Taiwanese coastguards said Sunday they will next month stage a live-fire exercise in disputed South China Sea islands with new, longer-range artillery and mortars, in a move that risks fresh tensions.

The potentially resource-rich sea, home to important trade routes, is an increasingly dangerous flashpoint and there have been a string of recent diplomatic rows between countries with overlapping territorial claims.

Conjoined 15-month-old twins attached at the pelvis and sharing three legs were successfully separated at a Malaysian hospital in a complex 24-hour operation, reports said Saturday.

The boys, Muaiman and Muaimin Azli, were separated at Hospital Kuala Lumpur in an operation involving a 60-strong medical team, including 19 surgeons and anesthetists, The Star reported.

Tensions over competing claims in the South China Sea could escalate into conflict, with an arms build-up among rival nations raising the temperature, an international think tank warned Tuesday.

Prospects of solving the disputes "seem to be diminishing" after a recent failure by the 10-nation ASEAN grouping to hammer out a "code of conduct" that would govern actions in the sea, the International Crisis Group (ICG) said.

Prime Minister Najib Razak said Malaysia will immediately evacuate its nationals from strife-torn Syria and shut its mission there in response to the worsening security situation.

Foreign Minister Anifah Aman had sought Najib's approval to evacuate Malaysians as violence escalated across Syria.

A Malaysian court on Monday approved the extradition of an Iranian to Thailand on suspicion of being involved in an alleged bomb plot against Israeli diplomats in the country.

Masoud Sedaghatzadeh, arrested at Kuala Lumpur's international airport on February 15, is among several Iranian suspects held over incidents in Bangkok that saw Tehran accused of a terror campaign against Israel -- which it denied.

Rescuers were on Saturday making a final search for survivors from a refugee boat accident off Australia's Christmas Island, with two more bodies found and little hope for around 90 people still missing.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) said overnight and morning searches of the sea north of remote Christmas Island had failed to find any more survivors, with the last living person found late Thursday night.

A Malaysian minister has provoked outrage with a $7,600 bid for a special number plate for his official car, at first saying he did not know who had paid for the item, then claiming it was free.

Malaysia's Road Transport Department (RTD) has sold off plates prefixed WWW -- an Internet-related allusion to technology -- to raise funds.

Malaysia and Australia on Tuesday signed a free trade agreement (FTA) that will strip away tariffs and which Canberra hopes will help jump-start negotiations with China, South Korea and Japan.

The agreement inked in Kuala Lumpur will grant Malaysian exporters duty-free entry into the Australian market once the trade deal comes into force in January 2013.

Australia will sign a free trade agreement (FTA) with Malaysia this week which officials said Monday they hope will help fast-track ongoing talks with China, South Korea and Japan.

Trade Minister Craig Emerson is set to pen the deal in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday, his office said, giving Australian companies unprecedented access to one of Southeast Asia's biggest economies.

China has denied it is increasing combat readiness in response to a territorial row with the Philippines over a disputed shoal in the South China Sea.

The tense stand-off, which erupted last month, centers on Scarborough Shoal, a tiny rocky outcrop in the South China Sea about 230 kilometers (140 miles) from the Philippines' main island of Luzon.