YANGON: A Myanmar military tribunal has sentenced 28 people to 20 years in jail with hard labour for arson attacks on two factories, state media reported, after a string of mainly Chinese-financed factories were torched during unrest in Yangon in Ma...

China will establish up to 18 "key cities" dedicated to football by 2025, its top sports body said, as it outlined plans to be among Asia's best by the end of the decade.

Tonnes of charred plastic pellets from a burning container ship washed ashore near Sri Lanka's commercial capital on Friday (May 28) as an international effort to salvage the vessel dragged into a ninth day.

BENGALURU: India reported on Friday (May 28) 186,364 new COIVD-19 infections during the previous 24 hours, for its lowest daily rise since Apr 14, while deaths rose by 3,660. READ: India scraps local trials for COVID-19 shots to fast-track import...

HANOI: European business leaders in Vietnam are urging the government to allow private companies to procure COVID-19 vaccines and inoculate their own staff, as the country battles its biggest outbreak since the start of the pandemic. "This would red...

Canada is investigating allegations of forced labour in Malaysia's palm oil and glove manufacturing industries, the government said on Friday.

BEIJING: ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming, the brains behind TikTok, said he preferred "daydreaming" as he stepped down as head of his own firm last week. But his departure comes as several of China's once-lauded tech entrepreneurs step aside under inc...

YANGON: Aye Mar sits with her seven children in their Yangon kitchen and worries whether their meal of rice and stringy vegetables - all she can afford in coup-stricken Myanmar - will satisfy their hunger. The national economy and banking system hav...

TOKYO: Japan said on Friday (May 28) it would consider sharing COVID-19 vaccines with other countries as a ruling party panel urged that part of its stock of AstraZeneca doses be provided to Taiwan, which hailed the move and urged a swift decision. ...

HONG KONG: Hong Kong's legislature approved the biggest overhaul of its political system in the quarter century since British rule on Thursday (May 27), in a decisive step to assert Beijing's authority over the autonomous city. The move was quickly ...

Malaysian volunteers, who help to give COVID-19 victims a Muslim burial, say they are being stretched like never before, as the country struggles to cope with its worst coronavirus outbreak since the start of the pandemic.

HONG KONG: Jailed Hong Kong media tycoon and Beijing critic Jimmy Lai was given a new prison sentence of 14 months on Friday (May 28) over his role in an unauthorised assembly on Oct 1, 2019, during one of the city's pro-democracy rallies that year. ...

The United States called on Thursday (May 27) for the World Health Organisation to carry out a second phase of its investigation into the origins of the coronavirus, with independent experts given full access to original data and samples in China...

KATHMANDU: Hong Kong mountaineer Tsang Yin-hung has recorded the world's fastest ascent of Everest by a woman with a time of just under 26 hours, a Nepal official said on Thursday (May 27). Tsang, 44, scaled the 8,848.86-m mountain in a record time ...

COLOMBO: An international firefighting effort to put out a huge blaze on a container ship off Sri Lanka's coast will likely take days, the country's navy chief said on Thursday (May 27), amid mounting fears of a major oil leak. Nine Sri Lankan ships...

HONG KONG: Hong Kong police cited COVID-19 restrictions to ban for a second year running an annual vigil to commemorate the protests in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989. Despite the ban, organisers expect a large turnout of people to mark the Jun ...

JAKARTA: An Indonesian court sentenced on Thursday (May 27) hardline Muslim cleric Rizieq Shihab to eight months in prison and fined him 20 million rupiah (US$1,400) for breaching coronavirus curbs after his return last year from self-imposed exile. ...

NEW DELHI: Twitter on Thursday (May 27) said it is worried about the safety of its staff in India and called for the government to respect freedom of expression, days after Indian police visited its office in New Delhi over its labeling of a tweet by...

The Indian government's battle with social media giants escalated Thursday with Twitter accusing the police of "intimidation" and slamming new IT rules that have also alarmed its peers and privacy campaigners.

