The US military says American and Iraqi forces have killed at least 30 suspected Shiite militiamen in the southern city of Diwaniya. Military officials say fierce fighting erupted Saturday night when troops raided the house of a suspected local commander of the Mahdi Army, a militia loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. An American tank was heavily damaged in the clashes which continued overnight and into today.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has concluded meetings with Chinese President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao in the first summit between the two nations in five years. Japan's new prime minsiter traveled to China Sunday to repair relations that had deteriorated over Japan's wartime history, territorial disputes and a growing strategic rivalry. North Korea's nuclear program was also on that agenda. The Chinese and Japanese leaders issued a statement expressing deep concern about North Korea's recent threat/ to conduct a nuclear test. Willy Lam is a Hong Kong-based China analyst and a senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, a US research organization. He says Beijing is angry about Pyongyang's decision to test missiles in July and its current plans to test a nuclear device.
"Beijing is trying to form a kind of new understanding with Japan/ regarding North Korea through reaching some kind of agreement with Tokyo to put pressure on the Kim administration."
And that is Willy Lam senior fellow at The Jamestown Foundation.

Pakistan has observed a minute of silence for more than 73,000 people killed by a powerful earthquake one year ago today. Sirens wailed across Pakistan at 8:52 a.m local time, the exact minute the 7.6 magnitude quake hit Pakistani-controled Kashmir and the northwest frontier province. Jack Norman is with Catholic Relief Services and says the area has not completely recovered.
"Although there are still devastated, people are still in fear, in, in some cases are traumatized, but there are certainly, for a lot of people who've been in a great salient effort to bring back to normalcy.
The earthquake toppled hundreds of buildings in Muzaffarabad and triggered massive landslides that swept away entire villages.

NATO officials say Taliban militants have carried out 78 suicide attacks in Afghanistan this year killing nearly 200 people. The majority of the victims have been Afghan civilians. NATO says suicide attackers killed 142 Afghan civilians, 40 members of the Afghan security forces and 13 foreign soldiers.

Iran has rejected the possibility of suspending its uranium enrichment program after world powers agreed to discuss sanctions against Tehran. Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad-Ali Hosseini said today that suspending Iran's enrichment program is, in his words, completely unacceptable. He also said Tehran wants to solve the issue through talks and not sanctions. On Friday the five permanent members of the UN Security Coucil and Germany agreed to discuss possible non-military sanctions against Iran for its failure to meet an August 31st UN deadline to stop enriching uranium. VOA's Margaret Besheer brings us up to date.

US Undersecretary of State for political affairs Nicholas Burns said negotiations would define the exact nature of the sanctions. His remarks follow Friday's meeting in London of the five permanent members of the Security Council. The United States, Russia, China, Britain and France plus Germany. The six world powers agreed to discuss possible sanctions against Iran after it ignored an August 31st deadline to suspend uranium enrichment or face punishment. British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett who chaired Friday's meeting cited deep disappointment with Tehran's refusal to suspend uranium enrichment. She commended EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana for the series of talks he has held over the last month with Iranian negotiators.
"We commend/ Javier Solana for his tireless efforts."
Secretary Beckett said Iran had two paths to choose from and the six powers regret that Iran has not yet chosen the positive one. On Thursday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran would not be frightened by the threat of sanctions. Margaret Besheer VOA news, Washington.