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As the International Whaling Commissions' week-long annual conference wound-down Friday, dispute still raged over the rejection of quotas for aboriginal whaling.

South Korea's finance minister has warned of tough action against illegal strikes ahead of football's World Cup finals.

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has arrived in the East Timorese capital, calling on the world to welcome the territory's transition to an independent nation.

The debate over whaling is raging in Japan in the lead up to the International Whaling Commission's (IWC) annual meeting later this month.

Fifty of the 55 people detained last week in a raid of a village west of Kandahar were released on Thursday after U.S. authorities determined they were not al Qaeda members, authorities said.

The trial of four men accused in the kidnapping and death of U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl ended Friday less than an hour after it started because defense attorneys for three of the accused were not present.

A spokesman for a Muslim extremist group in the southern Philippines has threatened to kill two Americans it is holding hostage after the government's refusal earlier this week to negotiate.

Commercial flights have resumed between Afghanistan and Pakistan after a 23 year absence.

British troops infected by a fever in Afghanistan are suffering from the winter vomiting bug, defence officials say.

Another 20 British soldiers in Afghanistan have displayed symptoms of a mysterious disease, Defence ministry officials said.

Taiwan officials said they held out little hope that any of the 225 passengers survived after a China Airlines jetliner crashed Saturday in the Taiwan Strait.

Terrorist group al Qaeda may be trying to stir up conflict between India and Pakistan to distract the Pakistani government from pursuing the network and its allies, according to United States officials.

British coalition forces have destroyed a significant amount of munitions discovered in a cave complex in Afghanistan.

A traditional remedy used for 2,500 years in Indian ayurvedic medicine works to lower cholesterol, and in a new way that might lead to the development of improved drugs, researchers said on Thursday.

Five North Korean asylum seekers, who have been at the center of a spat between China and Japan, have arrived in South Korea.

Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been released after 19 months of house arrest, the Myanmar government has announced.

Japanese divers found several bodies lashed to a sunken suspected North Korean spy ship, raising suspicion they attached themselves to the vessel to make recovery difficult, media reports said.

Pakistani police said they believe a body recovered Thursday is that of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, but its identity has not been confirmed.

Explosions ripped through three buses in the strife-torn western Indian state of Gujarat Wednesday, lightly injuring nine people, police said.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw is set to meet Indian leaders in New Delhi Wednesday after arriving from Islamabad in a bid to find a peaceful solution to the Kashmir dispute.

British forces have launched an operation to stop al Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan from infiltrating into southeastern Afghanistan and disrupting the nation's political reform process, coalition officials said Wednesday.

The commanding officer of the U.S.-led task force at the Kandahar air base Wednesday commended Canadian forces on their tour in Afghanistan and promised a smooth transition as the Canadians depart this summer.

As part of a special television edition of Inside Asia, CNN's Mike Chinoy spoke to Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian in the presidential palace in Taipei. The following is an edited transcript of this interview.

Seema Datta, a 14-year-old in India's revolt-racked state of Assam, is still woken by nightmares of her father lying in a pool of blood outside their house, shot dead by tribal guerrillas.

China Airlines (CAL), which is Taiwan's largest airline, has been troubled by safety issues.

As Taiwan investigators sifted through wreckage of a China Airlines jet to try to find out why it fell apart at over 30,000 feet, the military dismissed speculation it may have been hit by a Chinese missile.

Top Chinese leaders stayed up late into Tuesday night to direct rescue operations after a China Northern Airlines MD-82 jet ploughed into the sea near Dalian around 2130 local time.

A Chinese embassy official has warned Australia to handle any questions about Tibet very carefully during a week-long visit of Buddhist spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, which begins Saturday.

The following is a chronology of major Asian airline crashes since January 1996:

Coalition forces conducted a raid on a compound west of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan, killing one and wounding two of the people in the compound, according to initial reports.

British-led forces have swept through half a zone in eastern Afghanistan where they are conducting their latest search for Taliban and al Qaeda members, but have yet to encounter any enemy fighters, a British spokesman said on Sunday.

The commanding officer of the U.S.-led task force at the Kandahar air base Wednesday commended Canadian forces on their tour in Afghanistan and promised a smooth transition as the Canadians depart.

Preparations for the release from house arrest of Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi may have been premature, sources have told CNN.

The government of the Central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan has resigned amid the furor over recent clashes between police and demonstrators that led to the deaths of five people, an official from the Kyrgyz presidential press service told CNN.

A tradition dating back millennia, the Eskimo whale hunt, could be outlawed in the United States because of a measure passed at the urging of Japan to punish the U.S. government for its opposition to commercial whaling.

Pakistan told India on Friday it would be conducting missile tests over the weekend, but New Delhi said it was not particularly impressed by these missile antics.

A senior Sri Lankan government official and Tamil Tiger rebels have held face-to-face talks for the first time in seven years.

Suspected Islamic militants attacked an Indian army camp in Kashmir Sunday killing at least four Indian soldiers and wounding another 10, Indian army sources said.

Eleven French nationals have been killed in the Karachi bomb attack, the French Foreign Ministry has confirmed.

French investigators have arrived in Pakistan to join the team hunting bombers who killed 14 people.

Twelve Frenchmen who survived an apparent suicide bombing in Pakistan's volatile city of Karachi are returning home.

The following is the full text of a statement by the government of Myanmar on the day opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was released after 19 months under house arrest:

Chinese Vice-President Hu Jintao has identified Taiwan as the biggest potential stumbling block confronting China and the United States and their quest for closer economic and cultural ties.

Terrorist infiltration from Pakistan has not ended, India's defense minister charged Tuesday, saying terrorists are waiting to infiltrate from Pakistani-administered Kashmir.

In a televised address to the nation, India's prime minister has stepped back from the strong military posturing that has marked his stance on the disputed territory of Kashmir.

One of India's most popular trains derailed early Sunday on its way to the eastern city of Patna, killing at least eight people and injuring 70 others, according to a spokesman for Indian Railways.

The government of Pakistan has promised to defend the country against any aggression or misadventure by India, but backed efforts to continue to work toward defusing tension with India.

As India assured the West it won't take immediate military action against Pakistan, Islamabad announced Friday it will begin missile tests Saturday.

The leader of one of Indonesia's largest Muslim militant groups has been charged with inciting violence, police said.

Five North Korean asylum seekers, who have been at the center of a spat between China and Japan, have been released and are headed for South Korea via Manila.