Officially, the United States and North Korea barely speak to each other, their communications often limited to public exchanges of insults. But out of the limelight, and sometimes in secret, a small corps of former U.S. diplomats and intelligence officials, often working with academic specialists, meet regularly with high-ranking North Koreans.

The first four aircraft ordered by Japan are being built in Fort Worth, and Japanese flight crews will train at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona for several months beginning in November before the planes are delivered overseas.

Okinawa’s governor demanded Friday that Marine officials ground all Harrier jets pending an investigation into a Marines’ AV-88 crash into the sea east of the island.

Hoping to draw more foreign tourists, North Korea on Saturday opened an air festival featuring sky diving, air force demonstrations and lots of beer to promote a newly renovated and upgraded commercial airport in Wonsan.

The policy, issued by Maj. Gen. Bryan Owens, commander of U.S. Army Alaska, is punitive, so a violation could mean punishment under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has long been known for his hard-line stance on Pakistan. It was a major part of the campaign that swept him to power. But even with his own officials saying a recent attack on an Indian military base was launched by Pakistan-based militants, Modi is relying on diplomacy more than saber-rattling.

North Korea's foreign minister condemned the United States on Friday for flying supersonic bombers over South Korea earlier this week and vowed his country will strengthen its nuclear capabilities in defiance of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions.

With U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry invoking North Korea's latest nuclear explosion as a "reckless act of provocation," the U.N. Security Council on Friday approved a resolution urging quick global implementation of a treaty that would ban tests of such weapons.

One person was killed and dozens of others wounded Friday when Indian government forces fired live ammunition and shotgun pellets to stop protests against Indian rule in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, police said.

South Korea’s military has a plan to assemble a special force that could remove North Korean leader Kim Jong Un from power in case of a nuclear threat, a top defense official says.

A Marine Corps pilot was rescued Thursday afternoon after an AV-8B Harrier jet crashed into the sea off the coast of Okinawa.

The U.S. military says one of its supersonic bombers that flew over South Korea earlier this week in a display of military power approached the border with North Korea.

Philippine military officials have announced the first large-scale combat exercises between U.S. and Filipino forces under President Rodrigo Duterte, who has been critical of American security policies.

The Philippine president said Thursday he will invite the U.N. chief and European Union officials to investigate his bloody anti-drug crackdown, but only if he can question them in public afterward to prove their human rights concerns are baseless.

India has branded Pakistan a "terrorist state" in a stinging response to Pakistan's criticism of Indian suppression of protests in disputed Kashmir.

A study released Wednesday, described as the first of its kind, has found what political scientists have long suspected: Most American expatriates don’t vote in U.S. elections.

Part omelet, part crepe, okonomiyaki (pronounced oh-ko-no-mi-yaki) is to Hiroshima what deep-dish pizza is to Chicago. Layered like a lasagna, it is as customizable as its Italian cousin and is as much a part of this Japanese port’s identity as its notoriety as the first city to be hit by a nuclear weapon.

North Korea, like many countries, has its own country code top-level domain name. This means any Web address that ends with ".kp" is linked to the notoriously isolated nation. What's unusual, however, is how few websites actually use that address.

Fujio Sakoda found a plane submerged upside down in Japan's Oshima Strait while fishing in 1987. Japanese researchers believe it is an American aircraft shot down during World War II's Battle of Okinawa.

Indian soldiers on Wednesday searched areas near the de facto border dividing Kashmir between India and Pakistan where two gunbattles with suspected rebels raged for half a day, the Indian army said.

Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se stopped short of calling for Pyongyang's expulsion from the U.N. but said its authoritarian government was violating the terms under which both the Koreas had been admitted 25 years ago.

A Navy officer was arrested by Japanese police Monday after the car he was driving struck and injured a pedestrian near Naval Air Facility Atsugi, officials said.

The claim came more than two weeks after the North conducted its fifth underground nuclear test, drawing a wave of international condemnation.

An American sailor whose wrong-way crash in June triggered sweeping travel and alcohol restrictions for servicemembers in Okinawa escaped jail time Tuesday during sentencing in Naha District Court.

