A former Thai army chief who led the 2006 coup that toppled ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra was named leader of a new party on Wednesday, adding a new dimension to the country's fractious political system.

Security forces increased patrols and helicopter flyovers in the Afghan capital Wednesday, bracing for possible militant attacks during the ceremony that will cement President Hamid Karzai's tumultuous re-election victory.

The United Nations appealed Tuesday for US$144 million to help victims of three recent typhoons that devastated the Philippines, nearly double its original request.

Four people were injured when a passenger riding on a Tokyo subway train accidentally broke a bottle of hydrochloric acid he was carrying, media and the train company said on Wednesday.

New Zealand was on Wednesday named the world's least corrupt nation out of a list of 180 countries, unseating Denmark after a year in which the global recession and ongoing conflicts proved challenging.

Thousands of stargazers stayed awake overnight for what was forecast as an intense Leonid meteor shower over Asia this year, but the show fizzled rather than sizzled for many viewers — partly due to cloud cover.

Conservationists searching for one of the world's most endangered crocodile species say they have found dozens of the reptiles lounging in plain sight — at a wildlife rescue center in Cambodia.

Australia must abolish policies that discriminate against Aborigines in its quest to lift its indigenous population out of Third World poverty, the head of an international human rights group said Wednesday.

Islamic authorities charged a popular Muslim scholar Wednesday with delivering an illegal lecture in what critics considered an attempt by conservative clerics to silence one of Malaysia's most progressive preachers.

When Australian aid worker Danielle Noble first saw conjoined twins Trishna and Krishna in a Bangladesh orphanage, everyone assumed they would die.