Asia News - AFP

BANGKOK (AFP) - Thailand's foreign minister on Tuesday denied that about 80 of the country's troops had withdrawn from a disputed area on the border with Cambodia, and insisted they had the right to stay there.

HANOI (AFP) - Vietnam on Tuesday put on trial two reporters who helped expose state corruption, in a case seen as a test on the limits of media freedom in the communist country.

TOKYO (AFP) - Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso on Tuesday criticised the US removal of North Korea from a terrorist blacklist and refused to give aid to Pyongyang under a nuclear disarmament deal.

PHNOM PENH (AFP) - A Cambodian court Tuesday sentenced four former Khmer Rouge guerrillas to up to 20 years in prison over the kidnapping and murder of a British mine clearer and his translator in 1996.

DHAKA (AFP) - The United States has called on Bangladesh's army-backed government to lift a state of emergency ahead of elections aimed at restoring democracy in the South Asian nation by year-end.

SEOUL (AFP) - South Korean Prime Minister Han Seung-Soo on Tuesday warned his cabinet over attempts by Chinese and North Korean computer hackers to obtain state secrets, officials said.

TOKYO (AFP) - Police in Japan said Tuesday they were probing apparent explosions in the southwest of the country, including one at the office of a group promoting Sino-Japanese relations.

KABUL (AFP) - A soldier with US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan was killed and several others were wounded in a bomb blast in the troubled south of the country, the coalition said Tuesday.

SHANGHAI (AFP) - A man who became an unlikely cult hero in China for murdering six policemen in a revenge attack has defiantly insisted he was not insane when he went on his killing spree, state media reported Tuesday.

YANGON (AFP) - Myanmar authorities said Tuesday they had removed seven imported dairy products from store shelves -- one of them from China -- after they were found to contain traces of melamine.

SYDNEY (AFP) - Australian police say they have found human remains in the stomach of a giant crocodile captured in a remote area where a fisherman went missing late last month.

SEOUL (AFP) - South Korea indicated Monday it could go ahead with a steel shipment to impoverished North Korea after Pyongyang and Washington reached a deal to save a six-nation nuclear disarmament pact.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) - Troops and helicopter gunships killed about 40 Taliban militants while four people, including a politician, were injured in a roadside bomb in northwest Pakistan, officials said Monday.

BANGKOK (AFP) - Thai Queen Sirikit attended the funeral Monday of a demonstrator killed in clashes with police, and was greeted by ecstatic anti-government protesters who hailed her rare appearance as a sign of support.

VIENNA (AFP) - North Korea has granted the UN atomic watchdog access to its nuclear facilities at Yongbyon after having barred agency inspectors last week, the IAEA said Monday, following a deal between Washington and Pyongyang.

PHNOM PENH (AFP) - Cambodia warned Monday of the risk of a large-scale armed conflict with Thailand as ministers from the two neighbours failed to reach a breakthrough in talks on their border dispute.

NEW DELHI (AFP) - India's top security officials urged their Pakistani counterparts on Monday to put a stop to ceasefire violations along their shared border in the disputed Kashmir region.

MANILA (AFP) - Five Filipino seamen kidnapped in Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta earlier this month have been released by their captors, an official said Monday.

BANGALORE, India (AFP) - Sachin Tendulkar scored a match-saving 49 to help India avert defeat in the first Test against Australia on Monday, but himself fell short of a world record.

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) - Malaysia's Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi on Monday defended his deputy, who is slated to take power next year, against allegations that he interfered in a high-profile murder case.

COLOMBO (AFP) - At least 27 Tamil Tiger rebels and five government soldiers have been killed in the latest clashes in northern Sri Lanka, the island's defence ministry said Monday.

NEW DELHI (AFP) - Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama is recovering steadily from surgery to remove gallstones but will not leave hospital until later in the week, doctors said on Monday.

SEOUL (AFP) - A South Korean fisherman kidnapped by the North has died in prison after failed attempts to escape, an activist said Monday.

SEOUL (AFP) - North Korea said on Sunday that it would resume work to disable plutonium-producing nuclear plants and readmit UN inspectors after the United States removed it from a terrorism blacklist.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) - About 100 militants were killed in Afghanistan's Helmand province, half in air strikes that thwarted a major attack on a key town overnight, Afghan and British forces said Sunday.

KABUL (AFP) - The commander of international forces in Afghanistan, US General David McKiernan, said Sunday that the West had not lost the war against Islamic insurgents but more troops and equipment were needed to tackle the rebels.

BANGKOK (AFP) - Heavy-handed police tactics, including using tear gas canisters that explode on impact, have left a toll of horror injuries from street clashes in Bangkok, investigators and rights activists say.

ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Pakistani helicopter gunships on Sunday bombed a meeting of Islamic militants linked to Al-Qaeda near the border with Afghanistan, leaving 35 fighters dead, security officials said.