Asia News

Current and former U.S. officials tell The Associated Press that reclusive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar wrote to President Barack Obama last year indicating an interest in talks key to ending the war in Afghanistan.

Leaks of radioactive water have become more frequent at Japan's crippled nuclear power plant less than two months after it was declared basically stable.

Stock index futures edged higher on Friday as investors awaited the monthly payrolls report to see whether to make more large bets in risk assets after recent equity gains.

The United States will soon suffer a catastrophic cyberattack if it doesn't act now to prevent it, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee warned Thursday.

China's main ruling party newspaper criticized sanctions on Iran as German Chancellor Angela Merkel met Friday with President Hu Jintao after urging Beijing to press Tehran to avoid developing nuclear weapons.

An official in Togo says authorities are holding more than 150 Sri Lankan refugees who entered the West African nation en route to Canada.

NATO's top official joined the U.S. and France on Thursday in calling for Afghan forces to take the lead in all combat operations by mid-2013, while continuing to assist them in fighting the Taliban.

A spokesman for the Taliban denied on Wednesday a weekend report that Taliban representatives may meet with officials representing the government of President Hamid Karzai in Saudi Arabia in the coming weeks.

An avalanche has killed three bathers at a hot spring in northern Japan, where heavy snow also has paralyzed traffic and forced schools to close.

North Korea is taking a step back from earlier vows that it would never deal with South Korea's leader, but it is demanding preconditions for resuming talks that include the cancellation of U.S.-South Korea military drills.

A military inquiry on Thursday rejected an Australian soldier's allegations that a comrade died unnecessarily during a gunbattle in Afghanistan because the U.S.-led coalition provided inadequate air support.

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China announced more help Wednesday for its struggling private business sector, unveiling a $2.5 billion fund to finance new small businesses and promising tax breaks and more lending for entrepreneurs.

The Taliban believes it will return to power after the U.S.-led coalition ends its combat role in Afghanistan in 2014, NATO officials said Wednesday, based on a classified report on the interrogation of thousands of insurgent prisoners.

Supposedly friendly Afghan security forces have attacked U.S. and coalition troops 45 times since May 2007, U.S. officials say, for the first time laying out details and analysis of attacks that have killed 70 and wounded 110.

Iran took center stage on Tuesday as top U.S. intelligence officials and senators discussed what could trigger a military response to the Islamic Republic's nuclear activities.

An aircraft using the Joint Precision Airdrop Delivery System releases bundles of humanitarian supplies on April 13, 2008, in Afghanistan.

A look at the Afghan prisoners at Guantanamo that U.S., Afghan and other officials have said are being considered for release as part of a peace deal with the Taliban: Fazl has has been held since January 2002, one of the first prisoners brought to the prison at the U.S. base in Cuba.

A Hawaii-based Marine lance corporal accused of hazing in Afghanistan is going to jail for 30 days and will have his rank reduced to private first class for punching and kicking a fellow Marine who killed himself shortly afterward.Navy Capt.

Al-Qaida is in decline around the world but is still a leading threat to the United States, the top U.S. intelligence official said Tuesday in an annual report to Congress on threats facing the country.