(Press TV) India deploys troops to strike-hit Kashmir to prevent planned rallies against the anniversary of arrival of Indian troops in the region.

(BBC News) A senior western diplomat has warned that living conditions are deteriorating for tens of thousands of civilians displaced inside Tamil Tiger rebel-held areas in northern Sri Lanka. It is a humanitarian disaster waiting to happen, he says.

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysia's deputy premier Najib Razak looks to have an easy path to the top job in ruling party elections in March, but an unseemly scramble for power around him could damage his efforts to rebuild the government.

(Council on Foreign Relations) Over the past four years, an insurgency in Thailand's southern, predominantly Muslim provinces has claimed nearly three thousand lives. The separatist violence in these majority Malay Muslim provinces has a history traceable back for more than half a century.

(VOA) Indian forces in Kashmir say they have killed one of three suspected Muslim militants who are holding about half a dozen hostages including women and children. Shahnawaz Khan reports for VOA from Srinagar police say the militants killed at least three people on the outskirts of Kashmir's Hindu-dominated winter capital of Jammu.

(Guardian) Triumphalism over a Musharraf impeachment won't hide the failings of Pakistan's ruling coalition.

KATHMANDU (IANS) After their unexpected triumph in Nepal’s general elections in April, the former Maoist guerrillas Friday began preparations to take up the reins of the new government with their chief Prachanda inching towards absolute victory in the prime ministerial race.

(BBC News) The claims and counter claims by Sri Lanka's warring parties in the current fighting have overshadowed civilian suffering and misery in the northern region.

KARACHI (Channel News Asia) Legislators in southern Pakistan voted on Wednesday for a resolution against President Pervez Musharraf, officials said, in the latest prelude to the US-backed leader's possible impeachment.

IYATHIGEWEWA, Sri Lanka (AP) Iyathigewewa is a classic company town. But its young residents do not head to work in the local mine or factory - they go to war.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) With some 4,000 troops massed along the Thai-Cambodian border, United Nations Security Council members say they will try to keep a standoff from escalating into war.

(Christian Science Monitor) Each side has domestic reasons to prolong the conflict.

(RTTNews) Cambodia and Thailand have moved more troops to a disputed ancient temple site located along their border, said Cambodian Brig Gen. Chea Keo on Thursday.

KUALA LUMPUR (Channel News Asia) Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was arrested on Wednesday, police said, over allegations that he sodomised a male aide which threaten to thwart his plan to seize power.

INDONESIA (Antara News) Hundreds of thousands of people were gathering here Tuesday to cremate two Balinese royals in what promises to be one of the largest funeral rites of its kind in local memory.

(Radio Australia) The United Nations-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal in Cambodia has dismissed a bail request by former Khmer Rouge cabinet minister, Ieng Thirith.

(Economist) On June 30th a doped five-year-old tiger flew 300km by helicopter, from a small Indian national park replete with tigers, Ranthambore, to a bigger park, Sariska, which had none.

(Tehran Times) Malaysian Foreign Minister Rais Yatim says Kuala Lumpur seeks the help of influential oil producer Iran in tackling the rising oil prices.

HANOI (AP) Thich Huyen Quang, the patriarch of an outlawed Buddhist church in Vietnam who spent more than two decades in and out of house arrest, died Saturday after months of ailing health. He was 87.

BANGKOK (AP) - More than 30,000 Myanmar refugees living in camps in Thailand have been sent to third countries in what the United Nations said Wednesday had become the world's largest refugee resettlement operation.

WASHINGTON (Asia Times Online) - For decades, it has been generally accepted that the My Lai massacre of as many as 400 Vietnamese civilians by US Army troops on March 16, 1968, was a violation of official policy directives on the treatment of civilians in South Vietnam.