Asia News

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama began a meeting on Monday night with top advisers on Afghanistan as he closes in on a decision about whether to send thousands more U.S. troops to confront a growing insurgency.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - President Barack Obama has been huddling with his war cabinet for what officials indicated could be the final time before he decides whether to dispatch tens of thousands more US troops to Afghanistan.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Monday completing a 2005 U.S.-India nuclear cooperation deal would boost investment opportunities in his country, a hopeful sign for U.S. companies eyeing India's potential $150 billion market in power plants.

MELBOURNE, Australia - A kangaroo startled by a man walking his dog attacked the pair, pinning the pet underwater and slashing the owner in the abdomen with its hind legs. The Australian, Chris Rickard, was in stable condition Monday after the attack, which ended when the 49-year-old elbowed the kangaroo in the throat.

WASHINGTON - Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Monday that the world must press Pakistan to stop supporting terrorists who continue to target India.

WASHINGTON - The White House said President Barack Obama could use an unusual evening war council session Monday to lock in his long-awaited decision on whether to commit tens of thousands of new U.S. forces to the stalemated war in Afghanistan.

SYDNEY (AFP) - Bangladeshi twins Trishna and Krishna have left intensive care as they continue their remarkable recovery from surgery to separate their conjoined heads, the hospital said.

MANILA, Philippines - Gunmen ambushed a caravan of political supporters and journalists on their way to file election papers, killing at least 24 people in a massacre considered shocking even for a region notorious for violence between rival clans.

HAVANA (AFP) - Cuba and Australia have decided to strengthen their 20-year relationship, Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith said Monday at the start of a two-day visit to Havana.

KABUL - Bombings and shootings killed 12 people across Afghanistan, including four American troops and three children, as President Barack Obama convened his war council again Monday to fine-tune a strategy to respond to the intransigent violence.

JAKARTA, Indonesia - Rescuers plucked a woman from choppy waters Monday, some 25 hours after she jumped from a crowded ferry that sank in a storm off Indonesia's Sumatra island. At least 29 people drowned, and 20 others were missing.

SYDNEY - Conjoined Bangladeshi twins who were separated in a marathon surgery last week left intensive care on Monday and were adjusting well, hospital officials said.

HEGANG, China - The coal mine that exploded in northern China, killing 104, had too many workers underground in an effort to increase output, a government official said Monday, exposing the risks often taken to meet the country's insatiable energy demands.

GUANGZHOU, China - Hundreds of residents worried about property values and health risks protested Monday against the planned construction of a trash incinerator in the southern boomtown of Guangzhou.

BEIJING - A veteran dissident was sentenced Monday to three years in prison after casting a spotlight on poorly built schools that collapsed during China's massive earthquake last year, killing thousands of children — an apparent government attempt to squelch such information.

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - The genocide trial of a prison chief for Cambodia's Khmer Rouge entered its final stage Monday, as closing arguments began in the historic effort to assign responsibility for the deaths of 1.7 million people three decades ago.

KABUL - The U.S. on Monday agreed to hand out millions of dollars in development aid to provinces in Afghanistan that have eliminated or reduced the production of opium poppies, the raw ingredient in making heroin.

PARACHINAR, Pakistan - Pakistan's army fought Islamist militants for control of a northwestern district on Monday, killing 18 of them in an escalating campaign against insurgents intent on toppling the U.S.-allied government.

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia - Gunfire hit the home of two American lecturers in Indonesia's western province of Aceh on Monday, but no one was injured.

CANBERRA, Australia - A man who blames the Church of Scientology for his brother's suicide added his voice Monday to calls for an Australia Senate inquiry into the religion.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - Sri Lanka's president signed a decree Monday calling for early elections, hoping to take advantage of his popularity after ending the country's 25-year civil war to win a new six-year term.

MANILA, Philippines - Philippine police searched for an American who escaped after allegedly killing a government official's son in a road-rage shooting — the second homicide case against him, officials said Monday.

BEIJING - Beijing on Monday criticized a U.S. government report that said Chinese spies are aggressively stealing American secrets, saying the report was "full of prejudice" and warning that it could damage US-China relations.

SYDNEY - A U.S. Navy serviceman was found not guilty Monday of sexually assaulting a prostitute at a brothel while on shore leave in Australia's biggest city.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - Eight women set out Monday from their base camp on Antarctica to ski to the South Pole in a trek to mark the 60th anniversary of the Commonwealth grouping of 53 former British colonies.

CANBERRA, Australia - Sri Lankan and Afghan asylum seekers were separated at an island immigration detention center after a riot left 37 injured, an official said Monday.

NEW DELHI - The Dalai Lama defended President Barack Obama from criticism that he has been too soft on China, saying Sunday that the U.S. leader just has a different approach to dealing with the Asian giant.

GAUHATI, India - Suspected militants set off two bombs outside a police station in India's restive northeast on Sunday, killing seven people and wounding more than 50, police said.

MUMBAI, India - The walls that the rockets blew out have not been repaired, and the plaster is a dense scattershot of bullet holes. Dozens of holes, blasted by grenades, pockmark the linoleum floors.