Rescuers were digging through mud and debris Friday to retrieve more bodies strewn across a farming valley in the southern Philippines by a powerful typhoon. The death toll from the storm has surpassed 500, with more than 400 people missing.

Two mainland Chinese workers who staged a high-rise protest atop construction cranes in Singapore over unpaid wages have been arrested and could face imprisonment, police said Friday.

A strong earthquake Friday struck the same Japanese coast devastated by last year's massive quake and tsunami, generating small waves but no immediate reports of heavy damage. Several people along the northeastern coast were reportedly injured and buildings in Tokyo and elsewhere swayed for several minutes.

Laos has ratified its membership of the World Trade Organization, state media said on Friday, the latest step in the small Southeast Asian nation's 15-year effort to join the global body.

India's parliament on Friday approved the government's plans to open up the country's massive retail sector to international big-box companies such as Wal-Mart.

Japan on Friday ordered its military to shoot down a North Korean rocket if it threatens the nation's territory as Washington put anti-missile destroyers into position, ramping up pressure on Pyongyang.

The Philippines said Friday it had put off four-way talks due next week over rival claims to the South China Sea but downplayed suggestions the postponement was because of pressure from Beijing.

Indonesia's sports minister resigned Friday after becoming the country's first active cabinet member to be named as a suspect in a multimillion-dollar corruption case.

A one metre-high tsunami hit northeast Japan on Friday, after a powerful undersea quake struck off the coast which was devastated in last year's quake-tsunami disaster.

Residents in the southern Philippines began to bury their dead on Friday even as rescue workers continued scouring remote areas for possible survivors of Typhoon Bopha, the country's strongest storm this year, which killed 418 people and left nearly as many missing.