Asia News

President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, will attend a memorial service in Fort Hood, Texas, on Tuesday for victims of a mass shooting.

The Muslim world is watching how the United States will act on the stalled process for Palestinian-Israeli peace and wondering how one of the main sticking points, Israeli settlements, will be resolved, the world's top diplomat for Islam said on Saturday.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao meets African leaders on Sunday, aiming to boost a relationship which politically goes back decades and is now economically booming -- to the discomfort of some in the West.

U.S. President Barack Obama is wrapping up deliberations on war strategy in Afghanistan and is considering final Pentagon options that include sending about 30,000 more troops, officials said on Saturday.

Participation of the United Communist Party of Nepal-Maoists (UCPN-M) in the peace process in Nepal is just a "tactic" and another round of armed clash to capture state power is not far away, Baburam Bhattarai, key ideologue of the movement, said.

Anticipating that an imminent Indo-Nepal extradition treaty will have negative consequences on its nationals alleged to be involved in anti-India activities in Nepal, Pakistan has surprised India by proposing its own extradition treaty to Nepal which bars Kathmandu from extraditing Pakistani nationals.

Beijing, Nov 8 (IANS) An earthquake measuring 5.6 on the Richter scale hit Xigaze prefecture of southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region early Sunday morning, a report said.

Lebanon's Prime Minister-designate Saad al-Hariri will announce a new national unity government to include Iranian- and Syrian-backed Hezbollah in the next few days, politicians said on Saturday.

Iranian police detained more than 100 people for "disturbing public order" during a rally this week to mark the anniversary of the seizure of the U.S. embassy, the official IRNA news agency reported on Saturday.

Japan urged Myanmar on Saturday to release detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi before next year's election, adding it was ready to provide more aid if democratisation in the country advanced.

The grandfather of a U.S. Army psychiatrist accused of shooting dead 13 people and wounding 30 others at a base in Texas said on Saturday he found it impossible to believe his grandson had committed the act.

Russia's communist party denounced powerful Prime Minister Vladimir Putin while cautiously praising President Dmitry Medvedev on Saturday as a man who had brought 'certain hopes' to the country.

U.S. President Barack Obama's national security adviser, James Jones, has said there is no guarantee that sending extra troops to Afghanistan would solve NATO's problems, and that they could just be "swallowed up".

British finance minister Alistair Darling urged his G20 counterparts on Saturday to work toward a $100 billion deal to tackle climate change but developing nations insisted they did not want to talk about it.

Sanctions against Iran should not be ruled out if it fails to agree to restrictions on its nuclear programme, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told German weekly magazine Der Spiegel in an interview.

Thailand said on Saturday it has no plan yet to seal its border with Cambodia despite a diplomatic row, but will seek to extradite fugitive former premier, Thaksin Shinawatra, if he goes to Cambodia to become an adviser.

Islamabad, Nov 7 (DPA) Pakistani troops have killed 12 Taliban militants in the ongoing operation in country's northwest, the army said Saturday.

Kathmandu, Nov 7 (IANS) Ignoring a rebuff by Nepal's ruling parties, who have asked the UN not to intervene in the republic's internal matters, a top UN official is suggesting that the parties fix the powers of President Ram Baran Yadav, whose action almost six months ago triggered a fresh crisis in the Himalayan nation.

Lebanon's Prime Minister-designate Saad al-Hariri will announce a new national unity government in the next two days after clinching a deal with the opposition on its make-up, politicians from both sides said on Saturday.