Asiapcf [10]

-- Pakistani officials have denied that India has shot down an unmanned Pakistani spy plane intruding into Indian air space over Kashmir.

Trucks filled with food and other essential supplies rolled into Tamil Tiger held areas of northern Sri Lanka Tuesday, part of newly-elected Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe's efforts to ease tensions between the government and the rebel movement and pave the way for peace talks.

The Sri Lankan government says it is seriously considering lifting a ban on the Tamil Tiger rebels to help jumpstart peace talks.

New Zealand scientists see sterility as the key to keeping Australian flies down.

Cooler weekend weather is helping Australian firefighters as they battle bush fires in the southeastern state of New South Wales.

The fall-out from the bush fires that have raged in and around Sydney, Australia for the past 12 days has not been confined to the island continent.

Taiwan's president has chosen a new premier to lead a combat Cabinet that will help him face what is expected to be the most crucial period of his presidency.

Taiwan's cabinet has resigned en masse to pave the way for a post-election cabinet reshuffle.

The United States bombed a suspected al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan on Friday for the second day in a row as a top Taliban commander -- believed to have been protecting leader Mullah Mohammed Omar -- surrendered, according to an Afghan official.

Anti-Taliban forces are negotiating the possible surrender of 1,500 Taliban fighters northwest of Kandahar, but the Pentagon said Wednesday it has no reliable evidence these men are sheltering Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar.

The feared head of intelligence under the Taliban regime in Afghanistan has been killed, an official of the new interim Afghan government and U.S. intelligence sources told CNN Wednesday.

The leader of Afghanistan's Taliban movement, Mullah Mohammad Omar, reportedly survived a direct U.S. missile strike on his home and fled in the early stages of the U.S. bombing raids on the country.

Sri Lanka's army chief has suggested that some Tamil Tiger rebels could be absorbed into the armed forces if Norway-brokered peace efforts are able to end years of bitter conflict.

The Singapore government has released a chilling videotape it says shows targets of a planned attack by a broken terrorist cell in the city-state.

Leaders from across South Asia are due to begin meeting in Nepal shortly with the tensions between India and Pakistan expected to dominate the gathering.

Thai authorities have banned the distribution of a controversial sex education textbook and ordered their immediate recall from schools after the publication provoked a national furor.

Thai students face nationwide compulsory urine tests in an attempt to curb a growing drug-use epidemic.

Witnesses to the Indian parliament attack on December 13 said the attackers simply exploited a deference to authority in driving into the building's compound in a vehicle similar to that used by officials.

A U.S. cargo plane left Kandahar, Afghanistan, on Sunday night to bring another 30 detainees to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Three U.S. Marines injured Thursday while burning trash at their base camp in Kandahar have been taken to a higher-level treatment facility in an undisclosed location.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell is now en route to New Delhi amid signs his week-long peace mission is making some progress in defusing the latest war-like tensions between Pakistan and India.

In the 1970s and 1980s Australia accepted thousands of Vietnamese boat people.

A U.S. Marine Corps KC-130 military refueling plane carrying seven Marines crashed into a mountainside Wednesday in western Pakistan as it prepared to land at a base at Shamsi, U.S. officials said.

The man who U.S. officials say helped run al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan is being held Tuesday aboard a U.S. warship in the Arabian Sea.

Seven top Taliban government officials -- who surrendered in Kandahar in the last 48 hours -- have been released by local authorities and may have left the country, interim Afghan Foreign Ministry spokesman Omar Samad said Wednesday.

Heavily armed tribal guerrillas have gunned down 16 people, including nine women and two children, after raiding a village in the isolated northeastern Indian state of Assam.

At least three more Philippine soldiers have been killed in a renewed bout of violence in the southern Philippine town of Jolo.

Britain will lead the international peacekeeping force in Afghanistan for only the first three months, UK defence minister Geoff Hoon has said.

A helicopter crash that killed two U.S. Marines and left five others injured Sunday morning appeared to be the result of a mechanical failure, according to U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

The United Nations chief of staff in East Timor has quit citing bad morale, a lack of Asian colleagues and internal strife.

The first step in deciding the future government of Afghanistan has been taken with the formation of a 21-person commission to set the country on a path to elections.

Tighter restrictions have been slapped against deposed Philippine leader Joseph Estrada for hosting a lavish Christmas party inside the military hospital where he is being detained.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has promised that Afghanistan could count on a long-term commitment from the United States, after arriving in the capital Kabul.

The U.S. bombing of Afghanistan has entered its fourth month amid growing signs of frustration in Washington at the failure to capture Osama bin Laden and his top Taliban ally, Mullah Mohammad Omar.

After months of dire predictions, the international community has delivered enough food and supplies to Afghanistan to avoid a disastrous winter, a U.S. government official said Thursday.

U.S.-led airstrikes Monday focused on an Afghan province long considered an al Qaeda stronghold, a Pentagon spokesman said.

U.S. and Pakistani authorities continued searching Monday for a Wall Street Journal reporter after photographs were released showing him shackled and at gunpoint.

A U.S. Special Forces plane on a training exercise in the Philippines has been hit by small arms fire, military officials say.

Small arms fire struck a U.S. Air Force plane as it was flying over a mountainous region in the northern Philippines, Pentagon officials said Thursday.

Explosions and gunfire in the Indonesian city of Ambon was the only response to follow a visit by a government minister to evaluate peace efforts between Christians and Muslims.

The Wall Street Journal says a staff reporter who has been missing since Wednesday has been abducted.

It maybe too early to tell whether warming over the tropical Pacific Ocean is one of the tell tale signs that El Nino is back, yet talk about the return of this weather phenomena is already mounting.

Joint military operations involving U.S. and Philippine troops have been officially launched in what is being seen as the most significant expansion of the war on terrorism since the military campaign in Afghanistan.

In an effort to prevent another Afghan civil war, a Pashtun leader said he has persuaded warring tribesmen in eastern Afghanistan to unite and vow their allegiance to the new post-Taliban government.

The bush fires that have destroyed hundreds of thousands of acres forest in southeast Australia are taking a huge toll on the country's native wildlife, National Parks officials say.

In a gesture of goodwill, soccer World Cup co-hosts Japan and South Korea may relax foreign-exchange restrictions to make it easier for throngs of tourists to get cash during the global sports showdown, a newspaper reported Friday.

A center of low pressure over the Tasman Sea has brought torrential rain and high winds to the east coast of New Zealand, resulting in some of the worst flooding in the country in 50 years.

Three young hunger strikers have been treated for dehydration after stitching their lips together as part of a protest at Australia's notorious Woomera detention camp.

Three young hunger strikers have been treated for dehydration after stitching their lips together as part of a protest at Australia's notorious Woomera detention camp.