AP - China's inflation rose in February amid galloping growth and demand for scarce labor, increasing pressure on Beijing to ease off its stimulus while keeping a recovery going in the world's third-largest economy.

AP - A homemade bomb placed outside a store in northwestern Pakistan where locals watch movies exploded Thursday, killing four people, including a child, said officials.

Reuters - Afghanistan does not want a proxy war between Pakistan and India or anybody else fought on its soil, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Thursday during a visit to Pakistan.

Reuters - Five Afghan civilians, four of them children, were killed in an explosion Thursday, and gunmen shot dead a South African construction contractor and his Afghan colleague in a separate attack, officials said.

AP - An elephant calf that was believed to have died during a nine-day labor is feeding itself and has earned the nickname "Mr. Shuffles" since learning to stand, Taronga Zoo officials said Thursday.

AP - A homemade bomb killed four children and a civilian adult in northeastern Afghanistan on Thursday, NATO forces said.

AFP - Detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Thursday called on Myanmar's people to give a united response to an "unjust" election law, her lawyer Nyan Win told AFP.

Reuters - Myanmar's military government has allowed the party of detained Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi to reopen regional branch offices that have been closed since May 2003, a party spokesman said on Thursday.

AP - A British boy kidnapped from his family's home in Pakistan has yet to be found, British and Pakistani officials said Thursday, following erroneous news of his release which one Pakistani diplomat here said was the result of mistaken identity.

AP - Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Thursday that Pakistan has a key role to play in peace talks with the Taliban, a possible attempt to quash speculation that his government was trying to sideline its neighbor.

AP - U.S. troops who would be tasked with eliminating North Korea's weapons of mass destruction in the event of armed conflict are participating in military drills with South Korea, the top U.S. commander in the country said Thursday.

AP - The Pashtun tribal leaders picked at the chocolate cake and fruit laid out for them at the conference table. Politely, they listened to speeches touting a new program to release detainees from Afghanistan's largest U.S.-run military prison if community leaders vouch for them.

AP - U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates says Iranian support for the Taliban in Afghanistan isn't much of a problem for the United States — yet.

AP - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad used a brief visit to Afghanistan on Wednesday to lob insults at the United States and argue that international forces won't stop terrorism and will only lead to more civilian deaths.

AP - Like the United States, China is having its own tea party movement, but this one has a very different agenda.

AP - EDITOR'S NOTE — Miles Edelsten is a senior producer for Associated Press Television News and has covered Japan for 10 years.