BEIJING China and Japan both expressed a willingness to improve strained relations on Saturday after a rare meeting between their two foreign ministers in Beijing, though China said Japan should stop pushing the notion that China is a threat.

China, the world's second-largest economy, and Japan, the third-largest, have a difficult political history, with ties strained by the legacy of Japan's World War Two aggression and conflicting claims over a group of uninhabited East China Sea islets.

Relations have been thawing recently, with meetings between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, but Beijing remains deeply suspicious of Japan, particularly of moves by Abe to allow the military the right to fight overseas for the first time since the war.

Meeting at a state guest house, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida ties had fallen to a low ebb.

"We have recently seen the Japanese side repeatedly expressing its hope of improving the bilateral relationship. You have also shown your willingness to take the first step. If you come with sincerity, we welcome you," Wang said.

"As the Chinese saying goes, we should make a judgment based on not only what people say but also what they do," he added, at the start of the first bilateral visit by a Japanese foreign minister to China in more than four years.

"Facing up to history, abiding by promises and cooperation rather than confrontation should be the basis of China-Japan relations."

Kishida, speaking later to Japanese reporters, said there had been a "frank exchange of views" in what he called an extremely significant visit.

"At this meeting we confirmed the importance of Sino-Japanese relations and agreed that both sides would strive for further improvement in ties," he said, according to Japan's NHK broadcaster.

China's Foreign Ministry said Wang made suggestions for how to improve relations, using forceful language that underscores the suspicion in Beijing about Tokyo.

Japan "should have a more positive and healthy attitude toward the growth of China, and stop spreading or echoing all kinds of 'China threat' or 'China economic recession' theories", the ministry said in a statement.

(Additional reporting by Linda Sieg in Tokyo; Editing by Kim Coghill)

KABUL Government forces have launched operations against the Taliban in 18 provinces of Afghanistan as fighting has intensified since the start of the insurgents' spring offensive this month, the ministry of defence said on Saturday.

The operations, backed by air power and artillery have been concentrated in areas where the Taliban insurgents have been aggressively challenging government forces seeking to reassert control over key districts.

Eighty anti-government fighters, including nine from Islamic State have been killed over the past 24 hours in the east, while six soldiers have been killed, a defence ministry statement said.

The Taliban, which has ruled out joining peace talks while foreign troops remain in Afghanistan, announced the start of its spring offensive on April 12, pledging large-scale attacks against government strongholds as well as suicide bombings and targeted assassinations.

Army chief of staff Qadam Shah Shaheem told reporters the Taliban was conducting "psychological warfare" designed to weaken morale and undermine confidence in the government but that it would not succeed.

Frustrated by a stalled peace process and by the Taliban's growing attacks, President Ashraf Ghani has instructed the government forces to go on the offensive, security officials say.

Speaking in parliament this week, Ghani branded the Taliban terrorists and vowed to avenge the killings of Afghans, in a marked escalation of government rhetoric against the insurgents.

Government forces have beaten off a Taliban offensive in the northern city of Kunduz, which fell briefly to the insurgents last year, and appear to have stabilized the situation in the southern province of Helmand, where they pulled back from several districts in February.

However heavy fighting has continued sporadically in both regions and government and NATO officials say they expect more tough fighting after a difficult year in 2015 when around 5,500 soldiers and police were killed.

In one of the biggest single attacks in Kabul since 2011, a Taliban truck bomb killed at least 64 people and wounded hundreds more on April 19.

The insurgency has gained strength since the withdrawal of international troops from combat at the end of 2014, with the Taliban stronger now than any point since they were driven from power by U.S.-backed forces in late 2001.

(Reporting by Hamid Shalizi and Mirwais Harooni; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

NAIROBI Rescue workers raced on Saturday to save more residents from the rubble of a six-storey building in Nairobi after it collapsed overnight following heavy rain. At least 12 people were confirmed dead.

President Uhuru Kenyatta visited the site of Friday night's disaster and ordered the arrest of the owners of the building, which had been condemned by the authorities.

One man was pulled out alive on Saturday afternoon to cheers from the crowd. Earlier, Interior Minister Joseph Ole Nkaissery told reporters at the scene that the cries of a woman and child had been heard. Their fate was not clear.

"We are still hearing some voices from the collapsed building," Kenya National Disaster Operation Centre director Colonel Nathan Kigotho said, in Nairobi's poor Huruma district. "We don't have the exact number of people buried in the rubble."

He said 12 bodies had been recovered from the building.

After mainly working with hands and power tools, rescue workers moved in two excavator vehicles to assist in lifting heavy masonry. Residents in the next building were pulled out carrying their packed belongings.

Heavy rains have led to building collapses in the past in poor neighbourhoods of the Kenyan capital, which residents have usually blamed on shoddy or illegal construction.

The building in Huruma in eastern Nairobi had 198 rooms, Kigotho said. Some residents escaped before the collapse and at least 133 people had been rescued.

The president told officials "to undertake an immediate survey of all the houses in the area to find out those which are at risk of collapsing", his office said in a statement.

Kigotho said the building's proximity to a nearby swollen river likely damaged the structure. "The water most likely undermined the foundation," he said.

Police said more than 120 people had been taken to hospital.

Lower floors of the building crumpled, leaving some of the top storey still standing. Broken bed frames, mattresses and clothes protruded from the wreckage.

"It is raining, and these houses were built without Nairobi County authorisation," Jonathan Mueke, deputy governor of Nairobi County, told privately-owned QTV station.

"I am asking residents in the area to leave. In the area where this one collapsed there are 189 houses," he said.

(Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

MOSCOW Russia said on Saturday it had sent a fighter plane on Friday to intercept a U.S. aircraft approaching its border over the Baltic Sea because the American plane had turned off its transponder, which is needed for identification.

