Bangladesh has deployed border guards to help maintain order, a senior officer said Saturday after deadly protests by hardline Islamists against a visit by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi rocked the Muslim majority nation.

COX'S BAZAR: Social network Facebook and its messaging app have been down in Bangladesh since Friday, the US tech giant said on Saturday (Mar 27), as protesters oppose Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's two-day visit to the country. Four people w...

CHIANG MAI: Myanmar's ethnic armed factions will not stand by and do nothing if the military junta's forces continue to kill protesters, the leader of one of the main armed groups said on Saturday (Mar 27). At least 16 protesters were killed by sec...

MUMBAI: India cricket icon Sachin Tendulkar said on Saturday (Mar 27) he has contracted the novel coronavirus and has mild symptoms as infections continued to surge in the world's second-most populated country. Tendulkar, who will turn 48 next mont...

KATHMANDU: Thousands of Bhutanese travelled to schools and public buildings for vaccination on Saturday (Mar 27) as the Himalayan kingdom launched its biggest inoculation drive against COVID-19 with the AstraZeneca shots provided by neighbouring Indi...

SYDNEY: Australia's trade minister threatened to take China to the World Trade Organization on Saturday (Mar 27) over its "unjustifiable" decision to hike duties on Australian wine imports for up to five years. In the latest salvo between Beijing an...

Myanmar's military will Saturday put on a major show of strength for the annual Armed Forces Day, as it struggles to quell widespread protests against its rule weeks after seizing power.

SEOUL: North Korea said on Saturday (Mar 27) that the administration of US President Joe Biden had taken a wrong first step and revealed "deep-seated hostility" by criticising its self-defensive missile test. North Korea on Friday claimed it had la...

JAKARTA: “Daasshh!” teriak Zakaria, pesilat Indonesia berusia 90 tahun sambil menendang kaki kanannya tinggi-tinggi ke udara, memamerkan keterampilan seni bela dirinya. Zakaria adalah pesilat tertua di Nusantara dan telah mendapatkan penghargaan...

JAKARTA: “Daasshh!” Mr Zakaria, a 90-year-old Indonesian pencak silat master exclaimed as he kicked his right leg high into the air, showing off his martial art skills.  Mr Zakaria, who goes by one name, is the oldest pencak silat fighter in ...

WASHINGTON: The United States on Friday (Mar 26) condemned what it called a "state-led" social media campaign in China against US and other international companies for deciding not to use cotton from China's Xinjiang region over forced labour concer...

China outlines COVID-origin findings, ahead of WHO report

The former director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention believes the coronavirus escaped from a laboratory in China, according to an interview that aired Friday.

YANGON: Myanmar's military junta warned protesters were at risk of being shot in the head, state television said, as anti-coup activists called for a huge show of defiance on the country's Armed Forces Day on Saturday (Mar 26). A broadcast on the M...

Four supporters of a hardline Islamist group were shot dead in Bangladesh on Friday in violent demonstrations over Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's tour to Dhaka, officials said.

MOSCOW: Russia wants to strengthen military ties with Myanmar, its state media reported on Friday (Mar 26), after a meeting between top defence officials and a junta condemned by Western countries for killing hundreds of civilian protesters. Russi...

JAKARTA: Muslim majority Indonesia on Friday (Mar 26) banned an annual exodus that sees millions travel across the vast nation to mark the end of Ramadan over fears of a surge in COVID-19 infections. Travellers pack into airports, train stations and...

The Philippines reported 9,838 coronavirus cases on Friday, marking the highest daily jump since the pandemic began.

The Singapore Foreign Affairs Minister also said he was "pessimistic" about developments in Myanmar, an issue he discussed with Indonesian leaders.

BEIJING: China said on Friday (Mar 26) it would hike duties on Australian wine imports for up to five years, as relations sour between Beijing and Canberra. The levies range from 116.2 per cent to 218.4 per cent, China's commerce ministry said in a...

