Asia News Headlines

India must beat Australia in Sunday's one-day international in Sydney to retain any hope of reaching the tri-series finals, and they must do it while denying claims of changing room unrest.

With a police officer wounded and the presidential palace breached, the Pakistani capital has launched a fresh offensive against a uniquely feared enemy in the Muslim country — the city's ever expanding population of wild boar.

Kevin Rudd's bid to lead Australia again was boosted when opinion polls showed he remains more popular than Prime Minister Julia Gillard and likely Labor's best chance of winning an election.

Nearly 8,000 people were killed in Sri Lanka's war-torn north during the government's final offensive to crush the Tamil Tiger rebels, according to Colombo's census department.

Indonesian authorities said Saturday they had regained full control of an overcrowded jail housing 60 foreign inmates on the resort island of Bali, after riots erupted this week.

A 79-run stand by Brendon McCullum and Kane Williamson propelled New Zealand to 253 for nine in the opening one-day international against South Africa in Wellington on Saturday.

North Korea has threatened to stage a "sacred war" over US-South Korean annual joint military exercises next week, denouncing the drill as a "silent declaration of war".

Afghan officials say protests are getting underway in two eastern provinces, making Saturday the fourth straight day of demonstrations against the destruction of Qurans at a U.S. base in the country.

The US ambassador to Afghanistan sent a top-secret cable to Washington last month warning that the existence of enemy havens in Pakistan was placing the US strategy in Afghanistan in jeopardy, according to The Washington Post.

A 12-year-old boy on the Indonesian resort island of Bali has died from bird flu, the fourth human death from the virus this year, an official said Saturday.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard said Saturday that she is "incredibly confident" of leading her Labor Party to victory in elections next year, even as new opinion polls showed the public preferred party rival Kevin Rudd as Australia's leader.

New Zealand won the toss and elected to bat in the opening one-day international against South Africa at Westpac Stadium on Saturday.

A coroner on Friday opened Australia's fourth inquest into the most notorious and bitterly controversial legal drama in the nation's history: the 1980 death of a 9-week-old baby whose parents say was taken by a dingo from her tent in the Australian Outback.

The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan called on his troops to resist any urge to avenge the death of two American soldiers killed in riots over the burning of Qurans at a U.S. base, even as renewed protests Friday claimed at least seven lives.

Pakistan publicly called on the Taliban for the first time Friday to engage the Afghan government in U.S.-backed peace talks, a potentially significant move that could help pave the way for a settlement to end the decade-long war.

Japan's Kamui Kobayashi set the pace on the fourth and final day of the second week of pre-season testing in Barcelona before the opening Formula One race next month.

American housewife Nancy Kissel, twice convicted over the 2003 killing of her banker husband, is seeking an appeal in the lurid case dubbed the "Milkshake Murder", a court official said Friday.

Suicide bombers armed with guns and grenades attacked a Pakistani police station on Friday, killing four officers in the second attack in as many days in the northwestern city of Peshawar.

Japan on Friday said some areas surrounding the Fukushima nuclear power plant that was wrecked last year by a massive tsunami will likely remain permanently off-limits.

"Xena: Warrior Princess" actress Lucy Lawless and a group of Greenpeace activists boarded an oil-drilling ship in New Zealand Friday in a bid to disrupt plans to search for oil off Alaska.

The top U.S. commander told his troops that now is not the time to seek revenge for the death of two Americans who were gunned down by an Afghan soldier during a protest over the burning of Qurans at an American base, even as fresh violence on Friday claimed seven lives.

Anti-US protesters tried to storm a US consulate and march on NATO headquarters in Kabul on Friday as violent demonstrations over the burning of Korans pushed into a fourth day, killing 24 people.

Indonesia replaced a top warden at a tense, overcrowded prison on Bali island Friday after days of rioting forced the transfers of dozens of foreign inmates, women and children.