US-Japan-NKorea Japan said that North Korea's missile launch amounted to a "domestic military drill" that did not violate a moratorium promised to Tokyo, amid US calls to step up pressure on Pyongyang. Taiwan-China Taiwan opposition leader Lien Chan said peace with China was within reach and he urged the island's government to grasp the opportunity to end 56 years of hostility. Iraq A suicide car bomb ripped through a Kurdish funeral in northern Iraq, killing 25 people, as the abduction of an Australian worsened the country's hostage crisis. Iraq Australia will send an emergency team to Iraq to seek the release of a kidnapped Australian contractor but will not bow to the militants' demand to withdraw its troops, Prime Minister John Howard said. Cambodia Cambodia's former king Norodom Sihanouk's cancer is worsening despite treatment, his doctors have said, days after he assured people that he was fit and was preparing to return home from China. Thailand Some 5,800 troops from Japan, Singapore, Thailand and the United States opened one of Asia's largest annual military exercises, focusing on relief operations for natural disasters like the December tsunami. Philippines The threat of a coup against Philippine President Gloria Arroyo has subsided but troops are to remain on alert over fears that a retired general could try to overthrow the government, officials said. NKorea-Iran Delegates arriving in New York for an international meeting to stem the spread of nuclear weapons were given new cause for concern after North Korea fired a short-range missile into the Sea of Japan and Iran vowed to press on with its controversial atomic program. Mideast A Palestinian was killed in an exchange of gunfire with Israeli soldiers in the northern West Bank, Israeli military sources said. Iraq Five suspects, arrested by Iraqi forces, have confessed to the kidnapping and murder of British aid worker Margaret Hassan, an interior ministry official told AFP.