CULTURE AND SPORT

In Vietnam’s new campaign to select a national flower, the lotus seems to be the front-runner.

Vietnam , Laos , Cambodia and Myanmar will jointly produce a documentary titled, “Four countries -- one destination” with the aim of promoting the countries’ tourism industry.

Officials in South Korea's southern regions have urged people not to return to home towns there for the Lunar New Year holiday for fear of foot-and-mouth disease.

Arab leaders gather in Egypt to discuss trade and development as the region feels the aftershocks of a popular uprising in Tunisia that emboldened dissidents in the Arab world.

Models Lan Huong and Quang Thinh will participate in the 6th Asia Model Festival on January 21 in Seoul, South Korea.

A powerful earthquake rocked southwest Pakistan early Wednesday, sending panicked people rushing from their homes in fear for their lives as the ground shook.

Four ministers in Tunisia's new unity government pulled out a day after being appointed amid popular rage against the continued presence of the ousted president's party.

WHO chief Margaret Chan warned that the health community needs to tackle strong and "worrisome" public mistrust of vaccines, following signs of a tail-off in flu vaccination.

China's President Hu Jintao arrived in the US for a state visit promising frank talk over economics and currency disputes, but likely to expose a wide gulf over human rights.

The lifeless bodies of two tiny babies are being given their final bath before burial in Karachi, after they were left to die in the southern Pakistani city's garbage dumps.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange vowed to publish secret details of offshore accounts after a Swiss banking whistleblower handed over data Monday.

The prosecutor of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon has filed his indictment for the 2005 murder of former premier Rafiq Hariri as Beirut's neighbours backed new mediation to calm rising tensions.

Greenpeace praised China for setting new pollution targets but said the measures fell well short of what was needed to curb the country's world-beating carbon emissions.

Huge underground roads are to be built in the Chinese capital, state media said Monday, in the latest effort to relieve the chronic gridlock paralysing Beijing.

British actor Christian Bale and US actress Annette Bening were among early winners at the Golden Globes, which launch Hollywood's glittering annual awards season.

Swiss whistleblower Rudolf Elmer is planning to handover to WikiLeaks two CDs containing data of around 2,000 bank clients who may have been evading taxes.

Europe is set for a space "revolution" in 2011 when two new types of rocket join its launch pad in French Guiana, European Space Agency boss Jean-Jacques Dordain said.

Australia's flood crisis shifted to the country's far south on Sunday, with 14,000 homes swamped by a record deluge.

The heads of BP and Russian oil firm Rosneft announced an "historic" deal to swap shares in a joint venture to exploit the vast untouched energy resources of the Arctic.