Indian soldiers on Tuesday battled two groups of suspected militants along the highly militarized de facto border dividing the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir between India and Pakistan, leaving one soldier dead, the Indian army said.

People in a remote Myanmar community where soldiers killed at least five unarmed civilians said Tuesday they are disappointed by the punishment, even though convictions of military personnel for human rights violations are virtually unprecedented.

South Korea said Monday that it’s unlikely to provide assistance to help the North recover from massive flood damage even if asked for help because of tensions over the communist country’s most recent nuclear test.

Tens of thousands of Japanese nationals poured onto the flight line at Yokota Air Base over the weekend for a taste of American and military culture.

South Korea’s military is racing against time to find the remains of more than 124,000 servicemembers still missing decades after the Korean War left the peninsula divided by the world’s most militarized border.

U.S. and Japanese troops have been firing mortars and machine guns and conducting simulated attacks in armored personnel carriers and helicopters during annual Orient Shield drills near Osaka, Japan.

Marine Sgt. Maj. Vincent Santiago owes everything in this world to the rain and the 3rd Marine Division.

How the founder of a Chicago hot dog empire obtained the tooth that may belong to one of the most revered figures in Japanese history, Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, starts with Dick Portillo's love of World War II history.

Pakistan's prime minister has been preparing for days to make a forceful appearance at the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday, hoping to burnish his international credentials with a ringing denunciation of Indian aggression in the disputed border region of Kashmir.

Aside from the horror of constantly being warned he would be the next to be beheaded by the brutal extremists, Kjartan Sekkingstad said he survived more than a dozen clashes between Philippine forces and his captors.

The United States, Japan and South Korea on Sunday roundly condemned North Korea's recent nuclear test and called for tough new measures to further isolate the communist state.

Suspected rebels using guns and grenades sneaked into a crucial army base in Indian-controlled Kashmir early Sunday and killed at least 17 soldiers in the deadliest attack on a military base in the disputed Himalayan region in recent years.

Did Kim Jong Il's regime order the abduction of an American in 2004 so his children could learn English?

The U.S. Senate this week confirmed the nomination of Maj. Gen. Paul M. Nakasone, the son of a World War II Japanese-American Military Intelligence Service soldier, to the rank of lieutenant general.

During Inada's first meeting with her American counterpart, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, the two denounced North Korea, calling its nuclear tests a violation of United Nations resolutions.

A Japanese court ruled Friday that Okinawa’s anti-bases governor acted illegally by revoking a permit to reclaim land for relocating Marine Corps Air Station Futenma.

Although North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho reiterated his country’s insistence that its nuclear weapons program was for self-defense — the US and South Korea have asked the UN to impose new sanctions on the reclusive nation.

Getting an annual flu shot will be mandatory for all students in Department of Defense schools worldwide starting this fall.

South China Sea tensions will likely be a hot topic when Secretary of Defense Ash Carter meets with the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations later this month in Hawaii.

The commander of American military forces across Asia, Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., said the jihadist group is seeking new territory as it gets squeezed out of Iraq and Syria.

North Korean soldiers and relief teams rushed to clear roads and railway tracks, build shelters and provide food and sanitation Friday to tens of thousands of residents in a remote part of the country near the Chinese border that was devastated by heavy downpours and flash floods when a typhoon pounded their villages last week.

Suu Kyi, whose party won national elections last November, said that lifting sanctions entailed some political and economic risk, but added, "It is time now for our people to depend on themselves."

A KC-135 Stratotanker to make an emergency landing Thursday at Yokota Air Base in western Tokyo due to “complications with the aircraft,” an Air Force official said.

A former Filipino militiaman testified before the country's Senate on Thursday that President Rodrigo Duterte, when he was still a city mayor, ordered him and other members of a liquidation squad to kill criminals and opponents in gangland-style assaults that left about 1,000 dead.

Virtual reality remains front and center at Tokyo Game Show 2016.

Opponents of planned U.S. helipads on Japan's southern island of Okinawa have stepped up protests in Tokyo after the central government used military aircraft to transport equipment for the project.

