Asia News

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - Prosecutors in the genocide trial of a former Khmer Rouge prison chief demanded a 40-year jail sentence Wednesday for a man who they described as snuffing out innocent lives and spreading terror across Cambodia.

TAIPEI (AFP) - Taiwan and the United States are expected to resume their dialogue on a key trade and investment pact in the new year, a US envoy was quoted as saying Wednesday.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - A flotilla of hundreds of icebergs that split off Antarctic ice shelves is drifting toward New Zealand and could pose a risk to ships in the south Pacific Ocean, officials said Tuesday.

AMPATUAN, Philippines - A few miles (kilometers) off the main highway, on a remote hilltop covered with waist-high grass, bodies lay with twisted hands reaching in the air. They had been shot point-blank.

MANILA, Philippines (AFP) - Philippine police on Wednesday named a political ally of President Gloria Arroyo as the prime suspect in an election-linked massacre of 46 people.

TOKYO (AFP) - Japanese police plan to arrest on suspicion of attempted murder four children of US military personnel after a motorcyclist was badly injured by a rope stretched across a road, according to media reports.

BANGKOK (AFP) - Punlop Tongchai is awake for the entire two hours it takes to be turned into a woman on the operating table of a Bangkok sex change clinic, realising a childhood dream.

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Starbucks will see China become the company's next major market after the United States in the near future, the firm's China chairman said on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Barack Obama threw the biggest party of his presidency for Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, hailing the world's largest democracy as "indispensable" and pledging to work out a range of thorny issues.

BEIJING - The number of dead in China's worst mining accident in two years rose to 106 Wednesday after two more bodies were pulled out of the coal mine, state media said.

MELBOURNE, Australia - Formerly conjoined twin sisters Trishna and Krishna are enjoying a favorite DVD and trying new foods as they continue their recovery from marathon separation surgery, doctors said.

KABUL - Three Afghan Cabinet officials and 12 former ministers are under investigation for alleged corruption, the attorney general's office said Tuesday, announcing cases that could signal whether the government is serious about fighting graft in its ranks.

ISLAMABAD - The collapse of a deal granting Pakistan's president and thousands of other officials freedom from prosecution on graft charges has triggered fresh political turmoil just as the army wages a major battle against Taliban militants near the Afghan border.

SHINKAY, Afghanistan - A battered taxi sped up a dusty road toward a squad of Afghan soldiers searching for bombs planted in the dirt. Army gunmen who had fanned out for protection readied for a suicide attacker. The car screeched to a halt.

NEW DELHI - An Indian government investigation released Tuesday into the 1992 demolition of a mosque by a raging mob reportedly accused top Hindu nationalist politicians of complicity in the attack that sparked nationwide ethnic riots, leaving 2,000 people dead.

BARIYAPUR, Nepal - The ceremony began with prayers in a temple by tens of thousands of Hindus before dawn Tuesday. Then it shifted to a nearby corral, where in the cold morning mist, scores of butchers wielding curved swords began slaughtering buffalo calves by hacking off their heads.

NUKU'ALOFA, Tonga - A 6.8-magnitude earthquake struck off the Pacific island nation of Tonga, sending panicked residents into the streets at night, but there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

BANGKOK - Samak Sundaravej, a firebrand right-wing politician and TV cooking show host who served a brief and tumultuous term last year as Thailand's prime minister, died of cancer Tuesday. He was 74.

CANBERRA, Australia - Australia's opposition leader Tuesday pledged his party's support for contentious legislation proposed by the government aimed at curbing the country's greenhouse gas emissions.

BEIJING - China executed a dairy farmer and a milk salesman Tuesday, the only two people sentenced to death in a scheme to water down infant formula with an industrial chemical that left at least six children dead and sickened more than 300,000.

ISLAMABAD - Five Pakistani army officers have been detained for questioning over possible links to two U.S. terror suspects accused of plotting an armed attack on a Danish newspaper, intelligence officials said Tuesday.

KABUL - A remote-controlled bomb planted in a water station exploded in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, killing six members of a family, including four children, authorities and a relative said.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan - Pakistani troops killed 18 militants in a fresh offensive Tuesday against insurgents blamed for a wave of recent bombings in the main northwestern city of Peshawar.

BEIJING - Renowned Chinese literature translator Yang Xianyi has died, China's official Xinhua News Agency said Tuesday. He was 94.

BEIJING - China will send two giant pandas to an Australian zoo this Friday as part of a joint research program.

BEIJING - A veteran dissident was sentenced to three years in prison after casting a spotlight on poorly built schools that collapsed and killed thousands of children during China's massive earthquake last year — an apparent government attempt to squelch such information.

MELBOURNE, Australia - A kangaroo startled by a man walking his dog attacked the pair, pinning the pet underwater and slashing the owner in the abdomen with its hind legs. The Australian, Chris Rickard, was in stable condition Monday after the attack, which ended when the 49-year-old elbowed the kangaroo in the throat.

JAKARTA, Indonesia - Rescuers plucked a woman from choppy waters Monday, some 25 hours after she jumped from a crowded ferry that sank in a storm off Indonesia's Sumatra island. At least 29 people drowned, and 20 others were missing.

GUANGZHOU, China - Hundreds of residents worried about property values and health risks protested Monday against the planned construction of a trash incinerator in the southern boomtown of Guangzhou.