Russia
MOSCOW - Russia's lower house of parliament, worried by calls to move Soviet state founder Vladimir Lenin's embalmed body out of Red Square, passed a draft law on Wednesday banning changes to the Moscow landmark.
Iran
TEHRAN - A strong aftershock hit villages devastated by an earthquake in eastern Iran, flattening more houses and killing one person, the Iranian news agency IRNA said Wednesday.
Pakistan
ISLAMABAD - A strong earthquake shook northwestern Pakistan and Afghanistan, collapsing flimsy mud houses, killing one man and injuring 10 others, including five children.
Japan
TOKYO - A Japanese court on Wednesday sentenced two U.S. Navy sailors to 5 1/2 years in prison for assaulting and robbing a man in southwestern Japan.
Australia
DARWIN - Round-the-world pilot Linda Finch left Australia on Wednesday bound for the Pacific, heading ever nearer to the site where aviator Amelia Earhart disappeared 60 years ago.
Turkey
ANKARA - Turkish troops launched a cross-border offensive in northern Iraq on Wednesday to crack down on Kurdish rebels, the foreign ministry said.
Taiwan
TAIPEI - China teamed up with Taiwan in their first joint effort against air piracy Wednesday, sending back a Taiwanese journalist who hijacked a Boeing 757.
Croatia
ZAGREB - Under pressure from foreign governments and human rights groups, Croatia said Wednesday it would abandon a law that allowed ethnic Croats to move into homes that belonged to Serbs in southern Croatia.
Afghanistan
KABUL - Recent flooding has killed 24 people and destroyed at least 600 houses and hundreds of acres of farmland in northern Afghanistan, a spokeswoman for the United Nations said Wednesday.
Sri Lanka
COLOMBO - Sri Lankan troops pushing into the Tamil rebels' northern heartland on Wednesday captured a heavily fortified, rebel-held front-line town, military officials in the area said.
Cambodia
KORB SROV - A huge World War II bomb found near Phnom Penh was detonated Wednesday, a potent reminder of the task Cambodia faces in clearing its soil of deadly debris accumulated during warfare.
China
BEIJING - Police in China's Himalayan region of Tibet took just 57 hours to track down two men who broke into the former summer palace of the Dalai Lama and stole five valuable Buddhist relics, officials said on Wednesday.
Philippines
MANILA - The Philippines told female civil servants on Wednesday not to wear seductive clothes to work if they wanted to avoid unwelcome sexual advances.
Indonesia
JAKARTA - Tens of thousands of supporters of Indonesia's Moslem-based party campaigned in Jakarta on Wednesday for the coming election, but signs of an alliance with the ousted leader of a rival party were muted, witnesses said.
South Korea
SEOUL - One woman was killed and three people injured on Wednesday when part of the foundation wall of an apartment complex collapsed onto a neighborhood below, a police official said.