China has launched its second space station in a sign of the growing sophistication of its military-backed program that intends to send a mission to Mars in the coming years.

Britain's Prince Charles and other dignitaries honored thousands of soldiers from New Zealand and other Pacific islands killed 100 years ago in World War I, in emotional ceremonies Thursday at the site of the devastating Battle of the Somme.

A day after the Philippine president said he plans to halt joint maritime patrols with foreign navies, Japan was trying to make sense of developments, with one senior official saying Tokyo will persevere with a nuanced approach to ties.

A wing flap that washed ashore on an island off Tanzania has been identified as belonging to missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, Australian officials said Thursday.

More than 6,000 workers cycle through the world's biggest nuclear plant every day to operate and maintain a facility that hasn't sold a kilowatt of electricity in more than four years.

Japan's defense minister says its forces will increase engagement in the South China Sea through training cruises with the U.S. Navy and multilateral exercises with regional navies.

In response to a series of incidents in which laser beams were directed toward aircraft, Japan's Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry aims to enforce the law by the end of this year at the earliest. Pointing laser beams at U.S. military planes is also likely to be forbidden, as is the flying of kites around airports.

America’s strategy for confronting China in the South China Sea is threatening to unravel as the new leader of a key frontline state backs away from military cooperation — including joint naval patrols — with the U.S.

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The World Food Programme says it has sent relief to 140,000 North Koreans affected by heavy flooding that killed dozens of people in the country’s northernmost provinces.

B-1B Lancers, flanked by U.S. and South Korean fighter jets, flew over Osan Air Base south of Seoul on Tuesday in a show of force and solidarity with Seoul four days after the North conducted its fifth and most powerful nuclear test.

A decommissioned guided-missile frigate went down in about 30,000 feet of water Tuesday during a SINKEX drill connected to Valiant Shield exercises underway near Guam.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday he has never seen tensions on the Korean peninsula as high as they are today and he called on the Security Council to take urgent action to prevent "provocative actions" by North Korea.

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What happens when millions of people in a city with poor infrastructure ceremonially sacrifice animals before a torrential monsoon downpour? Rivers of blood flow through the city.

President Barack Obama said he would lift economic sanctions on Myanmar after meeting at the White House on Wednesday with the country's de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, a former political dissident whose government took power in March.

The commander of a Guam-based Navy helicopter squadron was arrested Monday in San Diego on charges of attempted rape and assault, according to records from the city sheriff’s department.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said Tuesday he won't allow government forces to conduct joint patrols of disputed waters near the South China Sea with foreign powers, apparently scrapping a deal his predecessor reached with the U.S. military earlier this year.

This weekend’s Tokyo Game Show is expected to be the largest in the popular video-gaming convention’s 20-year history.

Antonio Inoki, who serves in Japan's parliament, said Japan need not worry about the North's nuclear program. "The nuclear development is toward the United States," he quoted an elder statesman of North Korean foreign affairs as saying.

For more than a decade, the U.S. military and intelligence community has quietly warned that the world's largest telecom equipment manufacturer, Huawei, is an arm of the People's Liberation Army and that its phones, circuits and routers are instruments of Chinese eavesdropping.

Two U.S. supersonic bombers roared over South Korea Tuesday as part of a trilateral training drill with Japan that doubled as a show of force in response to North Korea’s latest nuclear test.

Dozens of Hawaii-based soldiers recently helped out at a children’s home in Osaka, Japan, seven decades after a member of their regiment started collecting donations for the orphans there.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte stepped onto the world stage last week with the swagger of a bad-boy rock star. Despite a patchy debut, including a rebuff from the U.S. president, Duterte has shown no loss of appetite for confrontation.

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Baseball players and fans at Yokota Air Base in western Tokyo have something to cheer about: a new ballpark.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said Monday he wants U.S. forces out of his country's south and blamed America for inflaming Muslim insurgencies in the region, in his first public statement opposing the presence of American troops.

Grammy Award-winning country group The Band Perry will perform on Okinawa later this month after Camp Foster beat out other Pacific bases in this year’s Wing-A-Palooza contest.