FUKUSHIMA, Japan: When Olympic torch runners came to Fukushima city on Friday (Mar 26), Masahiro Abiko went out to cheer them with his employees, hoping the Games will reinvigorate his coronavirus-battered business making flags and festival attire. ...

Myanmar activists have called for major anti-coup protests this weekend as the junta marks Armed Forces Day, after a firebomb attack on deposed civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi's party headquarters.

BANGKOK: Thailand on Friday (Mar 26) announced plans for an experimental quarantine-free model in ultra-popular beach destination Phuket, as the kingdom attempts to resuscitate its pandemic-battered economy. Thailand has imposed massive restrictions...

JAKARTA: Indonesian fans have apologised for deluging British actor-comedian Stephen Fry's Instagram with angry messages after mistaking him for a badminton judge. The Indonesians turned their ire on Fry, 63, after their team was withdrawn from last...

TOKYO: People in Tokyo flocked to admire cherry blossoms in full bloom at parks, shrines and rivers on Friday (Mar 26), despite COVID-19 warnings against holding traditional parties under the delicate flowers. Annual festivals have been cancelled, f...

TOKYO: Japan's cabinet on Friday (Mar 26) approved a Bill that will tighten oversight of land deals and land use near military facilities and border islands, reflecting Tokyo's concern about overseas security risks. The government plans to submit a ...

Nepal has eased quarantine rules for visitors in an effort to attract more climbers to Mount Everest, officials said Friday, after the pandemic wiped out last year's season and devastated the tourism industry.

Dozens of farmers squatted on railway tracks in northern India on Friday, disrupting traffic to mark four months of a campaign against the opening up of agriculture produce markets to private players.

BANGKOK: Thai health officials rushed to calm public fears on Friday after confirming a man had died 10 days after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine earlier this month. The cause of death was from an abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) and rupture, senior he...

At least six people died in a fire that engulfed a mall housing a hospital that treated coronavirus patients in Mumbai, authorities said on Friday.

Britain told Hong Kong on Friday (Mar 26) that it had "no right" to order other countries not to accept a United Kingdom travel document for a popular youth working scheme after the city confirmed it had made the request to several other nations.

A village watchman trains his binoculars on a suspicious fishing boat -- the first line of defence as Thailand braces for a fresh methamphetamine influx after a coup in neighbouring Myanmar.

More than 300 people have been killed in Myanmar's protests, with nearly 90 per cent of the victims shot dead, according to data from an advocacy group and local media.

From a converted storeroom on the roof of his mother's Seoul apartment, Kim Min-kyo plays video games for up to 15 hours a day -- and makes a fortune from the thousands of fans watching him.

A fire from a hurled Molotov cocktail broke out early on Friday (Mar 26) at the party headquarters of deposed civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar's largest city, a party official said.

YANGON: Myanmar’s economy is expected to contract by 10 per cent this year, World Bank forecasts released on Friday (Mar 26) showed, as the country is convulsed by nationwide protests, strikes and sanctions following a military coup on Feb 1. T...

TAIPEI: Taiwan and the United States have signed their first agreement under the Biden administration, the establishment of a Coast Guard Working Group to coordinate policy at a time when China's maritime actions have caused growing regional concern....

SHANGHAI: China reported 11 new COVID-19 cases on Mar 25, same number of infections as the previous day, the country's national health authority said on Friday (Mar 26). The National Health Commission, in a statement, said all of the new cases were...

BEIJING: China sanctioned organisations and individuals in the United Kingdom on Friday (Mar 26) over what it called "lies and disinformation" about Xinjiang, days after Britain imposed sanctions for human rights abuses in the western Chinese region...

North Korea launched a "newly developed new-type tactical guided projectile" on Thursday (Mar 25), state news agency KCNA reported on Friday, as the United States condemned the launches and warned of a threat to international peace and security.

With COVID-19 cases rising, the Duterte administration keeps doing the same thing but somehow expects a different result, says a freelance journalist.

WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden on Thursday (Mar 25) said he would prevent China from passing the United States to become the most powerful country in the world, vowing to invest heavily to ensure America prevails in the rivalry between the world...

WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden warned North Korea on Thursday (Mar 25) that the United States will "respond accordingly" if it escalates its weapons testing, after Pyongyang fired two suspected ballistic missiles into the sea in its first substantiv...

NEW DELHI: India's technology minister on Thursday (Mar 25) said video streaming services have to be "responsible and accountable" for their shows and movies, defending rules introduced last month that regulate such content. India tightened its grip...

Nearly 1,000 Uyghurs rallied in Istanbul on Thursday as Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met his Turkish counterpart for talks expected to focus on coronavirus vaccines and the countries' extradition treaty.

WASHINGTON: The United States and Britain imposed sanctions on conglomerates controlled by Myanmar's military on Thursday (Mar 25), following the generals' Feb 1 coup and deadly crackdown, with Washington calling it a response to "abhorrent violence...

JAKARTA: The leaders of Singapore and Indonesia will meet in person during a retreat to be held later this year, said the foreign ministers of both countries on Thursday (Mar 25). In a joint press conference, Dr Vivian Balakrishnan said: "I think in...

MANILA: The Philippine military ordered the deployment of more navy ships to the South China Sea on Thursday (Mar 25) amid a growing diplomatic row over a fleet of Chinese boats parked near a disputed reef. China claims almost the entirety of the re...

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's new badminton star Lee Zii Jia has distanced himself from being labelled as a successor to legend shuttler Lee Chong Wei following his triumphant All England Open victory last Sunday.  Speaking to journalists in a group i...

Thailand has granted emergency authorisation to Janssen, the single-dose coronavirus vaccine of Johnson & Johnson, the country's health minister said on Thursday, the third vaccine to be cleared for local use.

NASA engineers plan to send a miniature helicopter whirring just above the surface of Mars next month in an interplanetary aviation experiment that, if successful, would mark the first powered, controlled flight by an aircraft on another celestial bo...

Security forces opened fire Thursday on anti-coup protesters in Myanmar's eastern Karen state, as demonstrators took to the streets in nationwide dawn rallies to demand a return to democracy.

ISLAMABAD: A British-born militant sentenced to death for the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl was ordered to be let out of prison on Thursday (Mar 25) by Pakistan's Supreme Court in the latest twist to a legal saga spanning nearly two deca...

COX'S BAZAR, Bangladesh: Thousands of Rohingya refugees began rebuilding their makeshift homes on Thursday (Mar 25), after a fire ripped though a Bangladeshi refugee camp where they were living earlier this week, killing at least 11. Monday's blaze ...

Shoubhik Dolai was riddled with bullets in West Bengal, the killing fields of Indian politics where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is pushing hard to win power for the first time in elections starting Saturday.

AIZAWL, India: Strung across remote mountain settlements, a secret network of activists and volunteers is helping spirit hundreds of defecting Myanmar policemen away from the military’s brutal crackdown on dissent and into relative safety in a smal...

HONG KONG: The Hong Kong government on Thursday (Mar 26) confirmed a Reuters report that it had told 14 countries to stop accepting a British travel document that many of its young people use to apply for working holiday visas in Europe, North Ameri...

HONG KONG: Hong Kong's sudden suspension of a COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech is another blow to a vaccination programme already struggling against a wall of public distrust. Hong Kong on Wednesday suspended use of the Pfizer-BioNT...

Taiwan has begun the mass production of a long-range missile and is developing three other models, a senior official said on Thursday (Mar 25), in a rare admission of efforts to develop strike capacity amid growing Chinese pressure.

India added 53,476 COVID-19 infections overnight, the highest daily rise since Oct. 23, the health ministry data showed on Thursday.

