Reuters - Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd visits Japan and Indonesia this week in what will be his first major opportunity to set out his Asian agenda, after announcing plans for an Asia-Pacific Community by 2020.

AFP - Bangladesh's army-backed emergency government is preparing to free the country's top two political party leaders -- former premiers who are being held on corruption charges, reports said Sunday.

AP - Abdellilah Meddich's childhood memories of the famous palm grove of Marrakech are of a "magical" place, a lush desert oasis of flowers, animals and farmers who tended tree-shaded plots.

AP - President Hugo Chavez said Saturday that his government will rewrite a new intelligence law to calm fears in Venezuela that the decree could be used to stifle dissent.

AP - U.S. soldiers in Baghdad captured an Iraqi arms dealer and "assassination squad" leader responsible for trafficking Shiite extremists in and out of neighboring Iran for training, the military said Sunday.

AP - Iraq's prime minister sought to ease Iranian fears over a proposed security deal with the U.S. Sunday, saying his government will not allow Iraq to become a launching pad for an attack on its neighbor.

AP - A Japanese man went on a midday stabbing rampage in Tokyo's premier electronics and video game district Sunday, killing three people and knifing 14 others, a police spokesman said.

AP - Tens of thousands of people killed in last month's cyclone may never be identified because their bodies have decomposed so badly and many ended up far from home, an aid organization said Sunday.

AP - Soldiers blew up wooden houses and other debris Sunday in a lake formed by China's deadly earthquake to speed the flow of water into a spillway and ease the threat of flooding for more than 1 million people.

AP - First lady Laura Bush, on a mission to highlight signs of rebirth in war-weary Afghanistan, ventured outside of Kabul on Sunday to an area that symbolizes both the destruction of war and Afghanistan's attempt at rebirth.

AFP - Two people were killed in Hong Kong on Saturday when their hut was crushed in a landslide triggered by the some of the worst rain here since records began, a report said.

AP - All he needs is love — and someone to keep an eye on his glasses.

AP - A suicide car bomb and another car packed with explosives targeted Iraqi police patrols Saturday on opposite sides of Baghdad, killing at least six people, police said.