JOHOR BAHRU: The Johor state government is planning to launch another economic stimulus package to help residents cope with the financial impact of COVID-19, Chief Minister Hasni Mohammad said on Thursday (May 27).  Mr Hasni made the announcement ...

Five members of an Indonesian family drowned when a dock where they were taking a selfie collapsed, police said Thursday, just weeks after a similar fatal accident.

MATHURA, India: Suman Lata's family begged her to refuse a summons to monitor elections in Uttar Pradesh state last month but, worried about losing her job, the 49-year-old mother of three went anyway, just as India's second coronavirus wave hit a pe...

Germany's BioNTech asked Taiwan to remove the word "country" from an announcement they planned to make on a COVID-19 vaccine sale to the island, its health minister said on Thursday, giving details of the deal whose axing was blamed on China by Taipe...

TOKYO: The head of a Japanese doctors' union warned on Thursday (May 25) that holding the Olympic Games in Tokyo this summer, with tens of thousands of people from around the world, could lead to the emergence of an "Olympic" strain of the coronaviru...

NEW DELHI: India on Thursday (May 27) scrapped local trials for "well-established" foreign COVID-19 vaccines to fast-track imports as it battles a devastating second wave of the pandemic that has killed tens of thousands of people. India recorded i...

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian celebrity Siti Nurhaliza Tarudin and her husband, Khalid Mohamad Jiwa, were each given a fine of RM10,000 (US$2,400) for breaching COVID-19 Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) during a religious ceremony known as ‘tahnikâ...

At least 60 marathons and cross-country races have been cancelled or postponed in China after 21 runners died when extreme weather hit an ultramarathon last weekend, state media said Thursday.

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia on Thursday (May 27) reported a record number of new COVID-19 cases for the third straight day, with 7,857 infections. The Klang Valley area accounted for about 40 per cent of the new cases, with 2,675 cases in Selangor and 5...

BANGKOK: The Thai king's sister has approved COVID-19 vaccine imports by an institution she sponsors, bypassing the government as it deals with surging infections and growing public anger over a slow and chaotic roll-out. The secretary-general of th...

Thousands of people were homeless Thursday after the latest cyclone to hit Covid-ravaged India left a trail of destruction, although timely evacuations meant the death toll was limited to single figures.

COLOMBO: Three Indian vessels on Thursday (May 27) joined the battle to contain a major fire on a container ship off the Sri Lanka coast amid fears that it could break up and spew out hundreds of tonnes of oil. The X-Press Pearl has been blazing out...

BHUBANESHWAR: Hundreds of thousands of villagers along the low-lying coast of eastern India and Bangladesh were marooned by floodwaters on Thursday (May 27) in the aftermath of a powerful cyclone that has killed at least five people, officials in bot...

TOKYO: A goalkeeper boycotting Myanmar's World Cup qualifiers has urged his teammates to "stand with the people" and raise the anti-junta three-finger salute in protest at the country's military coup. Kyaw Zin Htet, who opted out of the games in Jap...

TAIPEI: Facing Taiwan’s largest outbreak of the pandemic and looking for rapid virus test kits, the mayor of the island’s capital did what anyone might do: He Googled it. “If you don’t know, and you try to know something, please check Google...

BEIJING: Two COVID-19 vaccines from China's Sinopharm showed more than 70 per cent efficacy against symptomatic cases, but it remains unclear how much protection they provide against severe or asymptomatic cases, according to the first detailed resul...

JASIN, Malaysia: Filipina weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz grunts with the effort of hoisting a barbell over her head in an outdoor makeshift gym ringed by banana and rambutan trees as trucks thunder past - an unlikely training base for a shot at Olympic g...

Countries reliant on tourism are racing to reopen borders and revive economies decimated by the pandemic. The World Travel and Tourism Council estimates that the sector lost nearly US$4.5 trillion and 62 million jobs last year. Airlines alone lost U...

JOHOR BAHRU: Johor ruler Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar has called for the Malaysian government to consider "a full lockdown" if the number of COVID-19 cases in the country continue to rise.  Sultan Ibrahim released the statement on Wednesday (May 26) ...