The Pentagon said the U.S. Air Force RC-135 plane had been flying a routine route in international airspace and that the Russian SU-27 fighter had intercepted it in an "unsafe and unprofessional" way.

CNN reported that the Russian jet had come within about 100 feet (30 metres) of the U.S. plane and had performed a barrel roll.

"All flights of Russian planes are conducted in accordance with international regulations on the use of airspace," the Russian Defence Ministry said in a statement.

"The U.S. Air Force has two solutions: either not to fly near our borders or to turn the transponder on for identification."

Friday's incident underlines rising tensions between Russia and the United States over eastern Europe. NATO has said it plans its biggest build-up in the region since the Cold War to counter what the it considers to be a more aggressive Russia.

The Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which joined NATO in 2004, have requested higher and permanent presence of the alliance, fearing a threat from Russia after it annexed the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine in 2014.

The Kremlin denies any intentions to attack the Baltic countries, but it has often said that they have become an aggressive "Russophobic kernel" pushing NATO towards a consistently anti-Russian course.

"We are already starting to get used to the insults of the Pentagon regarding alleged 'unprofessional' manoeuvres when our fighters intercept U.S. spy planes at the Russian border," the defence ministry said in its statement.

(Reporting by Lidia Kelly; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

DHAKA Three assailants sped up to a Bangladeshi tailor's shop by motorcycle on Saturday, dragged out the Hindu owner and hacked him to death, police said, in an attack claimed by Islamic State.

Police official Abdul Jalil, quoting witnesses, said the attackers fled the scene after killing 50-year-old Nikhil Chandra Joardar outside his shop in the town of Tangail, 80 km (50 miles) northwest of the capital Dhaka.

Islamic State militants claimed responsibility for the killing, saying the tailor had blasphemed Prophet Mohammad, the U.S.-based monitoring service SITE said.

The attack came days after a Bangladeshi gay rights campaigner and his friend were killed in a similar manner in a Dhaka apartment.

The Muslim-majority nation of 160 million people has seen a surge in violent attacks over the past few months in which liberal activists, members of minority Muslim sects and other religious groups have been targeted.

Police said they were investigating whether Joardar's killing was connected to a complaint made against him for making a derogatory comment about Prophet Mohammad.

He was jailed for a few weeks in 2012 but released after the complaint against him was withdrawn, said Jalil.

The Islamic State and a group affiliated to al Qaeda have issued similar claims of responsibility in the past, but the authenticity of Saturday's statement could not be immediately verified.

The Bangladeshi government has denied that Islamic State or al Qaeda have a presence in the country. Police say home-grown militants groups are behind the attacks.

Western security experts doubt that there are any direct operational links between Islamic State, based in the Middle East, and militants operating on the ground in Bangladesh.

But they do say that a "call and response" of claims and statements of support for militant attacks through their propaganda channels allows them to create the impression of being in league together.

Human rights activists have urged mainstream politicians in Bangladesh to abandon sectarian hostilities that date back to the 1971 war of independence, and to engage in a constructive dialogue that would deprive Islamist extremists of cover for their attacks.

(Reporting by Ruma Paul; Editing by Ros Russell)

BAGHDAD A suicide bomber driving a car killed at least 19 people and wounded 48 others on Saturday in an attack claimed by Islamic State on a group of Shi'ite Muslim pilgrims in a southeastern suburb of Baghdad, Iraqi police sources said.

A second explosion near a Shi'ite militia checkpoint in the capital's Dora district killed two and wounded three others, police sources said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for that blast.

Amaq news agency, which supports Islamic State, said a fighter in the Nahrawan district had driven a truck loaded with three tonnes of explosives into the gathering of Shi'ite pilgrims. They had been heading to Baghdad's Imam Kadhim shrine to commemorate the 8th century death of one of Shi'ite Islam's senior figures.

Security has gradually improved in Baghdad, which was the target of daily bombings a decade ago, but attacks against both the security forces and civilians are still frequent.

The rise of Islamic State, which is fighting government forces for control of swathes of northern and western Iraq, has exacerbated the country's sectarian conflict, mostly between Shi'ites and Sunnis, which emerged after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Also on Saturday Islamic State militants launched an offensive near the northern town of Baiji, which Iraqi forces and Shi'ite militia fighters recaptured months ago along with a large oil refinery devastated by the conflict.

In the first set of attacks on Friday evening near Siniya west of Baiji, Islamic State seized four security checkpoints, according to sources in Salahuddin operations command. The militants used car bombs, killing 11 members of the security forces and wounding 12 others.

From the eastern side of Baiji, the militants attacked security forces near Makhoul, killing three police officers and wounding two others in fighting that continued on Saturday, the sources said.

(Reporting by Kareem Raheem in Baghdad and Ghazwan Hassan in Tikrit; Writing by Stephen Kalin; Editing by Gareth Jones)

KHARTOUM A Sudanese military plane crashed in the central city of El-Obeid on Saturday, killing five people, the army said.

A military statement blamed a technical failure in the Antonov plane, which had been trying to land in El-Obeid.

(Reporting by Khalid Abdelaziz; Editing by Susan Thomas)

BAGHDAD Iraqi security forces fired tear gas and bullets into the air in an effort to stop more supporters of Shi'ite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr from entering Baghdad's fortified Green Zone, sources in the police and Sadr's office said on Saturday.

SWAT troops and presidential guard forces were trying to keep the protesters from crossing a bridge close to the U.S. embassy compound, the Sadrist source said.

Hundreds of the cleric's followers stormed into the Green Zone earlier and entered parliament after he denounced politicians' failure to reform a political quota system blamed for rampant corruption.

(Reporting by Ahmed Rasheed and Kareem Raheem; Writing by Stephen Kalin; Editing by Andrew Roche)