Asia - Diaal News

Australian jailed for life for rape, murder

2013-06-19 06:10:36 UTC
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — A serial sex offender was sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday for raping and murdering an Irish woman while he was free on parole after previous convictions for raping five women. Adrian Ernest Bayley, 41, was...

Singapore fumes as air pollution hits 16-year high

2013-06-19 06:07:22 UTC
SINGAPORE (AP) — Singaporeans rolled back military training, kept cough-stricken children indoors and considered wearing protective masks to work after a smoky haze triggered by forest fires in neighboring Indonesia caused air pollution to...

Deadly year for encephalitis feared in India

2013-06-18 16:27:35 UTC
GORAKHPUR, India (AP) — A mosquito-borne disease that preys on the young and malnourished is sweeping across poverty-riven northern India again this monsoon season, with officials worried it could be the deadliest outbreak in nearly a decade...

Uncertainty over US stimulus drags shares lower

2013-06-18 05:07:00 UTC
TOKYO (AP) — Jitters over a possible change in U.S. stimulus efforts by the Federal Reserve helped pull share prices mostly lower in early Asian trading Tuesday. Asia's biggest benchmark, Japan's Nikkei stock average, shed early gains to ...

US sees nothing new in NKorea talks offer

2013-06-18 04:55:56 UTC
WASHINGTON (AP) — The State Department says it sees nothing new in North Korea's offer of high-level talks with the U.S. Spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Monday that Pyongyang has made similar offers numerous times over the years. She said Washingt...

Chinese supercomputer named as world's fastes

2013-06-18 04:49:58 UTC
t BEIJING (AP) — A Chinese university has built the world's fastest supercomputer, almost doubling the speed of the U.S. machine that previously claimed the top spot and underlining China's rise as a science and technology powerhouse. The sem...

Airborne laser reveals city under Cambodian earth

2013-06-18 04:47:50 UTC
SYDNEY (AP) — Airborne laser technology has uncovered a network of roadways and canals, illustrating a bustling ancient city linking Cambodia's famed Angkor Wat temples complex. The discovery was announced late Monday in a peer-reviewed pape...

Thai Buddhist monks criticized for lavish behavior

2013-06-18 04:46:21 UTC
BANGKOK (AP) — Thailand's Buddhism body said it is monitoring monks nationwide for any inappropriate behavior after a video showed monks using luxurious personal items while flying on a private jet. The YouTube video showed one of the m...

North Korea changes tack and tells US: Let's talk

2013-06-17 04:24:58 UTC
PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — After months of threatening to wage a nuclear war, North Korea did an about-face Sunday and issued a surprise proposal to the United States, its No. 1 enemy: Let's talk. But the invitation from North Korea's ...

North Korea proposes high-level talks with US

2013-06-16 05:15:02 UTC
PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — North Korea's top governing body on Sunday proposed high-level nuclear and security talks with the United States in an appeal sent just days after calling off talks with rival South Korea. The powerful Nation...

Crackdown filling NKorean prisons with defectors

2013-06-13 07:11:11 UTC
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea's prison population has swelled with those caught fleeing the country under a crackdown on defections by young leader Kim Jong Un, according to defectors living in South Korea and researchers who study Pyongya...

World's oldest person dies in Japan at 116

2013-06-12 05:26:10 UTC
TOKYO (AP) — Japan's Jiroemon Kimura, who had been recognized by the Guinness World Records as the world's oldest living person and the oldest man ever, died Wednesday of natural causes. He was 116. Kimura, of Kyotango, Japan, was born April ...

SKorea: Talks with North scrapped over negotiators

2013-06-12 05:22:53 UTC
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The Koreas' first high-level talks in years were scrapped a day before they were to begin Wednesday because the sides didn't agree on the delegation leaders, South Korea said. The cancellation deflated tentative hop...

Chinese craft blasts into space on docking mission

2013-06-12 05:16:14 UTC
JIUQUAN, China (AP) — A Chinese spacecraft blasted off to begin the country's fifth and longest manned space mission, taking three astronauts to an orbiting space lab from where they will give science lessons to youngsters. A Long March...

Witch hunts in Papua New Guinea linked to jealousy

2013-06-11 04:23:55 UTC
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — On a tropical island where most people live in huts, assailants armed with guns, machetes and axes stormed the wooden house by night. They set the building on fire and took away four female relatives to be tortu...

Korea talks raise hopes; history may scuttle them

2013-06-11 04:18:59 UTC
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The two Koreas will hold their highest-level talks in years Wednesday in an effort to restore scrapped joint economic projects and ease animosity marked by recent threats of nuclear war. That in itself is progress, ...

Journalist: Snowden fled US fearing unfair trial

2013-06-10 17:16:03 UTC
HONG KONG (AP) — The American intelligence contractor who disclosed U.S. government surveillance programs fled to Hong Kong because he believed he wouldn't get a fair trial in his home country, the journalist who broke the story said Monday....

Leak of NSA programs tests US, China ties

2013-06-10 17:04:04 UTC
BEIJING (AP) — A day after the presidents of China and the United States ended their first summit, pledges of cooperation by the two leaders faced an early test from an unexpected quarter -- an American intelligence contractor was leaking hi...

As Japan seeks revival, hedge funds bet on a bust

2013-06-10 04:50:20 UTC
TOKYO (AP) — Until a couple of months ago, Takashi Yamada had one of the most genteel jobs in Japan. Now, his days are so harried he doesn't have time to eat lunch. Yamada, 45, is a government-bond trader at major brokerage Daiwa Securiti...

Former China railways boss goes on trial for graft

2013-06-09 17:09:05 UTC
BEIJING (AP) — The man who once ran China's powerful railways ministry wept as he admitted his guilt and sought leniency Sunday at his trial on corruption charges, one of the country's highest-level graft cases in years. Liu Zhijun, 60,...

11 years for jailed Nobel winner's relative

2013-06-09 04:49:19 UTC
HUAIROU, China (AP) — A court sentenced the brother-in-law of China's imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo to 11 years in prison Sunday — an unusually harsh punishment for a business dispute that the activist's wife immediately decri...

2 Koreas talk in border village after tensions

2013-06-09 04:47:36 UTC
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Government delegates from North and South Korea began preparatory talks Sunday at a "truce village" on their heavily armed border aimed at setting ground rules for a higher-level discussion on easing animosity and res...

Endangered elephant killings rising in Indonesia

2013-06-09 04:38:04 UTC
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Poisoning or shooting killed many of the 129 critically endangered elephants that have died on Indonesia's Sumatra island in less than a decade, highlighting weak enforcement of laws against poaching, an environmental ...

China IDs suspect, says he set bus fire in anger

2013-06-08 14:59:20 UTC
BEIJING (AP) — The suspect in a commuter bus fire that rattled a prosperous Chinese port city burned to death in the blaze he set to vent his anger, local authorities said Saturday. The fire ripped through the bus as it traveled on an ele...

Koreas agree to meeting in bid to ease tensions

2013-06-08 06:23:40 UTC
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North and South Korea will meet Sunday at a village straddling their heavily armed border as the sides try to lower tension and restore projects once seen as symbols of their rapprochement, officials said. The No...