(CNN) -- On a visit to Japan on Tuesday, Vice President Joe Biden assured his hosts that the United States will express concerns to China over Beijing's recent claim of a large swath of airspace in the region. The Chinese declaration less than two weeks ago has prompted a war of words between governments and flights through the contested air zone by military planes from the United States, China, Japan and South Korea. "We, the United States, are deeply concerned by the attempt to unilaterally change the status quo in the East China Sea," Biden said at a news conference alongside Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

He called
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Japan the cornerstone of stability in the region.


The news from Pakistan is generally bad news. In the past week, which was far from atypical, suicide bombers attacked a court building in the northwestern city of Peshawar taking hostages and killing four people. In the southern city of Karachi the director of a renowned social program working in the megacity's poorest neighborhoods was shot and killed. And gunmen kidnapped two female Czech tourists in southwestern Pakistan. But this past week also saw more than a glimmer of good news from Pakistan: Saturday, March 16 marked an extraordinary moment in Pakistani history, as this is the first time  a civilian government has served its entire five-year term (from 2008 to 2013). And, for the first time in its history, the Pakistani military appears unwilling to mount a coup against the civilian government. The military has successfully executed three coups and attempted a number of others since Pakistan's independence in 1947.

The
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Afghan Attorney General's office said last week that it would appeal the sentences as being too soft given the scale of the fraud.


By Stian Alexander An illegal immigrant clung to the bottom of a school bus for more than 100 miles after it made its way back to the UK from a day trip to France. The bus was packed with pupils from a school in Ilford, northeast London, when the driver heard noises coming from underneath the coach. The driver drove the coach to Ilford Police Station, where cops found a 16-year-old from Sudan 'attached to the   chassis'. It is believed he sneaked under the bus in Calais and managed to hold on for 107 miles - until he was caught in Ilford.

Pictured, migrants try their luck on lorries out of
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Calais, in this file picture from May