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The United States' Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has signed a prepare to deploy order that will send aircraft to the Pacific region as a signal to North Korea that the U.S. is not distracted by Iraq.

The United States' Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has signed a prepare to deploy order that will send aircraft to the Pacific region as a signal to North Korea that the U.S. is not distracted by Iraq.

The United States has voiced deep concern over the sentencing of a prominent Chinese dissident to life in prison, raising questions about the evidence used against him in trial.

In an expansion of their current counter-terrorism role, the U.S. military is planning to allow special operations troops to fight offensively with Philippine forces battling Muslim rebels.

Legendary Australian spin bowler Shane Warne has been ruled out of cricket's World Cup for taking a banned substance.

Efforts to maintain stability and national security, rather than reform, will likely dominate the first few years of the administration of premier-in-waiting Wen Jiabao.

The train had just left the station when passenger Rakeshbhai Kantibhai Patel heard rocks raining down on the roof and people outside shouting Kill them! Cut them up! Minutes later, the train was ablaze with dozens of people inside.

As a boy, Pervez Musharraf was naughty, didn't concentrate much on his schoolwork, but was an exceptional athlete, the president's mother says.

Human rights watchdog Amnesty International has accused the Thai government of authorizing a de-facto shoot-to-kill policy in its latest crackdown on the illegal drugs trade.

A truck crowded with members of India's ruling party plunged from a mountain road into a gorge on Monday, killing 17 party members and injuring 25 others, police said.

Rebels in Indonesia's strife-torn Aceh began laying down their weapons Sunday, raising hopes that a peace deal brokered by Swiss-based mediators could end the province's 27-year separatist conflict.

Provincial authorities in Afghanistan say several civilians have been killed in U.S.-led bombing raids aimed at rooting out suspected Taliban forces.

A chartered small aircraft carrying Afghanistan's Mines and Industries Minister and seven others has crashed in the Arabian Sea off Pakistan killing all on board, officials say.

Officials in Bangladesh are calling in the air force to combat a flying menace: mosquitoes that are spreading disease and causing sleepless nights for many in the capital, news reports said.

A national security alert was sparked in New Zealand after a terror threat was made to the America's cup sailing competition.

Military rescue teams have been dispatched to China's remote northwestern Xinjiang province after Monday's devastating earthquake.

South Korean police say they have arrested seven railway officials over the subway fire in the city of Daegu which killed at least 133 people and has left scores missing.

South Korean police say they have arrested seven subway workers over a deadly underground fire that killed at least 130 people and left hundreds more missing.

About 750 women took off their clothes and formed a heart shape around the words No War on an Australian hillside Saturday, in an attempt to send an anti-war message to the Australian government, police said.

Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of Sydney on Sunday to show their opposition to a U.S.-led attack against Iraq, continuing massive anti-war protests around the world that kicked off in Australia two days earlier.

Australia has unveiled a blueprint to give its defence force more flexibility to join U.S.-led operations in the war on terror and to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

A team of experts will travel from Australia to East Timor to help investigate the crash of a Russian cargo plane, the United Nations said Saturday.

Indonesian prosecutors are preparing treason charges against the suspected head of an Islamic group implicated in the October 12 Bali bombings, an official said Friday.

A key suspect in last year's bombings on the Indonesian island of Bali has apologized for the attacks, but said he was proud his group had the ability to carry out such acts.

The death toll from the October 12 terrorist bombings on Bali has been revised upwards to 202 following a forensic report.

The death toll from the October 12 terrorist bombings on Bali has been revised upwards to 202 following a forensic report.

Chinese police are investigating explosions that shook the campuses of two Beijing universities Tuesday injuring nine people.

A bomb explosion rocked Indonesia's national police headquarters early Monday, damaging two cars and a building in the complex police officials said.

Police say a powerful blast in Pakistan's port city of Karachi has left one man dead and injured four others.

A British researcher jailed for five months after being accused of spying in Indonesia's troubled Aceh province was released from prison Sunday.

India has announced plans to boost its defense spending for the coming fiscal year by almost 17 percent, but much of the increase comes from money unspent last year despite a long and costly stand-off with Pakistan.

A Japanese bullet-train driver has brought new meaning to the phrase a quick nap.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has hit out at his own government, accusing it of incompetence in its handling of last week's anti-Thai riots in Phnom Penh.

Cambodia's opposition leader Sam Rainsy is being detained in Thailand, an official has told Reuters new agency.

Visiting a China transformed by capitalist-style economic development, Cuban leader Fidel Castro said Thursday he hardly recognized the country that is one of his ailing nation's few remaining communist allies.

Northern China needs water. Southern China has it. The government is fixing to bring them together.

Chinese President Jiang Zemin has urged U.S. President George W. Bush to tread carefully and safeguard the authority of the United Nations Security Council in dealing with Iraq and North Korea, state media has reported.

Cuban leader Fidel Castro has met Chinese President Jiang Zemin, kicking off a visit aimed at strengthening friendship between two of the world's last remaining communist governments.

A court in southern China has rejected an appeal from a U.S.-based pro-democracy activist against a life sentence for spying and terrorism.

China's Communist Party Wednesday approved a sweeping reshuffle of the country's top leadership and a plan to streamline the bloated bureaucracy after a three-day closed-door meeting, the Xinhua news agency said.

The death toll from a violent earthquake in China's northwest has risen to 261 people, with over 2,000 injured and nearly 9,000 homes razed to the ground.

U.S. efforts to form a regional coalition to pressure North Korea over its suspected nuclear weapons program are faltering, with China the latest nation to reject the proposal.

Tanshan village is about as far away from Baghdad and Washington as it is possible to get, but a looming war in Iraq is never far from the residents' minds.

Police in the northern Chinese city of Harbin Tuesday refused to comment on their investigation of a hotel fire that killed 33 people over the weekend.

A CIA officer in Afghanistan was killed Wednesday in a live-fire training exercise when a grenade fired prematurely, the agency's director announced.

Authorities in Bali have prepared for the cremation of more than 80 unidentifiable body parts belonging to victims of last year's Bali bombings.

Suddenly, there they were -- crowds of unnerved men and women, grabbing baskets and stalking the aisles of a Guangzhou supermarket to stockpile rice, oil and salt. Some chattered breathlessly: Pneumonia!

Philippine government troops have seized boxes of documents in the house of a Muslim separatist leader in the southern Philippines, including manuals on assassination, ambush and bombing techniques.

Rescue workers in northwestern China are using sniffer dogs to search for earthquake survivors trapped beneath rubble in freezing conditions.

Separate gas explosions in two coal mines in China killed at least 35 miners, and left at least ten others missing, a government official and news reports said Tuesday.