Chinese Premier Li Keqiang vowed to strengthen his country's partnership with Pakistan as he arrived Wednesday for a visit less than two weeks after the country's general election.

The long-time allies will look to use the two-day trip to boost trade ties, and Li will meet prime minister-elect Nawaz Sharif -- who has not yet been sworn in -- as well as holding talks with senior officials.

Japan is considering direct talks with North Korea, the government said Wednesday, adding momentum to the cause after a top level aide to the prime minister made a surprise trip to Pyongyang.

Bilateral talks are on the table as Tokyo seeks to salve the running sore of abductions of its nationals by North Korean spies in the 1970s and 1980s, an issue that inflames public opinion at home.

Pakistani politician Imran Khan left hospital Wednesday, two weeks after breaking bones in his back in a fall at a rally for the country's general election, where his party scored a major breakthrough.

The 60-year-old was ordered to remain immobile in bed after he fractured vertebrae and a rib in a dramatic tumble from a hoist lifting him to a stage just days before the May 11 general election.

Japan's parliament on Wednesday approved an international treaty on child abductions after decades of pressure from the United States and other Western nations.

Japan is the only member of the Group of Eight major industrialized nations that has not ratified the 1980 Hague Convention, which requires nations to return snatched children to the countries where they usually reside.

North Korea has appointed as its new military chief a hawkish general, widely believed to have directed the 2010 shelling of a South Korean border island, state media confirmed Wednesday.

In a brief dispatch, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) referred to Kim Kyok-Sik as chief of the Korean People's Army general staff, a notch higher in the military hierarchy than his previous post of defense minister.

A top North Korean general and confidant of leader Kim Jong-Un met a senior Chinese official in Beijing Wednesday, with relations between the allies strained ahead of a China-U.S. summit.

Choe Ryong-Hae, director of the Korean People's Army politburo, is a "special envoy" of the North's young leader, Pyongyang's official news agency said.

Rescuers have recovered seven more bodies from a collapsed mine tunnel in eastern Indonesia, its U.S. operator said Wednesday, taking the accident's final toll to 28.

The rescue team "recovered and identified the last of the remains of the buried workers early this morning", the Indonesian subsidiary of Freeport-McMoRan said in a statement.

Around 600 Afghan interpreters who served with British forces fighting the Taliban in southern Afghanistan will be allowed to stay in Britain, the government revealed on Wednesday.

Prime Minister David Cameron initially opposed calls to allow interpreters and their families to settle in Britain, but backed down following a campaign.

President Nicolas Maduro on Tuesday denounced as "psychological war" a leaked audio recording that purports to show a power struggle among key followers of the late Hugo Chavez.

In the recording, which has set off a sensation since it was made public Monday by an opposition lawmaker, a well-known government newscaster is heard accusing National Assembly speaker Diosdado Cabello of conspiring against Maduro.

A key U.S. senator on Tuesday backed an end to U.S. sanctions on Myanmar after a landmark visit by the country's reformist leader, signaling a new normalization in relations despite rights concerns.

President Thein Sein, a general-turned-civilian who ended Myanmar's long isolation from the West, met lawmakers at the U.S. Capitol one day after the first White House summit by a leader of his country in nearly 50 years.