(NECN/AP) - United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Saturday he was "deeply disappointed" after Myanmar's military ruler rejected his second and final request to meet jailed opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Ban met with Senior General Than Shwe for another inconclusive round of talks that failed to win any immediate concessions or accomplish one of the main goals of his trip, to see Suu Kyi in jail.

"I had hoped that he would agree to my request, but it is regrettable that he did not," Ban told reporters.

(NECN/CCTV) - Rainstorms have continued to sweep across southern China, leaving dozens of people dead or missing in flooding.

According to local news agency, South China's Jiangxi Province has moved more than 100,000 people to safety following the heaviest rains this summer and, for the first time in its history, the local government there issued its highest level of rainstorm alert on Friday.

The rain reportedly caused 8,231 houses to collapse, causing a direct economic loss of 1.31 (b) billion yuan (191.7 (m) million U.S. dollars), said Xinhua News Service.

(NECN/APTV) - US Vice President Joe Biden pressed Iraqi leaders on Friday to do more to foster national reconciliation and offered US assistance in achieving that, as concerns grow that a lack of political progress is fueling violence in Iraq.

He stressed that America would "continue to help train, equip and support Iraqi security forces," and wanted to build on the US partnership with Iraqi leaders even as it draws down its forces, starting with Tuesday's deadline for pulling back combat troops from cities.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - A news report says North Korea has fired two mid-range missiles off it eastern coast.

Yonhap news agency's report says the launches Saturday appeared to be of Scud missiles. The agency quotes a South Korean government official it did not identify.

The official says the missiles fired were estimated to have a range of about 300 miles (500 kilometers).

North Korea fired four short-range missiles off the east coast on Thursday.

Speculation has been high that the communist country might launch more missiles in coming days.

(NECN/ABC) - Just days after U.S. combat troops pulled out of cities across Iraq, Vice President Joe Biden made an unexpected trip to the country to see where things stand-

"Our objective here is to help the Iraqis reach political accommodations they have to reach, stable political system," Biden said.

The vice president is meeting with U.S. and Iraqi leaders to assist in the transition. The Obama administration wants to remove all combat troops from Iraq by next August.

MUNICH (AP) - Doctors have determined that John Demjanjuk is fit to stand trial on charges that he was an accessory to murder at a Nazi death camp, prosecutors said Friday.

The doctors said the 89-year-old retired auto worker, recently deported from the United States, can stand trial so long as his time in court does not exceed two 90-minute sessions daily, Munich prosecutors said.

They added that formal charges can be expected this month.

(NECN/ABC) - Fierce fighting and the first casualties were had Friday morning as U.S. Marines conducted a major offensive in Afghanistan.

It is a struggle to break the Taliban's grip on Helmand province, notorious for its opium trade, and a cash machine for terrorism.

The fight to win this territory away from the Taliban is tough and fraught with danger.

This operation, the largest mounted by U.S. Troops since 2001, as thousands of U.S. Marines fanned out across the lower Helmand River Valley. One U.S. Marine was killed and several others were wounded.

(AP) - A top Iranian cleric says some of the detained Iranian staffers of the British Embassy in Tehran will be put on trial.

Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, who is close to Iran's supreme leader, has made the announcement in a Friday prayer sermon. He says the detained staffers "made confessions."

Jannati does not say how many staffers will be tried or on what charges. Earlier Iranian officials said all but one of the eight embassy personnel arrested on June 27 had been released, but European Union officials said they believed more than one was still being held.

(NECN/ABC) - A U.S. soldier was captured and held by insurgents in Afghanistan on Thursday.

The U.S. Military said it was not related to a major offensive begun there against the Taliban -- Operation Strike of the Sword -- the biggest military offensive of Barack Obama's presidency. It began in the dead of night.

Four thousand U.S. troops poured into southern Afghanistan's Taliban stronghold: Helmand Province.

More opium is produced there than anywhere else in the world.

LE BOURGET, France (AP) - A French investigator says Air France Flight 447 did not break up in flight but plunged vertically into the Atlantic Ocean.

Alain Bouillard, leading the investigation into the June 1 crash for the French accident investigation agency BEA, also says life vests found among the wreckage of the plane were not inflated.

All 228 people aboard the plane were killed when it plunged into the ocean en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.