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Diplomatic efforts are intensifying to bring an end to the North Korean nuclear crisis with key international players holding high-level meetings Monday to ratchet up pressure on Pyongyang.

FBI officials have arrived in Pakistan to interview a Lahore jeweler who says he is wrongly pictured in an FBI alert for five men who allegedly entered the United States illegally.

A single landmine that injured a U.S. paratrooper in eastern Afghanistan had been planted within the past two weeks, according to a military spokeswoman.

The riddle of an Indonesian-registered, Taiwan-owned trawler carrying several tons of rotting fish, seven toothbrushes, but no crew is baffling Australian police.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard, one of America's closest supporters in the Asia-Pacific region, has given firm backing to President Bush's State of the Union comments on Iraq.

Police in Nepal have launched a massive manhunt after suspected Maoist rebels gunned down the country's most senior paramilitary officer.

A collision between a bus and an oil tanker in eastern Indian has killed 40 people and left several injured, police say.

India's foreign ministry has ordered four Pakistani High Commission staff members to leave the country, accusing them of undiplomatic behavior.

With the World Cup just over a month away, India's cricketers are in disarray.

Three cars from an express passenger train in south-central India derailed early Friday, killing at least 18 people and injuring at least 41 others, railway officials said.

Indian police are searching for a car that intruded on Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's motorcade, prompting the leader's security detail to open fire on the vehicle.

A 31-year old Indonesian man, arrested last week on cannibal-related charges, has admitted to police to eating at least three people, Indonesian media reports say.

Demonstrations are continuing for a fourth straight day in Indonesia on Thursday with businessmen and employees set to join students, labor and political groups to protest recent price hikes.

A land mine blew up a bus Friday in southern Afghanistan, killing at least 18 people.

Face to face talks between North Korea's leader and a South Korean presidential envoy did not take place as expected in Pyongyang Tuesday after Kim Jong Il failed to appear for the meeting.

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is to visit Tokyo's controversial Yasukuni shrine, dedicated to Japan's war dead, on Tuesday afternoon local media reports say.

A South Korean envoy was in Russia on Sunday to encourage the Pyongyang ally to support a plan aimed at ending the nuclear standoff between communist North Korea and the United States.

South and North Korea have agreed to peacefully resolve the international standoff over North Korea's alleged nuclear ambitions.

Members of Pakistan's Islamic parties demonstrated Friday against possible U.S. military action against Iraq, but turnout was much smaller than organizers had hoped, officials said.

Police in Malaysia have arrested two religious teachers suspected of being members of the militant Jemaah Islamiyah group.

An attack on Iraq would pave the way for a terrorist backlash, bolstering radical Muslims like Osama bin Laden, says the man picked to successed Malaysia's longtime Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed.

At least 27 people were injured when a bomb exploded in a Mumbai street market in the early evening Monday as shoppers wandered around the stalls and commuters made their way home.

Nineteen months after their family was almost wiped out in a bloody palace massacre, Nepal's royals are celebrating the marriage of King Gyanendra's only daughter.

Three suspected Maoist rebels have shot dead Nepal's most senior paramilitary officer in an early morning attack that also left his wife and a bodyguard dead, government officials said.

The U.N. Command accused North Korea Monday of refusing to acknowledge the 50-year-old armistice agreement that established the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea.

Nine U.S. presidents have come and gone since Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a cease-fire agreement with North Korea in July 1953.

North Korean representatives on Saturday said Pyongyang was acting in self defense by pulling out of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, and threatened to drop the nation's self-imposed missile moratorium.

North Korean representatives went on the defensive Saturday, saying Pyongyang was acting in self defense by pulling out of the nuclear non proliferation treaty (NPT), but also issuing a new threat to drop its self-imposed missile moratorium.

North Korea has accused the United States of spreading a false rumor about its nuclear issue in an attempt to hurt inter-Korean relations.

North Korea has upped the ante in its nuclear standoff with the United States, threatening to exercise what it has called new options.

North Korea has proposed postponing ministerial talks with the South one day after the U.S. agreed to talk to Pyongyang over its nuclear program.

Accusing the United States of provocation, North Korea announced Friday it was withdrawing from the nuclear nonproliferation treaty but does not intend to produce nuclear weapons.

North Korea has responded to President Bush's State of the Union speech saying the on-going stand-off over its nuclear program is not its doing and is demanding Washington sign a non-aggression treaty.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, accused by U.S. President George W. Bush of blackmailing the world with his nuclear program, says he will consider a plea from Seoul to end the crisis, a South Korean envoy said.

North Korea is calling for the South's help against the United States as a nuclear crisis simmers on the peninsula.

North Korea has told the South during high-level talks in Seoul that is has no intention of developing nuclear weapons.

As South Korean envoys meet North Korean officials in a bid to resolve the North's nuclear dispute, Pyongyang has hit out at the U.N. nuclear agency, saying it is in no position to address the impasse.

North Korea announced Friday that it is withdrawing from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, but does not intend to produce nuclear weapons, according to a statement from the official North Korean news agency KCNA.

North Korea has described a U.S. offer to revive aid as a deceptive drama even as its Asian neighbors are abuzz with diplomatic efforts to resolve the nuclear standoff.

North Korea has announced its withdrawal from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, according to a statement from the official North Korean news agency KCNA.

North Korea has told the U.N. it would consider it an act of war if the Security Council imposes sanctions over the continuing nuclear weapons program dispute.

Indonesia has reacted with outrage over its inclusion on a list of countries whose citizens must register and be fingerprinted when visiting the United States.

Pakistan has denounced India's test-firing of a medium range version of its nuclear capable Agni missile on Thursday.

Pakistan has confirmed it is investigating a 29-year-old Australian over possible links to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network and offences under Pakistan's terrorism laws, but no charges have yet been laid.

Pakistan has ordered four employees of the Indian High Commission to leave the country -- a move thought to be in response to India's expulsion of Pakistani diplomats on Wednesday.

An Egyptian man believed to have been in charge of al Qaeda operations in Pakistan and another terrorism suspect have been turned over to U.S. officials, Pakistani police sources said Saturday.

Pakistani authorities have detained a man in a Pakistani border scout uniform in connection with a gun battle with U.S. forces that wounded a U.S. soldier, Pentagon officials said.

Pakistan has responded angrily to comments by India's defense minister on his country's nuclear weapons prowess, warning of an unforgettable lesson if India were to launch a nuclear attack.

Pakistan is accusing nuclear rival India of trying to start a regional arms race after India carried out its second missile test in three days.

The Philippines military has claimed a second success against Muslim bandits in the south by capturing another leader of the Abu Sayyaf group linked by the United States to the al Qaeda network.