We know that strong foundations matter. Whether it is a nation or a new home. With the right foundations in place, we can build safely and securely. We can build with confidence for the future.

Thailand partially eased its ban on political activities, the ruling junta announced yesterday, allowing political parties to recruit new members for the first time in four year as the countdown begins for a much-anticipated national poll.

The toppled Thai opposition yesterday called on the ruling junta to lift the ban on political activities as the countdown begins for the kingdom's first election since a 2014 coup.

Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi has said that, with hindsight, her government could have better handled the situation in Rakhine state that led to the forced displacement of more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet has said the decision by the Pre-Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) offers real hope for accountability for the crimes committed against Rohingyas in Myanmar.

Former Malaysian leader Najib Razak's chief lawyer was arrested and charged with money laundering yesterday, as authorities intensified

Conservative Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) backs overwhelming calls in the European Parliament for the immediate release of journalists arrested in Myanmar while investigating the Rohingya crisis.

A host of ill-defined laws is used in Myanmar to exert control over independent journalism across the country, including in Kachin, Shan and Rakhine states, a UN human rights report on freedom of expression in the country finds.

New technology could mean 28 million jobs being lost in the ASEAN region.

Foreign workers holding the Visit Pass -- Temporary Employment (PLKS) for the past 10 years will be given a reprieve to continue working in Malaysia, says the country's Human Resources Minister M Kulasegaran.

Myanmar government leader Aung San Suu Kyi says two jailed Reuters journalists can appeal their seven-year sentence, and that their jailing had nothing to do with freedom of expression.

The UN began work inside Myanmar's violence-torn northern Rakhine state yesterday, the first time its agencies have been granted permission to operate there since more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims fled the area last year.

Bangladesh has no plans to take in hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees permanently, Foreign Secretary Shahidul Haque said yesterday, adding that they "belong" to Myanmar from where they fled.

Eleven Republican and Democratic US senators urge President Donald Trump's administration to "use all tools at your disposal," including imposing more economic sanctions, to ensure "the immediate, unconditional" release of two Reuters journalists imprisoned in Myanmar.

The cancer-stricken wife of Pakistan's jailed former prime minister Nawaz Sharif dies in London while her husband and daughter were in prison, officials say.

Rohingya women living in Bangladesh are developing health problems, missing out on aid and are at the greater risk of abuse due to unsafe and unsuitable facilities in many parts of the refugee camps, Oxfam has warned.

The new UN human rights commissioner, Michelle Bachelet, yesterday called for an international mechanism to collect evidence of crimes committed by the Myanmar army against the Rohingya Muslims in order to pursue prosecutions.

A Singapore court has ordered the return of millions of dollars misappropriated from Malaysian state fund 1MDB in a cross-border

Developing countries rounded on the United States and its allies at emergency climate talks yesterday, accusing the world's richest nations of stalling a deal aimed at preventing runaway global warming.

UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide Adama Dieng has urged International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda to consider ICC's recommendation of opening an investigation into the atrocities against Rohingyas without delay.