China's commercial hub Shanghai is stepping up monitoring after a new strain of bird flu killed two people, state media said Monday, as Taiwan announced it would screen travelers from the mainland.

Myanmar's military will retain its key role in the country's fledgling democracy, the armed forces chief said on Wednesday at an annual parade attended for the first time by democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.

Australian travelers have become so demanding of their foreign ministry when they encounter trouble overseas, officials are struggling to deal with their requests, a new report has found.

Australia's Labor government is heading for a crushing defeat in this year's election, a poll showed Tuesday as a senior minister blamed the party's bloodletting for driving voters to the opposition.

Two people died, including a young child, and two were seriously hurt after an asylum-seeker boat capsized off Australia on Monday, but more than 90 were plucked to safety and taken ashore.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard emphasized loyalty over experience in new Cabinet selections named Monday after a bungled leadership challenge laid bare intragovernment turmoil further damaging her party's image months before an election.

An Australian received a bravery award on Monday for grabbing a 3.7-meter (12-foot) great white shark by the tail as it mauled a snorkeler.

An aborted Labor party leadership coup has badly tainted the standing of the Australian prime minister's office with most voters also seeing Julia Gillard as a “lame duck” leader, a poll showed Sunday, six months ahead of a general election.

Three Australian government ministers quit their portfolios on Friday in the continuing fallout from a bungled leadership showdown that reinforces perceptions of a crisis in Prime Minister Julia Gillard's administration six months before national elections.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard delivered a historic national apology in Parliament on Thursday to the thousands of unwed mothers who were forced by government policies to give up their babies for adoption over several decades.