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HONG KONG: Hong Kong Chinese medicine practitioners are collaborating with a Macau university to test what they believe is another alternative to combating the H1N1 virus.
If they are successful, the formula will be the first Chinese herbal prescription cure for H1N1.
As temperatures drop, Hong Kong health officials are bracing themselves for a second wave of H1N1 to hit the city.
BEIJING : Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Friday congratulated the European Union for creating the new posts of president and foreign policy chief, calling it a "step forward" for EU integration.
At a summit in Brussels, European leaders named Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy to be the bloc's first-ever president, and appointed EU Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton as Europe's new top diplomat.
The posts were created under the EU's Lisbon treaty which reforms decision-making in a bid to give the 27-nation bloc more credibility in dealing with the likes of the United States and China.
SYDNEY: Australian firefighters battled dozens of bush blazes on Friday as record-breaking hot weather sparked "catastrophic" warnings in two states, just months after the country's worst ever wildfire disaster.
Some 25,000 lightning strikes set off about 100 blazes in South Australia state alone, most of which had since burned out.
Meanwhile emergency crews were battling 34 fires in New South Wales, some on the outskirts of Sydney, the Rural Fire Service (RFS) said. More than a quarter of the state was considered at catastrophic risk.
JAKARTA: The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) must remain at the core of regional affairs despite competing visions for a new Asia-Pacific diplomatic framework, the bloc's chief said Friday.
ASEAN Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan said the "plethora of regional architectures that has been proposed in recent times" suggested that the 10-nation bloc no longer had a central role in the "evolving regional make-up".
But in a statement defending ASEAN's relevance, the former Thai foreign minister said US President Barack Obama's decision to re-engage with the 42-year-old grouping had "debunked that theory".
KABUL: Afghan President Hamid Karzai gets down to business on Friday after being sworn in for a second term as the world watches to see if he can deliver on his pledges to clean up his government and work to bring peace to his war-ravaged nation.
Karzai won plaudits for his inauguration speech on Thursday from Western officials including US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who said it was an "important new starting point" as the US-led war stretches into its ninth year.
But he will face his first hurdle within weeks, with the international community and disillusioned Afghans keenly awaiting his cabinet line-up as a sign of his commitment to change.
MIRANSHAH, Pakistan : A suspected US missile attack targeting Al-Qaeda-linked militants killed eight people in Pakistan's mountains on the Afghan border as CIA chief Leon Panetta held talks in Islamabad on Friday.
The attack, the presumed work of CIA drones, was the second in two days in North Waziristan, part of the belt which US officials have called the most dangerous place on Earth and where Al-Qaeda are plotting attacks on the West.
Two missiles slammed into a compound used by Taliban militants in Palooseen village in the district of Mir Ali, Pakistani officials said.
WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama on Thursday named two ambassadors to Southeast Asia, tapping a close political ally as envoy to Singapore and nominating a career diplomat to the Philippines.
Obama named David Adelman, a state senator in Georgia and a force behind the president's record-breaking fund-raising in last year's election, to be ambassador to Singapore.
Adelman chaired the Democratic candidate's campaign in Georgia, a Republican-leaning southern state which Obama turned competitive but fell short by five points.
UNITED NATIONS: A UN General Assembly committee Thursday slammed North Korea human rights record as a cause for "serious concern" and cited the Stalinist nation's "inhuman" abuses.
The non-binding resolution from the United Nations General Assembly Third Committee on human rights expressed its "very serious concern" over the "systematic, widespread and grave violations of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea."
The move was adopted by 96 votes to 19, with 65 abstentions, and could be presented at a later date before the full assembly, which comprises 192 nations.
BEIJING: China has ordered more accurate reporting of H1N1 flu deaths after a doctor renowned for helping expose the scale of the 2003 SARS outbreak claimed the true number of fatalities was being covered up.
The health ministry "reaffirms that health authorities at all levels must conscientiously perform A(H1N1) prevention and control reporting work," according to a statement posted on its website late Thursday.
Zhong Nanshan, a medical expert in southern China's Guangdong province, was quoted by a newspaper there on Thursday as questioning the official nationwide tally.
