New Zealanders to vote on flag change

New Zealand will hold a binding referendum in 2016 on changing the design of the national flag, with Prime Minister John Key hoping to drop the current design featuring Britain's Union Jack in favor of a silver fern.

Govt probes Indians with foreign cash

India's government handed over the names of more than 600 Indians with foreign bank accounts to the Supreme Court on Wednesday after public outrage over rampant tax evasion.

Palestinian artist captures Gaza's pain in clay sculptures

Amid the mountains of rubble littering Gaza after a deadly summer war, clay outlines emerge of men, women and children with a story to tell about fear, flight and destruction.

IN BRIEF (Page 11)

Iraqi Kurds on the move to fight IS

A group of Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga troops arrived in Turkey early on Wednesday on their way to Syria to help their Syrian Kurdish brethren fight Islamic State extremists in the embattled city of Kobani.

UN votes 23rd time for US to lift embargo on Cuba

For the 23rd straight year, the United Nations voted on Tuesday in favor of the US lifting its embargo on Cuba, with Iran saying the ban was undeserved given Havana's help in fighting Ebola.

US rocket explodes on liftoff in NASA's commercial spaceflight effort

An unmanned Antares rocket exploded seconds after liftoff from a commercial launchpad on Tuesday in the first accident since NASA turned to private operators to deliver cargo to the International Space Station.

Youngsters get taste of nightlife

The music's thumping, the dance floor's packed, and the bar's bustling. Welcome to one of New York's hottest nightclubs and a new generation of clubbers: 6-year-olds.

Dark days and rich lives recalled at Jewish museum

Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski and Israeli counterpart Reuven Rivlin on Tuesday inaugurated a Warsaw museum chronicling the 1,000-year history of Poland's Jewish community, all but wiped out during the Holocaust.

Japan, DPRK talk about abductions

The special investigating committee of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea started talks on Tuesday with a Japanese delegation seeking an update on an investigation into abductions of Japanese nationals by DPRK agents during the 1970s and 1980s.

Opposition takes aim at scandals

Japan's main opposition party said on Tuesday it will pursue Prime Minister Shinzo Abe over a string of Cabinet funding scandals that have dented his popularity ratings, and attacked his signature "Abenomics" economic revival recipe as a failure.

Minister blames latewife for spending irregularities

Japanese Environment Minister Yoshio Mochizuki blamed his late wife when discussing allegations of illegal expenditure, at a news conference held on Tuesday.