Asia

China clinch badminton's Uber Cup in Olympic warning (AFP)

AFP - Invincible China clinched their sixth consecutive Uber Cup team championship Saturday, toppling Indonesia 3-0 to send an ominous warning ahead of the Beijing Olympics.

Read more [Yahoo World News]

Thousands flee China quake area over flood fears (AP)

AP - Thousands of Chinese earthquake victims fled areas near the epicenter Saturday, fearful of floods from rivers blocked by landslides rattled loose in this week's powerful temblor.

Read more [Yahoo World News]

Flooding fears disrupt China quake rescue efforts

Official death toll in China rises to almost 29,000, as thousands of people are evacuated from areas near the epicentre amid fears of flooding
Read more [Guardian Unlimited World]

Australia provides 462 mln USD aid for Indonesia

Australia has agreed to provide 462 million U.S. dollars to help Indonesia develop its infrastructure, education, health and good governance, local daily Bisnis Indonesia reported Saturday. The assistance is in the forms of 336-mill ...
Read more [People's Daily]

Govt defends level of compensation for wrongly imprisoned fishermen

Federal Fisheries Minister Tony Burke says a group of Indonesian fishermen illegally detained in Darwin for a month are being compensated appropriately.
Read more [ABC News Australia]

China's premier is hero of quake rescue effort (AP)

AP - The popular hero of China's earthquake rescue effort isn't a strapping firefighter or a seasoned cop it's the country's bespectacled premier who's been clambering over piles of rubble to rally victims in the hardest-hit areas.

Read more [Yahoo World News]

Soldier Refuses Iraq Tour, Citing 'Stomach-Churning Horrors'

Excerpt: A US Army soldier who served as a military journalist in Afghanistan, Japan, Europe and the Philippines announced Thursday his intent to refuse orders to deploy to Iraq.

Chinese, Russian, Indian, Brazilian FMs stress multilateralism in world affairs

The foreign ministers of China, Russia, India and Brazil on Friday stressed multilateral cooperation and diplomacy in dealing with global affairs. The four top diplomats, who met in the central Russian city of Yekaterinburg, said i ...
Read more [People's Daily]

DPRK technically ready for delivery of U.S. food aid

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) is ready to provide all technical conditions necessary for the delivery of U.S. food aid, the official news agency KCNA said Saturday. The United States announced Friday that it will ...
Read more [People's Daily]

Survivors emerge as China quake rescue intensifies (AFP)

AFP - With survivors still emerging from the rubble Saturday nearly 115 hours after disaster struck, rescue teams waged an increasingly desperate battle to find victims of China's earthquake which has claimed an estimated 50,000 lives.

Read more [Yahoo World News]

Paraguayan president-elect looks to ties with China

Paraguayan President-elect Fernando Lugo said here on Friday that his government will seek relations with China. Lugo expressed the will in an interview by Xinhua the International Press Center in Lima. He is in the Peruvian capital ...
Read more [People's Daily]

U.S. Congressmen offer condolences, help to China over quake

More than 40 members of the U.S.House of Representatives on Thursday expressed condolences to the families of the victims of a devastating earthquake in China, saying that the U.S. Congress stands ready to help in any way possible. ...
Read more [People's Daily]

China rescuers seek survivors in hard-hit town (AP)

AP - Piles of broken concrete rise seven stories high, and a few buildings stand askew, knocked at odd angles. People cry out the names of missing relatives and rescue workers shout, "Is anyone there? Is anyone there?"

Read more [Yahoo World News]

U.S. to provide aid to DPRK

The United States announced Friday that it will send 500,000 tons of food aid to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), beginning in June. The United States and the DPRK have reached an understanding "on the parameters of ...
Read more [People's Daily]

Video: Solar powered bra developed in Japan

May 16: A solar powered bra was developed in Tokyo, Japan. It charges when the bra is worn without other clothing, but if worn in the rain could result in an electrocution. (Countdown)

US monitoring China's nuclear sites after quake (AP)

AP - American experts are monitoring nuclear facilities in China's earthquake zone, officials said Friday, after France's nuclear watchdog reported that some had suffered minor damage.
Read more [Yahoo World News]

Anger spreads in China refugee camp

Grieving survivors of Sichuan's disaster ask why so many of the victims were children
Read more [Guardian America]

