Pakistan’s former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, whose party is considered a front-runner to win general elections in February, will kick off his campaign next week, aides said, days after the Supreme Court cleared him to run for a fourth term.

In a major relief ahead of the February 8 general elections in Pakistan, the Peshawar High Court (PHC) yesterday declared “illegal” the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) decision to revoke the PTI’s ‘bat’ electoral symbol and reject its intra-party polls.

A week after a major earthquake struck the west coast of Japan, thousands of people are still without water and electricity and have yet to be told when plans to rebuild can begin.

Cash-strapped Sri Lanka’s navy said yesterday it was joining a US-led maritime taskforce to protect international shipping against attacks by Yemen’s Huthi rebels.

Pakistan’s Supreme Court yesterday scrapped lifetime bans on contesting elections for people with criminal convictions, paving the way for Nawaz Sharif to run for prime minister for a fourth time.

The picturesque Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan holds general elections today with serious economic challenges calling into question its longstanding policy of prioritising “Gross National Happiness” over growth.

Japanese prosecutors yesterday made the first arrests in a funding scandal that forced Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to replace four ministers last month, local reports said.

The Maldives government has suspended three deputy ministers for disparaging India’s prime minister, an official said yesterday, during a dip in ties with its powerful neighbour.

Nepal yesterday signed a deal with India for the Himalayan republic to export 10,000 megawatts of hydroelectricity over the next decade to its energy-hungry neighbour.

Japanese authorities said yesterday that a passenger jet that collided with a Coast Guard turboprop at a Tokyo airport was given permission to land, but the smaller plane was not cleared for take-off, based on transcripts of conversations with the control tower.

A powerful earthquake that hit Japan on New Year’s Day killed at least 55 people, with rescue teams struggling in freezing temperatures yesterday to reach isolated areas where many people are feared trapped under toppled buildings.

Jailed former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan’s party is being targeted by “systematic dismemberment” and “pre-poll rigging”, a rights watchdog said yesterday, casting doubt on fairness of upcoming elections.

The death toll from a fire at an Indonesian nickel smelter has risen to 18 as of Tuesday from 13 on Sunday, local police said, while operations at the smelter remain suspended as authorities investigate the cause of the incident

At least 13 people were killed and 38 injured in eastern Indonesia on Sunday in an explosion at a Chinese-funded nickel-processing plant, the owner of the industrial park that hosts the facility said

A Thai court on Wednesday sentenced a lawmaker from the progressive Move Forward Party to six years in jail on royal insult charges, the party's leader said

A foreign couple was arrested by the Johor Immigration Department for operating a fake working permit renewal syndicate at an apartment here

Dilapidated boats carrying an estimated 400 ethnic Rohingya arrived in Indonesia's Aceh province on Sunday, chief of a provincial fishing community has confirmed, adding to a recent surge of Myanmar's Muslim minority arriving in the country

Myanmar’s junta chief has called on ethnic armed groups battling the military across the country to find a political solution, state media reported yesterday.

Nepal said it has asked Moscow not to recruit its citizens into the Russian army and immediately send back any Nepali soldier commissioned there back to Himalayan nation after revealing six soldiers serving Russia’s military had been killed.

A double-decker coach smashed into a tree in southern Thailand, killing at least 14 people and injuring 32, police said Tuesday