`MAKING PROGRESS': The US secretary of defense told a gathering in Singapore that dialogue and transparency were useful and could help to prevent `misunderstanding'
The US and China turned down the heat yesterday in a simmering dispute over Beijing's military build-up, with US Defense Secretary Robert Gates expressing optimism about future relations.

[ FULL STORY ]

Thai Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont said yesterday his government had no plan to propose early amnesties for ousted Premier Thaksin Shinawatra and his party leaders after they were banned from politics.

[ FULL STORY ]

Train and road transport were partially restored in a northwestern Indian state after four days of violent clashes among police and two lower castes left at least 23 dead, officials said yesterday.

[ FULL STORY ]

A powerful son-in-law of Kazakhstan's president -- wanted in his homeland in connection with an alleged abduction -- was taken into custody by Austrian police, officials said.

[ FULL STORY ]

FITS AND STARTS: The South Korean head of the UN said he believed that 'some progress, even though slow,' has been made in solving the volatile region's problems
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said it was "unfortunate" that the African Union (AU) has problems with a proposal for a 23,000-member AU-UN force to help end the bloodshed in Darfur that was given to the Sudanese government for approval.

[ FULL STORY ]

Gross incompetence, rule-breaking and possible fraud by companies in the developing world have plagued the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), which is supposed to offset greenhouse gases emitted in the developed world by selling carbon credits from elsewhere, the UN, an unpublished expert report and alarming feedback from projects on the ground have indicated.

[ FULL STORY ]

FOR THE GREATER GOOD: The entire exercise was intended to raise awareness of the need for donated organs and was called 'brilliant' by one patient awaiting a transplant
A Dutch television show in which a terminally ill woman supposedly would donate her kidney to one of three contestants was revealed as a hoax.

[ FULL STORY ]

Britain can be made great again if more people help old ladies across the road and television characters stop bed-hopping and killing each other, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair's "respect" chief said yesterday.

[ FULL STORY ]

Ukrainian lawmakers on Friday finished passing the series of bills needed to hold early parliamentary elections, a significant step toward resolving the country's political crisis that some had feared would spill over into violence.

[ FULL STORY ]

FREEDOM: President Alvaro Uribe said `reasons of state' were behind the deal, which will see around 250 rebels exchanged for 56 kidnapped officials, politicians and others
The Colombian government on Friday began releasing hundreds of captured rebels, a unilateral move officials hope will prompt the release of 56 officials, politicians and other hostages held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

[ FULL STORY ]

NORMAL EXCHANGES: Shells launched by Shiites at the Sunni neighborhood of Fadhil killed eight, while an key bridge to Kurdish areas was badly damaged
A series of mortar barrages killed eight civilians and wounded 25 others early yesterday in a Sunni neighborhood in central Baghdad, police said, while a strategic bridge was damaged by a bomb in northern Iraq.

[ FULL STORY ]

It was a short-lived but spectacular breach of security at the new US embassy in Baghdad.

[ FULL STORY ]

An Indian tribe that has had no formal contact with Western civilization has been located in a remote Amazon region, federal authorities said on Friday.

[ FULL STORY ]

■ Japan
[ FULL STORY ]