YANGON: Thousands of anti-coup activists took to the streets in Myanmar on Thursday (Mar 25), a day after a nationwide silent strike saw businesses shut and people stay at home in protest against the military coup in the country. Street protests ...

BEIJING: Anger with Nike Inc erupted on Chinese social media late on Wednesday (Mar 24) after China's netizens spotted a statement from the sporting goods giant saying it was "concerned" about reports of forced labour in Xinjiang and that it does not...

NEW DELHI: India will likely delay deliveries of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine doses to the COVAX facility backed by GAVI and the World Health Organization (WHO) for March and April, the programme's procurement and distributing partner UNICEF told Reu...

SEOUL: North Korea fired two projectiles into the sea early on Thursday (Mar 25), South Korea's military said, in what could be its first ballistic missile test during the administration of US President Joe Biden. The nuclear-armed North has a long...

KUALA LUMPUR: As the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) holds its general assembly this weekend, political watchers are looking out for indications of the dynamics within the party, and how it would position itself ahead of the next general...

Pyongyang is sending a message in typically overbearing style. But the target is as much the US as it is Malaysia, says Asia expert, James Chin.

The Tokyo 2020 Olympics torch relay set off from Fukushima on Thursday (Mar 25), beginning a four-month countdown to the Summer Games, delayed from 2020 and the first ever organised during a global pandemic.

At least one Chinese online retailer appeared to drop H&M's products amid social media attacks on the Swedish company for saying it was "deeply concerned" about reports of forced labour in the farwestern region of Xinjiang.

More than a thousand Thai protesters took over a major Bangkok intersection on Wednesday, defying authorities in the first major rally since police used rubber bullets against demonstrators over the weekend.

HANOI: Vietnam on Wednesday (Mar 24) called for urgent diversification of its sources for COVID-19 vaccines amid global supply problems, as the Southeast Asian country pushes forward with an inoculation program that began earlier this month. "COVID-...

China's embassy in the Philippines has blamed "some external countries" for stoking tensions in the region, in remarks aimed at Japan after its ambassador stressed the need for peace and stability and in the South China Sea.

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia decided on Wednesday (Mar 24) to postpone planned deportations to Myanmar until after a proposed emergency regional summit to discuss the crisis there brought on by a military coup, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters...

TAIPEI: Taiwan will from next month ration water for more than 1 million households in the centre of the island because of a drought but the technology hub of Hsinchu will not be affected, Economy Minister Wang Mei-hua said on Wednesday (Mar 24). Su...

The Philippine immigration bureau said Wednesday it has launched an investigation into allegations that some of its officers were involved in the trafficking of 44 women to work in Syria.

HONG KONG: Hong Kong health authorities have ejected a private clinic from the city's COVID-19 vaccination programme after it reportedly recommended the German-made Pfizer/BioNTech shot to patients over the one from China's Sinovac. The move illustr...

India reported a new variant of the coronavirus on Wednesday (Mar 24) as it struggled with the highest single-day tally of new infections and deaths this year.

Shoppers in a district of Beijing are getting discount coupons if they have received COVID-19 vaccinations, as China tries to accelerate its COVID-19 vaccination rate.

TOKYO: An online advertisement featuring a woman saying the debate over gender equality is outdated has sparked furore in Japan for being sexist, a month after an outcry over sexist comments by the former Olympics organising chief saw him step down. ...

KUALA LUMPUR: Digital COVID-19 vaccination certificates in Malaysia and Singapore are secured by blockchain technology and come with a traceability feature that tells the exact batch of the vaccine vial used for inoculation. Malaysian Science, Te...

COX'S BAZAR, Bangladesh: Aid workers searched on Wednesday (Mar 24) to reunite Rohingya Muslim families separated when a huge fire swept through the world's biggest refugee settlement in Bangladesh, forcing about 45,000 people from their bamboo and p...

