Ed Lane

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's Communist Party elite on Sunday marked a century since the revolution that ended millennia of rule by emperors, a date that has stoked warnings by critics that the party must tackle deeper reforms or also risk losing power.

(Reuters) - A magnitude 6.0 earthquake struck northeast of the capital of the Pacific island nation of Tonga on Saturday, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) - At least 13 people were shot dead by gunmen in a suspected sectarian attack on a passenger bus in Pakistan's southwestern Baluchistan province on Tuesday, the second such attack in just over two weeks.

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghans are used to having their days broken by a burst of gunfire or the boom of an explosion. But the barrage of drumming, bass beats and amped-up guitar solos that will hit the city next week may stop many in their tracks.

PAJU, South Korea (Reuters) - The head of South Korea's conservative ruling party made a rare visit to North Korea on Friday in the hope of improving soured relations between the rivals, but returned home with no breakthrough.

HERAT, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Two Afghan policewomen and a civilian were killed by a bomb blast in western Afghanistan on Thursday, the first female police casualties since the conservative Muslim country began recruiting women officers four years ago, officials said.

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan has become more insecure in 2011, with a sharp rise in security incidents and higher numbers of civilian casualties, displaced people and complex suicide attacks, a UN report said on Wednesday.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan's powerful army chief General Ashfaq Kayani met with his top commanders on Sunday in a "special" meeting to discuss the security situation, the military said, as the war of words with the United States escalated.

TOKYO (Reuters) - A mayor who backs a plan to build a new nuclear reactor in his western Japanese town was reelected on Sunday, Kyodo news reported, a sign that atomic power still has pockets of support in the country despite the Fukushima nuclear crisis.

JAKARTA (Reuters) - A suspected suicide bomber attacked a church on Indonesia's Java island on Sunday, killing himself and injuring 17 people, police said.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Tibet's exiled spiritual head the Dalai Lama on Saturday questioned whether the tradition of leadership reincarnation should be continued, saying he and other leaders of Tibetan Buddhism will take a call on the issue in about 15 years, a statement on his official website said.

AMMAN (Reuters) - Syria has banned imports of most foreign manufactured goods except raw materials and grains, local businessmen said on Saturday in a move to preserve foreign currency reserves under pressure from Western sanctions and ongoing political unrest.

UKHAA KHUDAG, Mongolia (Reuters) - A lone cement ribbon bisecting hundreds of miles of shale and scrub on the high plains of Mongolia's Gobi Desert may be a talisman or curse for nomadic herders that trace their lineage to the empire of Ghengis Khan.

KILINOCHCHI, Sri Lanka (AlertNet) - Ranjini wakes up screaming. Her mother's body is on fire, her teenage sister is covered in blood and the mutilated, charred corpses of her relatives lie scattered everywhere.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan had no confirmation on Friday that al Qaeda's chief of operations in the country had been killed in a recent drone strike in the northwestern tribal region, as reported by American officials.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese authorities detained 32 people for making and selling tonnes of cooking oil dredged from gutters, the ministry of public security said on Tuesday, in the latest food safety scandal to hit the country.

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korean leader Kim Jong-il flanked by his son reviewed a military parade of goose-stepping North Korean soldiers in Pongyang's central square on Friday, underlining a planned third generation of dynastic rule is on track.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - A spate of audacious and deadly terrorist attacks on high profile targets in India is unlikely to be stopped anytime soon because the response by the government, slammed by one tabloid as "clueless," has been half hearted and underfunded.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Leaning on a cane, Wang Bin hobbled out between the columns of the mausoleum on Tiananmen Square that houses the embalmed body of Mao Zedong, happy he had the strength to visit the shrine before he died.

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Seven dogs starved of food and water for two weeks are suspected of eating their Indonesian owner after he returned to his hometown in Manado from a holiday, local media reported on Tuesday.