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Typhoon Bopha killed more than 900 people and left almost 80,000 others homeless in the Philippines, the government said Thursday, a week and a half after the storm devastated large parts of the southeast Asian island nation.

North Korea has launched a long-range rocket in defiance of international criticism, South Korean media reports.

On 11 October, when the Nobel Committee announced that they had decided to award this year's Nobel Prize for Literature to Mo Yan, the Chinese writer was in hiding in his hometown Gaomi, of Shandong province, some 600km (370 miles) from Beijing.

Tony Clift's family has plowed the rich black soil of Australia's Liverpool Plains for six generations. The thought of selling never crossed his mind — until a Chinese company came to town. Shenhua Watermark Coal offered to buy farms at unheard-of prices. The decision wasn't easy, Clift says. His pioneer ancestors settled the land in 1832. But farming is a business nowadays, and selling his 6,500 acres (2,600 hectares) made business sense.

The Korean pop star, who rose to recent fame with his video "Gangnam Style," rapped out these lyrics in 2004: "Kill those f--ing Yankees who have been torturing Iraqi captives ...

Trumpeted as earthy in flavor and smooth on the palate, the exotic new brew is made from beans eaten by Thai elephants and plucked a day later from their dung. A gut reaction inside the elephant creates what its founder calls the coffee's unique taste.

Chinese archaeologists say they have unearthed the palace of China's first feudal emperor, best known for the terracotta warrior army guarding his tomb.

A fire in a clothing factory apparently caused by arson killed 14 people in southern China on Tuesday, state media reported.

The strongest typhoon to hit the Philippines this year pounded the southern island of Mindanao on Tuesday and about 40 people were dead or missing, media said, after the storm destroyed homes and brought down power and communication lines.

Russia and China urged North Korea on Monday not to go ahead with a plan for its second rocket launch of 2012, with Moscow saying any such move would violate restrictions imposed by the U.N. Security Council.