Wu En-tzu has delivered more than 2,000 babies working as an obstetrician but she has no desire to have children of her own -- an increasingly common position taken by Taiwanese families.

KUALA LUMPUR: The two trains involved in an underground collision along the Kelana Jaya Light Rail Transit (LRT) have been successfully retrieved, said Malaysian Transport Minister Wee Ka Siong in a Facebook post on Thursday (May 27). The minister...

SHANGHAI: China reported 19 new COVID-19 cases for May 26, up from 13 cases a day earlier, the country's national health authority said on Thursday (May 27). Two of the new cases were local infections in the southern province of Guangdong, the Natio...

Pramila Devi's shrouded body lay on a bier, resting on a rock on the banks of a muddy Ganges.

Over 20,000 Indonesian firms are vaccinating their workers but this isn't going to help the country reach herd immunity, says ISEAS-Yusof Ishak’s Visiting Fellow A'an Suryana.

BEIJING: A Beijing court will hear an espionage case on Thursday (May 27) against Australian blogger Yang Hengjun, detained by Chinese authorities two years ago as he arrived from New York, against a backdrop of worsening ties between the two nations...

The Philippines will allow the Pfizer and BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use in children aged 12-15, the head of its Food and Drugs Administration said, widening the number of people in the country that will be protected against the virus.

KUALA LUMPUR: Tajuddin Abdul Rahman, the chairman of rail operator Prasanara, had his service terminated "with immediate effect", said Malaysia's Ministry of Finance on Wednesday (May 26).  This comes after his conduct during a press conference ...

Prince Harry and Oprah Winfrey are to revisit their documentary about mental health with a follow-up, Apple TV+ said on Wednesday, adding that the series had brought a 25per cent increase in new viewers to the streaming platform.

Pakistan on Wednesday opened up its coronarvirus vaccination campaign to everyone aged 19 or older as it scrambles to protect more of its 220 million people.

SHANGHAI: Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi Corp reported first-quarter revenue growth of 55per cent on Wednesday (May 26), above analyst expectations, as it nabbed market share from one-time market leader Huawei Technologies. Revenue rose to 76.88 bi...

AstraZeneca Plc and Nipro Corp signed an agreement to supply the British-Swedish company's COVID-19 vaccine in Japan, Nipro said on Wednesday.

BEIJING: China's tech hub of Shenzhen aims to make it harder for people from out-of-town to settle in a rare tightening of residency rules, as its population balloons and resources and services come under pressure. While the southern boomtown is far...

SEOUL: South Korea on Wednesday (May 26) said masks will no longer be required outdoors from July for those vaccinated with at least one COVID-19 shot. The move is a bid to encourage older residents to get vaccinated as South Korea aims to immunise ...

BEIJING: Family members of 21 runners who died when freezing rain and strong winds interrupted a weekend mountain race in northwestern China have rejected offers of compensation and want to know how the tragedy could happen, local media reported on W...

Limb-lengthening surgery for cosmetic reasons is in demand in India, but it does not always end well, the programme Undercover Asia finds out.

BANGKOK: Some inmates in Thailand could soon get a provisional release as the government plans to reduce overcrowding in prisons in its fight against COVID-19. A new wave of outbreak is sweeping through detention facilities nationwide. More than 10...

Israel-Palestinian issues have long featured in Jakarta’s worldview. But today the issue has been coopted into a domestic battleground about identity politics, says a political analyst.

With new lockdowns and closure of international borders, wildlife has been an increasingly common sight in Malaysia’s urban areas, says Siew Lyn Wong.

DIGHA, India: Heavy rains and howling winds lashed eastern India on Wednesday (May 26) as the COVID-19 stricken country's second cyclone in as many weeks battered the coast, forcing more than 1.2 million people to seek shelter. Weather officials sai...

KUALA LUMPUR: Two passengers who were injured in the collision between two LRT trains on Monday (May 24) evening have undergone brain surgery, with a third needing cerebral resuscitation treatment, said Hospital Kuala Lumpur (HKL) director Heric ...

