's state media reports.

Political posturing across the Taiwan Strait has taken another twist, with Taiwan canceling naval exercises just as China is hardening its aggressive military stance toward the island.

China has issued a new list of regulations aimed at controlling the export of missile technology in an apparent effort to ease U.S. concerns over weapons proliferation.

A court in southwestern China has rejected an appeal from a local communist party boss against the death sentence imposed after his conviction for trying to cover up a deadly mine accident.

A major chocolate manufacturer has issued an apology after one of its adverts made a light-hearted reference to one of the world's most volatile trouble spots.

Police are hunting for a brazen gunman who stole a six-figure sum of cash from Australia's largest casino and then escaped by cab.

As many as 33 people are feared dead after tropical storm Kammuri hit the southern Chinese province of Guangdong.

Indonesia's courts have declined to prosecute an Egyptian-born man believed to be the organizer of illegal people smuggling operations in which hundreds have died.

Three death row prisoners in the Philippines have been given a last-minute reprieve while the country's president studies their appeals for clemency.

Election officials in India have pinpointed dates for state legislative elections to be held in Indian-controlled Kashmir.