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A Pakistan court on Monday convicted four men for involvement in last year's suicide bombing outside the U.S. Consulate in the port city of Karachi, handing down death sentences to two of the men.

Hong Kong officials have expressed guarded optimism that efforts to contain the outbreak of the deadly SARS virus may be paying off after reporting the lowest daily count of new infections so far this month.

Twelve more people have died from the SARS virus in Hong Kong, the highest number of fatalities in a single day from the disease, health officials say.

As the SARS virus spreads in Hong Kong and China, remedies and rumors about how to avoid contracting the disease are on the increase.

A virus from the same group that causes the common cold but which has never before been seen in humans is the cause of the deadly SARS illness, the World Health Organization has confirmed.

The World Heath Organization has congratulated Vietnam for being the first country to contain SARS.

Iraqi authorities have detained two Australian journalists outside the southern city of Basra and placed them under house arrest in Baghdad, a spokesman for their newspaper says.

Vietnam has won praise for acting swiftly to become the first country to control SARS.

After a heated debate, India's lower house of parliament has unanimously passed a resolution deploring the U.S.-led attack on Iraq and demanded a quick withdrawal of coalition forces.

An Indian Air Force MiG-21 plane crashed into a milk processing plant Monday in the northern state of Haryana, and there were initial reports that a number of people were injured, the air force said.

After a heated debate, India's lower house of parliament Tuesday unanimously passed a resolution deploring the U.S.-led attack on Iraq and demanded a quick withdrawal of coalition forces.

Joining a growing list of nations, Indian health officials Thursday reported the country's first case of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).

Indonesia has threatened to resume full combat operations in restive Aceh province as fresh clashes between troops and rebels killed four people, putting yet more strain on a shaky peace pact.

Japanese rider Daijiro Kato was still in a critical condition on Monday, a day after sustaining serious head, neck and chest injuries in a high-speed crash at the Japanese Grand Prix.

North Korea fired a surface-to-ship missile on Tuesday -- the third such launch since February, Japanese foreign ministry officials said.

Hollywood star Angelina Jolie has agreed to pay $5 million over the next 15 years to set up a wildlife sanctuary in a former Khmer Rouge-controlled area of Cambodia, a senior charity official has said.

A massive landslide swept through a village in southern Kyrgyzstan Sunday, killing 34 people, emergency officials said.

Malaysia's second-highest court has dismissed an appeal by jailed former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim against his sodomy conviction.

Who is that masked man? One of Japan's newest politicians.

China has told 4,000 Beijing residents to go home and stay there indefinitely as the capital clambers to contain the deadly SARS virus.

Police in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir said they shot dead a prominent wanted militant late Wednesday.

Three mosques in Davao in the southern Philippines have been hit by grenades and machine gun fire just hours after 16 people were killed in a bomb blast in this predominantly Christian city.

Mudslides are feared to have killed 32 people after heavy rains poured down on the eastern Indonesian island of Flores, a government official said on Tuesday.

The World Health Organization has increased its SARS travel warnings, advising against non-essential travel to Beijing, China's Shanxi province and the Canadian city of Toronto in a bid to stem the global spread of the deadly virus.

American and North Korean delegations have had separate meetings Friday morning with Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhao Xing, followed by a brief trilateral meeting among all the parties, the U.S. Embassy says.

North Korea said Friday it was in the final stages of reprocessing thousands of spent nuclear fuel rods.

North Korea says future talks with Washington would be pointless if the U.S. ignores Pyongyang's offer to dismantle its nuclear program in return for concessions.

North Korea has dismissed any future United Nation resolutions to disarm, calling U.N. Security Council plans to discuss Pyongyang's suspected nuclear weapons program a prelude to war.

Concern is mounting in North Korea that it will become the next target of a U.S. attack after the war in Iraq is over.

A Pakistani army helicopter crashed Thursday night in a remote, mountainous region of northern Pakistan, killing all 13 on board, a spokesman for the Inter-Services Public Relations directorate said Friday.

The prime minister of Pakistan called his Indian counterpart Monday and said he was prepared to work to resolve all issues between the nuclear neighbors, a spokesman for Pakistani Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Jamali said.

Indonesia's peace pact in Aceh has suffered major blows after nine people were reported killed and peace monitors separately ordered their teams across the province to withdraw to the local capital.

A bomb has exploded near a wharf in the southern Philippine city of Davao, killing at least 16 people and wounding 40, according to officials.

The United States and its allies are studying a North Korean proposal that would ultimately deal with the isolated communist state's nuclear and ballistic missile programs, Secretary of State Colin Powell said Monday.

Newly elected South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun has urged parliament to back his plan to send non-combat troops to the U.S.-led war in Iraq, saying close ties with Washington were key to peace on the divided Korean peninsula.

Almost two million Beijing school students will have their classes suspended for two weeks, as the city tries to combat the SARS virus that officials say has killed 28 people in the city.

The worst of the SARS outbreak is over in Canada, Vietnam, Singapore, and Hong Kong, according to a top WHO official, but the fight is far from over in China.

A top World Health Organization official says he believes the worst of SARS is over in Canada, Vietnam, Singapore and Hong Kong, but the disease continues to spread on mainland China.

The World Health Organization has issued new figures for cases of SARS, saying the death toll from the disease has topped 182.

A second U.S. soldier has died from wounds received in a firefight near the Pakistan border in Afghanistan's Paktika province Friday, U.S. Central Command announced.

The South Korean government says it believes the U.S.-led war on Iraq was a key factor in North Korea's apparent softening of its stance over the weekend towards talks over its nuclear program.

A high-level delegation from Seoul is in Pyongyang for three days of inter-Korean Cabinet talks.

Singapore has called out the military to battle the deadly flu-like SARS virus, and the government said on Tuesday Internet-linked cameras might be used to enforce home quarantine orders.

Singapore has turned up the heat on passengers arriving from SARS-affected countries at its international airport.

A nuclear-armed North Korea would be a grave threat to peace in the Korean peninsula and East Asia region, South Korean Foreign Minister Yoon Young-kwan said Friday.

The Rolling Stones have held their first Indian concert, in an Asian tour cut short by a killer pneumonia virus that forced the group to cancel their first shows in China.

Authorities in Taiwan have announced that all mainland-Chinese and Hong Kong travelers arriving on the self-ruled island must be put on a 10-day quarantine.

Three U.S. service members were shot in southwestern Pakistan Friday while flying on a training mission in a transport helicopter with Pakistani forces, Maj. Gen. Rashid Qureshi, Pakistan's presidential and army spokesman, said Sunday.

Health officials studying how Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) virus is spread say they believe the disease is not transmitted in water or in the air, but could be spread by contact with a contaminated toilet seat.