Vietnam widened lockdown measures in its industrialised north on Tuesday to combat its biggest COVID-19 outbreak so far, as authorities reported a daily record in new cases that was more than double the previous high.

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia on Tuesday (May 25) reported a record 7,289 new COVID-19 cases, the highest number of new daily infections in the country since the start of the pandemic. This is also the first time the number of new cases has breached the 7,...

Four people have been arrested in Indonesia for allegedly stealing Covid-19 vaccines marked for prisoners and selling them to the public, authorities said Tuesday.

BANGKOK: Vaccine hesitancy has risen sharply in Thailand opinion polls show, just weeks away from the start of a mass inoculation programme and as the country fights its deadliest COVID-19 outbreak. Reasons for the rise in vaccine hesitancy were unc...

TAIPEI: Millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses are on their way to Taiwan, the health minister said on Tuesday (May 25), as he extended virus-related restrictions until the middle of June even though the trend in new infections is falling. Having spent ...

Pfizer is in talks with the Indian government over supplies of its COVID-19 vaccine, the U.S. drugmaker said on Tuesday, as New Delhi scrambles to bridge shortfalls, having pledged to fast-track approvals for overseas vaccines.

KUALA LUMPUR: Preliminary investigations into the head-on collision between two LRT trains has indicated that driver negligence was the cause of the accident, said Malaysian Transport Minister Wee Ka Siong on Tuesday (May 25).  The collision, ...

HONG KONG: Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam on Tuesday (May 25) defended Hong Kong as an attractive place for businesses, after a recent survey found foreigners were considering leaving the longtime Asian business hub. Hong Kong has long been seen as on...

SHANGHAI: A shepherd has been hailed as a hero in China after it emerged that he saved six stricken runners during an ultramarathon in which 21 other competitors died. Zhu Keming was trending on the Twitter-like Weibo on Tuesday (May 25), three days...

SINGAPORE: There are currently no reports of Singaporeans injured in an accident involving two LRT trains in Kuala Lumpur, Singapore's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) said on Tuesday (May 25). More than 210 people were injured, with dozens seriou...

Hong Kong may soon have to throw away millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses because they are approaching their expiry date and not enough people have signed up for the jabs, an official warned on Tuesday (May 25).

64 people are currently hospitalised, with 6 of them in critical condition.

A new United States travel warning for Japan over COVID-19 risks will not affect this summer's pandemic-postponed Olympic Games, the Japanese government and Tokyo 2020 organisers said on Tuesday (May 25).

KUALA LUMPUR: The LRT Kelana Jaya Line in Kuala Lumpur resumed service at 6am on Tuesday (May 25) with trains operating on a single track, Prasarana Malaysia said in a statement, adding that there will also be supporting shuttle bus services. Ser...

SHANGHAI: China reported 15 new COVID-19 cases for Monday (May 24), down from 18 a day earlier, its national health authority said on Tuesday. The National Health Commission said in its daily bulletin that two of the new cases were local infections ...

BEIJING: China on Monday (May 24) offered to urgently send COVID-19 vaccines to Taiwan to help it battle a sharp rise in coronavirus infections, drawing an angry response from Taipei and a swipe from Washington, which said US vaccines did not have st...

The view of China as a strategic rival has taken over the American political mainstream, says Zhang Jun.

Ramping up the production of vaccines and ensuring transparency in contracts are some ways to mitigate the delays in vaccination rollouts among the poorest countries, says the World Bank’s David Malpass.

It's tough to swallow bad celebrity behaviour when the country is struggling to deal with a new wave of infections, says ISEAS-Yusof Ishak’s Serina Rahman.

Passengers on a Kelana Jaya line Light Rail Transit (LRT) train on Monday (May 24) faced a harrowing moment when they were flung by the impact of its collision with another train.

BANGKOK: Thailand will extend the gap between the first and second doses of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine to 16 weeks, in an effort to inoculate more people faster, a senior health official said on Monday (May 24). The plan follows a similar decisi...

KUALA LUMPUR: More than 210 people were injured after two LRT trains collided in Kuala Lumpur on Monday (May 24) evening. Videos and photos of the incident on social media showed broken glass panels and several commuters bleeding. Federal Territor...

