AFP - A Thai Airways plane was cleared to leave Los Angeles airport and return to Bangkok on Wednesday, following a bomb hoax on a flight carrying nearly 200 people, the airline said.

Reuters - Afghan security forces used batons on unruly customers scrambling to withdraw their savings on Wednesday from a branch of the graft-hit Kabulbank, the country's biggest private financial institution.

AFP - Seven Indian athletes selected for next month's Commonwealth Games faced a lengthy ban after "B" samples of their failed dope tests also returned positive, officials said on Wednesday.

AP - Afghan election officials said Wednesday that scores of additional polling stations will be closed during the Sept. 18 parliamentary vote because of the deteriorating security situation in the country.

AP - Trying to smooth over recently rocky relations before a visit to Washington, Chinese President Hu Jintao told American officials on Wednesday that he wants to see healthy and stable ties between the two countries.

AFP - Myanmar's junta leader Than Shwe said Wednesday he wanted to bolster ties with China, his regime's main trade partner and diplomatic ally, two months ahead of polls decried in the West as a sham.

AP - Diplomatic tensions between China and Japan escalated Wednesday when Beijing called in Japan's ambassador for a second time after a Chinese fishing boat collided with two Japanese patrol vessels near a chain of disputed islands.

AP - A servant of the politically powerful clan accused in last year's massacre of 57 people told a Philippine court Wednesday that the family members plotted the killings of rivals and journalists over dinner six days before the ambush.

AP - Millions of Indonesians crammed into trains, ferries and in greater numbers than ever, motorcycles, as they poured out of major cities to return to their villages to celebrate the end of the Islamic holy month with families.

AP - Two suspected U.S. missile strikes hit militant targets in northwestern Pakistan on Wednesday, officials said, bringing to six the number of such attacks in the region in less than a week. At least 10 suspected members of a group attacking NATO forces in Afghanistan were killed.

AP - Tensions emerged Wednesday between Australia's deputy prime minister and a kingmaker independent lawmaker over plans to make mining companies pay more taxes, underscoring the fragility of the country's new minority government.

AP - Police arrested a top separatist leader Wednesday for rallying massive anti-India protests that have rocked the Indian portion of Kashmir for months, and supporters reacted by staging fresh demonstrations and hurling stones at troops.

AP - Sri Lanka's Parliament began debating a constitutional amendment on Wednesday that would allow the president to stay in office for an unlimited number of terms, a move critics say could lead to dictatorship.

AP - Protesters have a new name for the troops: Robots.

AP - Malaysian prosecutors filed an appeal Wednesday against a six-month jail sentence of a notorious wildlife trader convicted of smuggling endangered snakes, saying the penalty was insufficient to deter wildlife trafficking.