KUALA LUMPUR: Two people were injured after a helicopter crashed at Selangor's Subang Airport on Wednesday (Mar 24) morning. Malaysia's Civil Aviation Authority confirmed that the Airbus AS350 B3 helicopter crashed at 9.25am. There were five peopl...

YANGON: Myanmar freed more than 600 coup detainees from prison on Wednesday (Mar 24), amid fresh outrage at the junta's brutal crackdown on protesters. Several buses full of prisoners drove out of Yangon's Insein jail in the morning, said witnesses,...

HONG KONG: An award-winning Hong Kong journalist went on trial on Wednesday (Mar 24) for accessing car ownership details on official databases during an investigation into the perpetrators of an attack on protesters by government loyalists. The pro...

Taiwan will help its handful of remaining diplomatic allies buy COVID-19 vaccines but on the condition that Taiwanese money is not used to obtain Chinese vaccines, Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said on Wednesday.

JOHOR BAHRU: Johor Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar has proposed that the state government should revive the Johor Volunteer Forces (JVF), an organisation to instill efficiency and discipline among civil servants.  In a Facebook post on Tuesday (Mar 23), he...

PINGTUNG: A Chinese ban on pineapple imports from Taiwan has sparked a flood of patriotic buying of the fruit and forced restaurants to come up with inventive new menu choices, but it has also left many questioning Taipei's overwhelming economic reli...

From a final resting place for the dead to a gnarly way to land a trick; a Thai coffin-maker is affixing Buddhist emblems to the dismantled walls of his caskets, and transforming them into skateboards.

HANOI: As a small girl, Trang Nguyen saw a bear stabbed through the chest with a giant needle at her neighbour's house in northern Vietnam. The bear, flat on its back, was being pumped for its bile, a fluid drawn from its gallbladder that has long b...

MUMBAI: In the green, undulating hills of eastern India that supply the world with Darjeeling tea, revolution is brewing as a new generation dreams of life beyond the confines and hardship of plantation work. Rahul Kumar Jha, 27, is an aspiring writ...

China's daily output of COVID-19 vaccines has reached about 5 million doses, more than tripling the 1.5 million-dose daily production rate on Feb. 1, official media said on Wednesday.

YANGON: Myanmar activists plan more anti-coup protests on Wednesday (Mar 24), including a silent strike with many businesses due to close and calls for people to stay home, a day after a 7-year-old girl was killed in her home when security forces ope...

HONG KONG: Hong Kong and Macau suspended the use of Pfizer-BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday (Mar 24) after being informed of a packaging problem affecting one batch of vials, while stressing they did not believe there was a safety risk. The ...

Shanghai will offer COVID-19 vaccinations for foreign residents, local authorities announced late on Monday.

SEOUL: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un broke ground for 10,000 new apartments in the capital city of Pyongyang, state media reported on Wednesday (Mar 24), despite economic crises that have left other signature construction projects stalled. Kim att...

North Korea test fired several missiles just days after a visit to the region by the top US defence and diplomatic officials, a US official said on Tuesday (Mar 23), in Pyongyang's first overt challenge to the Biden administration.

The Chinese threat to invade Taiwan is serious and more imminent than many understand, the US admiral chosen to lead the Pentagon's Indo-Pacific region said Tuesday.

Sri Lanka on Tuesday rejected a UN move to preserve evidence of war crimes in the country and said the money allocated for the effort would be better spent on housing for the poor.

China on Tuesday (Mar 23) said it summoned foreign diplomats in protest after the United States, the European Union, Canada and Britain jointly imposed sanctions on senior Chinese officials over alleged human rights abuses in China’s far western Xi...

TOKYO: An early spring in Japan is drawing cherry blossom fans to Tokyo's parks but the government has urged people to limit traditional festivities to prevent a resurgence of COVID-19 infections. The flowers known as "sakura" were in full bloom on ...

SURABAYA, Indonesia: The rollout of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine has started in Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim majority nation, despite concern and some confusion over whether the Anglo-Swedish product is halal, or permissible under Islam. ...