YANGON: An American editor of a Myanmar-based news outlet was detained by authorities in Yangon as he attempted to board a flight out of the country on Monday (May 24), his employers said. Danny Fenster, a US citizen and managing editor of Frontier...

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia reported a record number of COVID-19 fatalities on Monday (May 24) as well as more than 6,000 new cases for the sixth consecutive day. All 61 victims were Malaysians, aged 27 to 98. Many of them suffered from high blood pres...

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia on Monday (May 24) said it was investigating allegations that some recipients of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine were not injected with the correct dosage. At least two recipients have said in recent days that they were given...

A Nepali government official said on Monday that many foreign climbers were continuing their attempts to summit Mount Everest despite reports of a COVID-19 outbreak at the base camp of the world's tallest peak.

Indian authorities on Monday ordered the evacuation of nearly half a million people out of the path of a new cyclone heading towards eastern India just one week after another deadly storm smashed into the west coast.

KUALA LUMPUR: A new government directive that shoppers can only spend a maximum of two hours in retail premises is “not practical" to enforce, said the Malaysia Shopping Malls Association (PPKM). This came after the authorities announced on Sun...

AHMEDABAD: Indian pharmaceutical company Cadila Healthcare is aiming to triple monthly production of a COVID-19 vaccine candidate to as many as 30 million doses, its managing director said on Monday (May 24), as the country battles a massive wave of ...

Calls for World Health Organization reform and steps to avert future pandemics feature high on the agenda as the UN agency kicks off its annual member states' meeting on Monday.

The American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) urged Vietnam on Monday to ease its lengthy quarantine period for vaccinated travellers and allow the private sector to help procure COVID-19 vaccines for their employees in the Southeast Asian country.

A series of coronavirus clusters among construction workers in Bangkok, including the first local cases of the variant first identified in India, has put a fresh spotlight on migrant labour rights as Thailand grapples with its deadliest outbreak so f...

TOKYO: The personal data of more than a million users of one of Japan's most popular dating apps may have been exposed by a hack, its operator has warned. Net Marketing, which runs the Omiai app, said it detected unauthorised access in April to the ...

YANGON: Myanmar's deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi appeared in person at a court hearing on Monday (May 24) for the first time since her government was overthrown by the military in a Feb 1 coup, her lawyer told Reuters. Aung San Suu Kyi looked in g...

BEIJING: An investigation was underway on Monday (May 24) into the deaths of 21 runners during a mountain ultramarathon in northwest China, as harrowing testimony emerged from survivors who battled to safety through freezing temperatures and bone-chi...

NEW DELHI: India said on Monday (May 24) it had passed more than 300,000 deaths from the coronavirus pandemic, the third country after the United States and Brazil to hit the figure as it battles a huge wave of infections. The South Asian nation has...

TOKYO: Some of the world's toughest gun-control laws are posing unusual problems at the Tokyo Olympics, from the coach who can't touch a firearm to strict limits on ammunition. For Goran Maksimovic, the extent of Japan's restrictions only became cle...

TOKYO: Japan opened two mass inoculation centres on Monday (May 24) as the country races to vaccinate most of its elderly population against COVID-19 before the start of the Tokyo Olympics. The centres in Tokyo and Osaka will vaccinate thousands of ...

HONG KONG: A shadow of fear hangs over Hong Kong's outspoken and staunchly pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper, with its billionaire owner Jimmy Lai now jailed and many reporters asking themselves: "Are we next?" Each day, tomorrow's date is hung up...

TAIPEI: Taiwan's government on Monday (May 24) nullified a decision by an island that sits close to China to mandate COVID-19 tests for all arrivals, rebuking it for not following the law even as authorities deal with a rise in domestic infections. ...

OSAKA, Japan: Hospitals in Japan's second largest city of Osaka are buckling under a huge wave of new COVID-19 infections, running out of beds and ventilators as exhausted doctors warn of a "system collapse", and advise against holding the Olympics t...