Wrongly detained fishermen to return to Indonesia

Dozens of Indonesian fishermen who were wrongly detained by Australian authorities are scheduled to fly home to Indonesia today.
Read more [ABC News Australia]

Treaty for cluster bombs expected during upcoming conference

Support for a ban on cluster weapons has risen sharply since 2006 war between Israel and Lebanon, when, according to United Nations estimates, Israeli troops fired some four million Vietnam War-era submunitions, of which a quarter failed to explode.
Read more [International Herald Tribune]

Aid pours in, but time runs for China quake survivors

Remarkably, relief officials said they had rescued a child buried alive in the ruins of a middle school about 80 hours after the quake struck.
Read more [International Herald Tribune]

Jet nearly hits workers at Perth airport

Probe launched after Indonesian jet almost hits workers at Perth Airport.
Read more [ABC News Australia]

Survival of quake victims depends on many factors (AP)

AP - A nurse survived eight days in the wreckage of a Turkish hospital destroyed by an earthquake in 1992. A newborn was rescued after more than a week in the rubble of Mexico City's 1985 quake. Now, in China, rescuers are pulling out victims days after they were buried by a powerful earthquake.
Read more [Yahoo World News]

US, North Korea reach deal to resume emergency food aid (AFP)

AFP - The United States said Friday it will send 500,000 metric tonnes of emergency food aid to North Korea over the next year under a deal with Pyongyang permitting better monitoring of deliveries.

Read more [Yahoo World News]

Aftershock rattles China quake zone (AP)

AP - A powerful aftershock knocked out roads and communications in some of the most quake-ravaged parts of central China on Friday, as emergency crews rescued more than 30 people who had survived up to 100 improbable hours trapped in the ruins.

Read more [Yahoo World News]

China's 1-child policy causes extra pain (AP)

AP - After their daughter was born, Bi Kaiwei and his wife, Meilin, decided to adhere to China's one-child policy and its slogan, "Have fewer kids, live better lives."

Read more [Yahoo World News]

China rescuers seek survivors in hard-hit town (AP)

Read more [Yahoo World News]

US announces deal to send food to North Korea (AP)

AP - The United States said Friday it has reached a deal with North Korea to provide more than 500,000 tons of food aid over the coming year to the closed-off communist nation.
Read more [Yahoo World News]

'Fastest Indian' goes under water

A Wellington man has taken the New Zealand tradition of guys mucking around in their backyard sheds to new extremes by building what is possibly the country's first home-made two-man submarine. In what could be the underwater version...
Read more [New Zealand Herald]

Olympic effort for big move ... and don't forget the rice

In just a few days a 12-metre container, full of gear, will be loaded aboard a boat to China. Inside it will be stowed all the equipment required to help the New Zealand team realise its Olympic dreams. Everything from printers...
Read more [New Zealand Herald]

Thousands in Hep A scare

A Korean waitress at Queenstown's Copthorne Hotel may have exposed thousands of guests to hepatitis A. Public Health South medical officer of health Dr Marion Poore was notified yesterday that the waitress was found to have hepatitis...
Read more [New Zealand Herald]

'Why were most of those killed in the earthquake children?'

China's worst earthquake in three decades has allowed its citizens an unusual period of freedom to debate the authorities' response to the natural disaster online
Read more [Guardian Unlimited World]

U.S. announces deal to send 500,000 tons of food to North Korea

The Bush administration says the food aid is unrelated to its nuclear disarmament deal with Pyongyang.
Read more [International Herald Tribune]

Communist party membership no longer a fireable offence in California

Republican senator warnes: 'the Communist party is not a dead organisation ... and [is] actively repressing human beings in Cuba and China in brutal ways'
Read more [Guardian Unlimited World]

Jordanian Queen: Malaysia can help west understand Muslim world

Malaysia can be a leading force in helping the West understand the Muslim world, Queen RaniaAl Abdullah of Jordan said here on Friday. This was because Malaysia had set many examples, a powerful contradiction to a lot of negative st ...
Read more [People's Daily]

World's 77 developing economies set for Cote d'Ivoire meeting

Cote d'Ivoire is set to host a meeting of the Group of 77 countries + China in the political capital of Yamoussoukro slated to take place from June 10 to 13, the country's foreign ministry has announced. A delegation of G77 is curre ...
Read more [People's Daily]