Relatives of some of the 239 passengers and crew on missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 called Monday for more of its possible debris to be examined to define a new search area.

As the international community looks for new ways to punish North Korea for its latest nuclear test, one area is emerging as the next front to apply pressure: North Korea's practice of sending workers overseas to earn money for the regime.

North Korea is mobilizing to deal with a disastrous flood that has killed more than 130 people, destroyed tens of thousands of homes and crippled infrastructure in its northern-most province.

The Chinese and Russian navies launched eight days of war games in the South China Sea on Monday, in a sign of growing cooperation between their armed forces against the backdrop of regional territorial disputes.

The Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir has been racked by protests for the past two months following the killing of a top rebel leader.

A man charged with committing a terrorist act and attempted murder after allegedly stabbing a man in Sydney was inspired by the Islamic State group, police said Sunday.

Samsung Electronics is urging consumers worldwide to stop using Galaxy Note 7 smartphones immediately and exchange them as soon as possible, as more reports of the phones catching fire emerged even after the company's global recall.

As with anything reported by Pyongyang, an authoritarian state run by a third-generation dictator who allows zero dissent or outside investigation, there's reason to be skeptical. But even if the North's assertion that it has rounded a crucial corner in nuclear development is more rhetoric than real, the content of its claim holds some important clues about where the country's atomic efforts may be heading.

Analysis

Tremors that emanated Friday from North Korea’s northeastern nuclear test site alerted the world to another crucial step that the isolated nation had made in its defiant, decadelong march to develop long-range missiles tipped with lightweight nuclear warheads.

As global powers condemn North Korea's latest step up the nuclear ladder, the one nation that can actually stop Kim Jong Un is unlikely to do much.

During her two-day visit, Tomomi Inada is scheduled to meet with Gov. Takeshi Onaga as she tries to reach an understanding over the relocation of the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma to Nago, in northern Okinawa.

North Korea announced its fifth and "biggest-ever" nuclear test Friday, claiming it can now make warheads small enough to put on a missile. The defiant move raises the stakes facing the U.S. and its allies trying to rein in the North after a rash of provocations.

President Barack Obama said he shook hands with Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte at a regional summit on Thursday, two days after canceling a bilateral meeting over Duterte's use of a profane epithet while talking about Obama.

The move comes as Nago Mayor Susumu Inamine is in Hawaii, attending the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s World Conservation Congress.

The high-profile defection of a senior North Korean diplomat was part of a growing trend of people fleeing to the South this year, according to government statistics released Wednesday.

Southeast Asian leaders are likely to avoid any official mention at a summit this week of an arbitration ruling that shot down China's expansive territorial claims in the South China Sea, according to a draft of their final declaration, in a victory for Beijing's diplomatic clout.

The Philippines has asked China to explain the presence of a larger-than-usual number of ships near the Scarborough Shoal, raising the prospect of fresh tension in the South China Sea.

On the island of Kwajalein in the South Pacific, the Air Force has hired Lockheed Martin to build a billion-dollar facility projecting a huge radar wedge 1,800 miles into space to find orbiting debris.

Approximately 150 people who attended the ceremony aboard the “Mighty Mo” that included fellow veterans, lawmakers and dignitaries.

Retired Lt. Gen. Allen Kenji Ono, the Army’s first three-star Asian American general, was scheduled to be buried with full military honors Friday morning at the National Cemetery of the Pacific. He died Aug. 1 at the age of 82.

North Korea is pouring “serious resources” into modernizing its naval forces, an effort that could eventually increase the threat to U.S. and South Korean vessels in the region, a U.S. think tank says.

GALLERY

Fleet Week is underway at the Port of Los Angeles, marking the first time the sea services have brought the popular celebration to the City of Angels.

Russian President Vladimir Putin struck a conciliatory tone before talks with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on a territorial dispute that's prevented the countries from signing a World War II peace treaty.

Navy personnel stationed on Okinawa are now required to carry liberty cards, and those visiting there on leave or temporary assignment must carry a copy of their approved paperwork.