Jeon Heon-kyun / EPA
Glyn Davies, center, U.S. special envoy for North Korea policy, speaks to the media after meeting with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Seoul, South Korea, on May 21, 2012.
"We are obviously in a bit of an uncertain period with North Korea", Davies told reporters. "It is very important that North Korea not miscalculate again and engage in any future provocation."
David Gray / Reuters
A police officer stands in front of three men holding letters, one of which (right) was addressed to the "Leaders of China", outside a building housing the United Nations World Food Programme office in central Beijing on May 18, 2012. The men were ushered into a police van shortly after.
Read more about China's haves and have-nots:
Reuters
Rescuers search for victims inside a bus that crashed in Vietnam's central highland province of Daklak on May 18, 2012.
Reuters reports — A passenger bus plunged into a river in Vietnam's Central Highlands at night killing 34 people and injuring at least 25 others, state-run newspapers reported on Friday.
The bus slammed into Serepok River on Thursday night while passing a bridge between Daklak and Dak Nong provinces, crushing many to death, the news website VNExpress quoted Daklak's Deputy Chairman Dinh Van Khiet as saying.
Traffic accidents killed more than 3,100 people nationwide in the first four months of 2012, down 30 percent from the same period last year, Vietnam News cited government data as showing. Read the full story.
AFP - Getty Images
A villager carrying his child on his back watches the mudflow in the aftermath of a violent hailstorm and torrential rain that swept through Minxian, in northwestern China's Gansu province, on May 17, 2012.
Forty people were killed when a brief but violent hailstorm and torrential rain swept through a mountainous region of northwestern China on May 12, while 29,300 people were evacuated after rain and hail battered the county.
Soe Than Win / AFP - Getty Images
A woman looks out from the window as she travels on a train in Yangon, Myanmar, on May 17, 2012.
The International Monetary Fund says that Myanmar could be Asia's next boom economy if the country sticks to its new path of political and economic reforms, Agence France Presse reports.
Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin meets U.S. officials on Thursday, stoking expectation the United States might announce a further lifting or suspension of sanctions that would be crucial to opening its long-isolated economy.
See more pictures of Myanmar on PhotoBlog.
Carlos Barria / Reuters
A view of the Oriental Pearl TV Tower, right, and downtown Shanghai seen through the haze on May 15, 2012.
Aly Song / Reuters
A young man wearing a mask walks along the Bund in Shanghai on May 15, 2012.
The U.S. Consulate in Shanghai began posting hourly air quality readings for the city this week, with data showing "very unhealthy" conditions at times on Tuesday afternoon.
The consulate's classification reflects U.S. pollution standards but operates on a different scale than the Shanghai Environmental Protection Bureau, which called conditions "slightly polluted".
Denied access to official data, Chinese citizens take their own pollution readings
A similar monitor on the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Beijing has long been seen as the most reliable source of information on air quality in the Chinese capital.
Bathed in smog: Beijing's pollution could cut 5 years off lifespan, expert says
Read more about the Shanghai monitor at the US Consulate's website and find the latest readings on their dedicated Twitter feed.
Reuters contributed to this report
GRAPHIC WARNING: This post contains a graphic image that some viewers may find disturbing.
Reuters
Xian Xiyong cries after his mother, Li Jie'e, jumped off a building and died at a demolition site in Yangji village in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, China on May 10, 2012.
AFP - Getty Images
Demolition workers look at a building being taken down in Yangji village on March 21, 2012, the same day that Li Jie'e's home was reportedly destroyed.
A Chinese woman leapt to her death on Thursday in apparent despair over the demolition of her home. Li Jie'e's house in Guangzhou had been knocked down on March 21, according to local media reports cited by Reuters.
Li had been a resident of Yangji, a former village that has been swallowed up by the rapid expansion of Guangzhou, China's third-largest city with a population of over 12 million. In March, PhotoBlog reported on the desperate protests of another Yangji woman whose home had been destroyed to make way for new developments.
Hundreds of miles away in the city of Zhaotong, meanwhile, another woman was reported to have blown herself up on Thursday in a protest over the demolition of her house. The blast at a local government office killed the woman and two others.
Disputes over land rights are the leading cause of surging unrest across China, according to a study cited by Bloomberg News.
