RSS Breaking News - Asia

May 19, 2013 3:24 PM

TOKYO (AFP) - A Japanese minister on Sunday defended a surprise visit to North Korea by one of the prime minister's aides which Washington and Seoul said could not help efforts to forge a united front against Pyongyang.

May 19, 2013 3:22 PM

SEOUL (AFP) - South Korea on Sunday condemned North Korea's latest short-range missile launches as "provocative" and again urged it to hold talks about a suspended jointly-run industrial park.

May 19, 2013 3:18 PM

BEIJING (AFP) - Chinese authorities were on Sunday investigating claims that unidentified North Koreans hijacked a Chinese fishing boat, kidnapping 16 sailors and demanding a ransom, local media and an official said.

May 19, 2013 2:32 PM

NEW DELHI (AP) - Just weeks after a tense border standoff, China's new premier headed to India on Sunday for his first foreign trip as the neighbouring giants look to speed up efforts to settle a decades-old boundary dispute and boost economic ties.

May 19, 2013 12:28 PM

QIANTUN, China (REUTERS) - Two years short of 70, Mr Zhang Guosheng spends his days caring for an 81-year-old fellow villager - washing his clothes, bringing meals to his bed, and keeping him company - a routine he'll keep up until he himself needs the type of care he is now giving.

May 19, 2013 11:35 AM

SAITAMA (AFP) - When amateur actress Etsuko Shigemoto walks out in front of a Paris audience in an all-Japanese production this month she will forget about being 87 years old.

May 19, 2013 11:16 AM

BEIJING (AFP) - Mannequins in riot gear, armoured cars and drones line a police equipment and "anti-terrorism technology" trade fair in Beijing as vendors seek to profit from China's huge internal security budget.

May 19, 2013 6:09 AM

KARACHI (AFP) - Gunmen on Saturday killed a Pakistani woman politician from cricket star Imran Khan's Movement for Justice (PTI) party in the southern port city of Karachi on the eve of partial election re-polling.

May 18, 2013 9:21 PM

NEW DELHI (AFP) - India says all issues will be "on the table", including a recent border spat and a festering trade imbalance, during Chinese Premier Li Keqiang's visit to the South Asian giant which starts on Sunday.

May 18, 2013 8:20 PM

NEW DELHI (AFP) - Bollywood superstar Sanjay Dutt, who is in jail for arms possession, is being held in a cell built for militants where he cannot see daylight and wants to be transferred, a report said on Saturday.

May 18, 2013 7:03 PM

KABUL (AP) - An Afghan legislator says conservative lawmakers have blocked a law that aims to protect women's freedoms, saying parts of it violate Islamic principles.

May 18, 2013 6:38 PM

BEIJING (AFP) - Chinese police have arrested a man who allegedly made bomb threats which caused delays or diversions to Shanghai, news reports said Saturday.

May 18, 2013 5:06 PM

BEIJING (AFP) - Pakistan is set to become the fifth Asian country to use China's domestic satellite navigation system which was launched as a rival to the US global positioning system, a report said on Saturday.

May 18, 2013 5:00 PM

MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan (AFP) - A Chinese man working on an energy project in Pakistan-administered Kashmir was being held on Saturday after hundreds of protesters attacked his company offices over the alleged desecration of a Quran, officials said.

May 18, 2013 4:41 PM

SEOUL (AFP) - North Korea on Saturday launched three short-range missiles into the Sea of Japan, apparently as part of a military drill, South Korea's defence ministry said.

May 18, 2013 2:49 PM

TOKYO (AFP) - An aide to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe returned home from a trip to North Korea on Saturday but declined to shed any light on the reason for his mysterious visit.

May 18, 2013 2:47 PM

TOKYO (AFP) - A strong 6.1-magnitude earthquake struck off the northern coast of Japan's main Honshu island on Saturday, seismologists said, but no tsunami warning was issued and there were no immediate reports of damage.

May 18, 2013 2:16 PM

BEIJING (AFP) - Three Foxconn workers have committed suicide at a factory in China in the past three weeks, state media and a labour rights group said on Saturday.

May 18, 2013 1:36 PM

HONG KONG (AFP) - Hong Kong saw its first electric taxis hit the streets on Saturday in a step towards reducing the city's high levels of roadside pollution.

May 18, 2013 11:33 AM

BEIJING (AP) - Chinese authorities say rainstorms that battered southern China this week have killed 55 people and left 14 others missing.

May 18, 2013 6:08 AM

LONDON (REUTERS) - Four more people in China have died from a new strain of bird flu, bringing the death toll from the H7N9 virus to 36 from 131 confirmed cases, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Friday.

May 18, 2013 1:12 AM

KABUL (AP) - Afghan officials say a car bomb has exploded inside an elite gated community linked to the family of President Hamid Karzai near the southern city of Kandahar.

May 17, 2013 10:11 PM

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Prime Minister Shinzo Abe defended in an interview on Friday the right of Japan's leaders to visit a controversial shrine to war dead but hit back at critics who accuse him of revisionism.

May 17, 2013 7:32 PM

TOKYO (AFP) - An aide to Japan's premier said on Friday that he had held "sincere" talks with North Korean officials during his controversial visit to the country.

May 17, 2013 6:17 PM

TOKYO (AP) - An emerging nationalist Japanese political party whose co-leader outraged many with remarks about Japan's wartime and modern sexual services has expelled a lawmaker for accusing ethnic Koreans of involvement in prostitution.