Cambodian and Thai officials held talks to prevent fresh fighting on their border Sunday after tensions over disputed land around an ancient temple flared into deadly gunbattles.
A third Thai soldier died in hospital following Friday’s clashes, which rattled relations between the neighbours just days before a regional summit that was supposed to focus on the global economic slowdown.
Military officials from both sides met over lunch in disputed territory near the 11th-century Preah Vihear temple on Sunday, while Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen was set to meet Thai officials later in …

John Solecki, the head of the UN refugee agency’s office in the southwestern province of Baluchistan, was found on Saturday night by the side of a road near Quetta, the provincial capital, with his hands and feet bound, pleading: “Help me, help me!”
Ethnic Baluch separatists had earlier claimed responsibility for the abduction and at one point threatened to kill Mr Solecki — the highest-profile Westerner to be kidnapped in Pakistan since Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was beheaded in 2002. News of Mr Solecki’s release came …

A North Korean rocket appears to have passed over Japan, the Japanese government said on Sunday, having dropped booster stages to the east and west of the country.
“The projectile launched from North Korea today appears to have passed over towards the Pacific,” the prime minister’s office said in a statement.
North Korea has said it was putting a satellite into space and but regional powers say Pyongyang is testing a missile designed to carry a warhead to U.S. territory.

British troops began their formal withdrawal from southern Iraq Tuesday, “marking the beginning of the end of the UK’s six-year combat mission in Iraq,” the Ministry of Defence announced.
The remaining 4,000 or so British troops in the sector will leave by summer, a ministry spokesman told CNN.
The spokesman declined to be named in line with MoD policy.
“You won’t now see hundreds of troops coming out of Iraq every day, (but) this is the start of the end for British forces — a period that will take until the end of …

A government official in the Philippines says kidnappers holding three Red Cross workers have threatened to behead one of their captives Tuesday by 2 p.m. local time (0600 UTC) unless police and troops withdraw from Jolo island.
Authorities say the militant group Abu Sayyaf contacted the government late Sunday to demand a complete evacuation of government forces from Jolo, in the southern Philippines, by Monday night. The island nation’s interior secretary, Ronaldo Puno, says it is physically impossible to comply with the new demand.

At least 48 people were killed and 150 injured when a suicide bomber detonated explosives during Friday prayers at a mosque in the Khyber region of northwest Pakistan, according to news reports from the area and residents.
Tariq Hayat , the chief administrator of the region close to the Afghanistan border, told Geo TV that “so far we have counted 48 bodies.”
Residents said that about 250 to 300 worshipers were in the mosque at the time of the attack and that the death toll could rise sharply.

After agreeing to bury their differences and unite forces, Taliban leaders based in Pakistan have closed ranks with their Afghan comrades to ready a new offensive in Afghanistan as the United States prepares to send 17,000 more troops there this year.
In interviews, several Taliban fighters based in the border region said preparations for the anticipated influx of American troops were already being made. A number of new, younger commanders have been preparing to step up a campaign of roadside bombings and suicide attacks to greet the Americans, the fighters said.
The …

British officials believe all five Britons kidnapped in Iraq almost two years ago are alive, despite claims by the hostage takers last year that one of them had taken his own life.
The revelation comes after the British embassy in Baghdad received a tape of one of the hostages, the first such video in eight months. The tape was handed over to the Embassy by Iraqi security officials last week, and was purportedly filmed nine days ago. Embassy officials declined to reveal the identity of the hostage, while analysts try to …