BEIJING: Chinese Defence Minister Liang Guanglie will visit North Korea soon, state-run media said on Friday, amid efforts to draw Pyongyang back to nuclear disarmament talks.
Liang's trip, which also will take him to Japan and Thailand, will begin on Sunday and run through December 5, the China News Service reported, without giving a specific itinerary.
It gave no reason for the trip but the announcement follows a visit to China this week by US President Barack Obama during which he and China's Hu Jintao called for an early resumption of six-party talks on the North's nuclear drive.
SYDNEY: An Australian pin-up pilot forced to bring an emergency medical flight down in shark-infested waters was Friday hailed a hero for the daring landing from which all aboard escaped unharmed.
Captain Dominic James ditched the Pel-Air Aviation air ambulance off Norfolk Island, north of Sydney, on Wednesday night after four aborted landings as poor weather closed in.
As the aircraft ran dangerously low on fuel, James decided to make the water landing rather than miss another run at the runway or have the Westwind jet splutter to a stop mid-air.
HERAT, Afghanistan: A suicide bomber riding a motorcycle blew himself up in a town in southwestern Afghanistan on Friday, killing 12 people and wounding dozens more, local officials said.
The attack in Farah occurred the day after Afghan President Hamid Karzai was sworn in for a second term, pledging to try to bring peace to the nation and take over security from foreign forces in five years.
The bomber struck in an area where heavy trucks were being loaded up with goods travelling from Farah to neighbouring Herat, police said.
MELBOURNE: A second Bangladeshi twin began returning to consciousness on Friday, three days after being separated from her conjoined sister in a landmark operation in Australia, the hospital said.
Krishna was opening her eyes and slowly becoming more alert as she came out of an induced coma, a statement said. Her sister, Trishna, was already awake and talking after the surgery that doctors have hailed as a success.
"Krishna is waking up slowly. She is more alert, starting to breathe more and opening her eyes," the statement from the Royal Children's Hospital said.
RANCHI, India: Suspected Maoist rebels derailed a passenger train in eastern India, killing two people and injuring more than 40, police said on Friday.
Two bodies had been found in an overturned carriage in the state of Jharkhand, and 48 people were injured, state police chief V.D. Ram told AFP from the state capital Ranchi.
"Maoists attacked and blew up the tracks between stations late Thursday night," said Ram, adding that dozens more could still be trapped in coaches.
ZAMBOANGA, Philippines : Philippine troops have killed one of the top commanders of the Al Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf group, the military said Friday.
The death of the Islamist militant, Abdulla Ajijul, in a special operation on the southern island of Basilan Thursday is "a significant gain" in Manila's anti-terrorism campaign, regional military spokesman Major David Hontiveros said.
"He was an ASG (Abu Sayyaf Group) urban terrorist leader ... responsible for kidnapping and bombing incidents in the area," Hontiveros said.
KABUL: A controversial former Afghan warlord who is now a lawmaker escaped unhurt after a roadside bomb ripped through his convoy on Friday, killing five of his bodyguards, police said.
It was not clear who was behind the attack on Abdul Rab Rasoul Sayaf, a controversial warlord during Afghanistan civil war in 1990s.
"A bomb planted on the side of the road was detonated as his (Sayaf's) convoy passed by," district police Chief Abdul Razaq Quraishi told AFP.
HERAT, Afghanistan- Bomb attacks on Friday killed 23 people in Afghanistan, a deadly start to President Hamid Karzai's second term that underscored spiralling insecurity nine years into the US-led war.
The attacks brought to 35 the number of people killed since Karzai was sworn in for another five years on Thursday, pledging to try to bring peace to the nation and take over security from foreign forces in five years.
A suicide bomber on a motorcycle struck the capital of the southwestern province of Farah, killing 15 people near the governor's home.
NEW DELHI, India: India's railways minister said on Friday she would seek extra protection for the state-run service after the latest in a series of rebel attacks left two dead in the east of the country.
Maoist insurgents were accused by police of derailing a passenger train in the state of Jharkhand, killing two people and injuring more than 40, as part of a series of attacks ahead of regional elections.
"I have instructed my officials to meet the home secretary because these kinds of things are now on the rise," India's Railways Minister Mamata Banerjee told reporters in New Delhi.
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TCM may be another alternative in fight against H1N1