Reuters
Xian, center, the husband of Li Jie'e, accompanied by his son Xiyong, right, pushes his wife's body on a transport stretcher as another relative, left, burns incense in Yangji village on May 10, 2012.
Jordan Pouille / AFP - Getty Images
Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng is seen in a wheelchair pushed by a nurse at the Chaoyang hospital in Beijing on May 2, 2012.
Diego Azubel / EPA
A man holds a sign that reads 'Free Chen Guangcheng, Democracy, China', outside an entrance to Chaoyang Hospital on May 2, 2012.
Ng Han Guan / AP
Human rights activist Jiang Tianyong speaks to journalists outside Chaoyang Hospital after his failed attempt to see Chen Guangcheng on May 2, 2012.
NBC News, msnbc.com staff and news services report — A blind Chinese legal activist at the center of a diplomatic tussle between Washington and Beijing left the U.S. Embassy Wednesday to receive medical care in Beijing and be reunited with his family.
China demanded an apology from Washington over Chen Guangcheng's stay at the U.S. Embassy,according to the government's news service Xinhua.
An unnamed U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told reporters that Chen had not asked for asylum in the U.S. and would be staying in China. Read the full story.
U.S. relations with China are being put to the test over the fate of Chen Guangcheng, a blind Chinese dissident who escaped from house arrest in China and is believed to be in the U.S. embassy or another safe site. NBC's Ian Williams reports.
Soe Zeya Tun / Reuters
Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi steps forward to take an oath at the lower house of parliament in Naypyitaw, Myanmar on May 2, 2012.
Msnbc.com news services report — Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi took a historic oath on Wednesday to join a parliamentary system crafted by the generals who locked her away for much of her long struggle against dictatorship, ushering in a dramatic new political era for Myanmar.
See more pictures of Aung San Suu Kyi on PhotoBlog
The 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner's debut in a parliament stacked with uniformed soldiers could accelerate reforms that have already included the most sweeping changes in the former British colony since a 1962 military coup, including the release of political prisoners and a loosening of strict media controls. Read the full story.
Ng Han Guan / AP, file
In this photo taken on April 15, 2012, what appears to be a new missile is carried during a mass military parade at the Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang, North Korea. The photo shows the warhead's surface is undulated, suggesting it's a thin metal sheet unable to withstand flight pressure, analysts say.
The Associated Press reports — Analysts who have studied photos of a half-dozen ominous new North Korean missiles showcased recently at a lavish military parade say they were fakes, and not very convincing ones, casting further doubt on the country's claims of military prowess.
The weapons displayed April 15 appear to be a mishmash of liquid-fuel and solid-fuel components that could never fly together. Undulating casings on the missiles suggest the metal is too thin to withstand flight. Each missile was slightly different from the others, even though all were supposedly the same make. They don't even fit the launchers they were carried on.
Ng Han Guan / AP, file
Adding more doubt to North Korea's claims of military prowess after its flamboyant rocket launch failure, analysts say the half dozen missiles showcased at the military parade were low-quality fakes.
"There is no doubt that these missiles were mock-ups," Markus Schiller and Robert Schmucker, of Germany's Schmucker Technologie, wrote in a paper posted recently on the website Armscontrolwonk.com that listed those discrepancies. "It remains unknown if they were designed this way to confuse foreign analysts, or if the designers simply did some sloppy work." Read the full story.
David Guttenfelder / AP, file
North Korean civilians, some weeping, wave flowers as they look up at Kim Jong Un, unseen, at the end of the military parade on April 15, 2012.
Richard Engel, NBC's chief foreign correspondent, shares a rare and revealing look inside the reclusive kingdom of North Korea.
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Noel Celis / AFP - Getty Images
Firemen extinguish a fire at an informal settlers' housing area in Manila, Philippines, on April 20, 2012. Around 150 families from an informal settlement area lost their homes. Nobody was reported killed in the incident, according to local authorities.
See more images related to Filipino housing issues on PhotoBlog.
Ng Han Guan / AP
A woman talks with a man on the streets of Pyongyang, North Korea, on April 20, 2012.
Video: Kim Jong-Un's first public speech
See more striking pictures from North Korea in PhotoBlog and in the slideshow below.
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Pyongyang refuses to let failed rocket launch dampen tone of festivities.
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