BUDAPEST, Hungary - A number of NATO countries are balking at the United States' request that their troops in Afghanistan do more to confront drug lords whose money helps bankroll the Taliban, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday.
VIENNA, Austria - North Korea moved closer Thursday to relaunching its nuclear arms program, announcing that it wants to reactivate the facility that produced its atomic bomb and banning U.N. inspectors from the site.
SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea is preparing to conduct more missile tests soon, a South Korean newspaper reported Thursday, citing intelligence obtained by South Korean and U.S. authorities.
WASHINGTON - The military said Wednesday that U.S. airstrikes in Afghanistan on Aug. 22 killed 33 civilians, far more than previously acknowledged. While expressing regret, it blamed the Taliban, the targets, for taking up fighting positions near civilians.
KATMANDU, Nepal - Hindu and Buddhist priests chanted sacred hymns and cascaded flowers and grains of rice over a 3-year-old girl who was appointed a living goddess in Nepal on Tuesday.
The Security Bureau reminds Hong Kong residents planning to visit Thailand to be vigilant of the situation there. Those already in Thailand should watch their personal safety and avoid demonstrations or large gatherings.
BEIJING - A planned multibillion dollar U.S. arms sale to Taiwan threatens China's national security and has cast a pall over military relations between Beijing and Washington, the foreign ministry said Tuesday.
TOKYO - Japan's new leader plans to hold talks with Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao when he visits Beijing later this month, Kyodo news agency reported Sunday.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - With its world's tallest building nearing completion, Dubai said Sunday it is embarking on an even more ambitious skyscraper: one that will soar more than 10 American football fields.
DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan - The Taliban are furious about the latest apparent U.S. missile strike in Pakistan, indicating a senior militant may be among two dozen people killed, officials and residents said Sunday.
BEIJING - The top U.S. nuclear envoy held talks with his Chinese counterpart in Beijing on Saturday, an embassy spokesman said, after a trip to North Korea failed to stop the communist regime from restoring its atomic facilities.
NEW DELHI, India - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in the Indian capital Saturday to commemorate — but not put her signature to — a historic deal that opens up U.S. nuclear trade with the Asia giant.
DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan - Two suspected U.S. missile strikes Friday on villages close to the border with Afghanistan killed at least 12 people, most of them militants, Pakistani intelligence officials said.
TAIPEI, Taiwan - Taiwan's health minister said Thursday its tests have found minor doses of the industrial chemical melamine in milk powders produced in China by Switzerland-based Nestle.
SEOUL, South Korea - One of South Korea's most popular actresses was found dead in a suspected suicide Thursday, police said.
KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghan President Hamid Karzai says he has asked the king of Saudi Arabia to help facilitate peace talks with the Taliban to bring an end to the Afghan conflict.
MALEGAON, India - Two bombs exploded in separate towns in western India in crowded markets packed with Muslim shoppers, killing six people and wounding 45 others, police said Tuesday.
CAIRO, Egypt - A kidnapped 19-member European tour group was freed Monday and the 11 tourists and eight Egyptian guides and drivers are in good health and on their way to Cairo, Egypt's state news agency and television reported.
TOKYO - Like a lot of 20-year-olds, Kae Takahashi has a page on U.S.-based MySpace, and there is no mistaking it for anyone else's.
As of Friday, Sept. 26, 2008, at least 535 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as a result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to the Defense Department. The department last updated its figures Tuesday at 10 a.m. EDT.
