Asia News

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - President Pervez Musharraf lifted Pakistan's six-week-old state of emergency and restored the constitution Saturday, easing a crackdown that has enraged opponents and worried Western supporters.

BANGALORE, India (AFP) - A two-year-old Indian girl born with four arms and four legs was due to leave hospital Saturday, more than a month after a marathon operation to remove her extra limbs, doctors said.

JAKARTA, Indonesia - A strong earthquake shook eastern Indonesia on Saturday, sending panicked residents running out of their homes.

DHAKA (AFP) - The European Commission said Saturday it had boosted aid to Bangladesh to more than 10.5 million euros (15 million dollars) with a new package to relocate thousands of Myanmar refugees.

SRINAGAR, India (AFP) - One person was killed when police fired on hundreds of students calling for a college to be set up in their town in revolt-hit Indian Kashmir, police said Saturday.

KABUL (AFP) - Two bombs struck the Afghan capital Saturday, one of them killing five civilians, while nine people died in new attacks in a Taliban insurgency that is in its bloodiest year so far, officials said.

NUSA DUA, Indonesia (AFP) - A drama-filled 190-nation conference on Saturday set a 2009 deadline for a landmark pact to fight global warming after an isolated United States backed down on last-ditch objections.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - President Pervez Musharraf lifted emergency rule in Pakistan and restored the constitution on Saturday, in a move Western nations hope will stabilize the nuclear-armed state as Islamic militant violence spirals.

BALI, Indonesia - In a dramatic finish to a U.N. climate conference, world leaders adopted a plan Saturday for negotiating a new global warming pact by 2009, after the United States backed down in a battle over wording supported by developing nations and Europe.

BALI, Indonesia - Key points of the final decision at the U.N. climate change conference setting an agenda for talks on a new global warming pact to succeed the Kyoto Protocol at the end of 2012:

YANGON, Myanmar - The World Health Organization has confirmed Myanmar's first human case of bird flu and praised the secretive country for its quick and open handling of the infection.

HANOI, Vietnam - Bird flu has resurfaced in parts of Asia, with human deaths reported in Indonesia and China and fresh outbreaks plaguing other countries during the winter months when the virus typically flares.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - Clashes between Sri Lankan soldiers and separatist Tamil Tiger rebels in the country's embattled north left 31 guerrillas and one soldier dead, the military said Saturday.

BALI, Indonesia - The "Bali Roadmap" for new climate negotiations leads to one address and one date: 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. and Jan. 20, 2009.

BEIJING - Police detained a senior official of a coal mine who had been in hiding since an explosion killed 105 miners in one of China's worst underground accidents in years, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported Saturday.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A suicide bomber on a bicycle killed at least two soldiers and three civilians Saturday at a checkpoint near the gate of an army school in northwest Pakistan, the army spokesman said.

KABUL, Afghanistan - A rocket landed in a crowd of civilians near Kabul's police headquarters Saturday, and a truck full of rockets smuggled into the city under a pile of hay exploded nearby moments later, officials said. At least five people were killed.

BALI, Indonesia - Delegates at a U.N. climate conference have agreed to include forest conservation in any future discussions about a new global warming pact, paving the way for billions of dollars in new spending to attack illegal logging, officials said.

As of Friday, Dec. 14, 2007, at least 401 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 Dec. 8, 2007, at 10 a.m. EST.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Nadia Chaudhry's hands trembled in the cold night air as she held a candle at a protest against Pakistan's emergency rule, the government's firing of judges and jailing of civil rights activists.

SHANGHAI, China - When freelance writer Wang Jian shops for toys for her 5-year-old son, she's happy to pay extra for Legos blocks and Japanese-brand train sets.

SEOUL, South Korea - South Korean lawmakers came to blows in parliament Friday, and at least one was carried from the building on a stretcher, as two political parties fought over control of the speaker's podium.

SEOUL, South Korea - U.S. specialists began aiding a massive sea and land battle Friday to try to contain and clean up 2.7 million gallons of crude oil from South Korea's worst oil spill.

TOKYO - A gunman opened fire at a sports club in southwestern Japan on Friday night, killing one employee and wounding seven other people before escaping, police said.

SEOUL, South Korea - North and South Korea ended three days of talks Friday without an agreement on creating a shared fishing zone to defuse tensions along their disputed sea border.

BEIJING - Cross-border human trafficking for forced labor and prostitution is a growing problem along China's southern border, officials said Friday at a conference on the issue.

SEOUL, South Korea - South Korea brought home 195 army medics and engineers Friday from Afghanistan, ending its five-year deployment to help rebuild the war-ravaged country at Washington's request.

SEOUL, South Korea - South Korean scientists have cloned cats that glow red when exposed to ultraviolet rays, an achievement that could help develop cures for human genetic diseases, the Science and Technology Ministry said.

NEW DELHI - A bus collided with a train in northern India on Friday, killing at least 16 people, including nine children on their way to school, police said.