The isolated Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan has reported its first case of the coronavirus after a US tourist tested positive, the prime minister says.

South Korea reports its biggest surge in new coronavirus cases as concerns grow of a possible epidemic in the United States and the World Health Organization raises its risk alert to its highest level.

In another twist to Malaysia's political drama, interim prime minister Mahathir Mohamad says he is back as PM candidate after securing backing of old rival Anwar Ibrahim.

As deadly clashes between Hindu and Muslim groups rocked parts of the Indian capital Delhi this week, the family of a young Hindu woman living in a Muslim-majority area was forced to cancel her wedding.

The Delhi government has given its approval to police to prosecute former Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU) president Kanhaiya Kumar and others in a sedition case for allegedly raising anti-India slogans during an event inside the university campus in February 2016.

The US Navy said Thursday that a Chinese military warship fired a military grade laser at US Navy P-8 surveillance aircraft last week while it was flying over the Pacific Ocean, an action that the US Navy called “unsafe and unprofessional.”

Malaysia’s king yesterday struck down a power play by 94-year-old Mahathir Mohamad aimed at seizing momentum in a political crisis, capping a week of turmoil that has left the country effectively leaderless.

From an artificial island in Sri Lanka to a bridge in Bangladesh and hydropower projects in Nepal and Indonesia, China’s trillion-dollar Belt and Road plan is stuttering under the effects of the deadly coronavirus.

At least 42 people have lost their lives and more than 250 are injured as armed mobs rampage through parts of northeast Delhi from Sunday till Tuesday, looting and burning buildings and attacking residents.

As Bhutan celebrates the birthday of their king, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, the country's prime minister has a novel idea for a birthday gift.

Sporadic violence hit parts of Delhi overnight as gangs roamed streets littered with the debris of days of violence that have killed 33 people, police say.

Delhi High Court Judge Justice S Muralidhar, who grilled the Indian centre and state government on Wednesday over the violence in the capital that left 27 dead and over 200 injured, has been transferred to the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

A bus carrying a wedding party crashed into a river yesterday in India’s western state of Rajasthan killing 24 passengers, including 10 women, police said.

South Korea’s birth rate hit a new low yesterday as authorities announced barely 300,000 babies were born last year in the nation of 51 million people.

About 14 percent of patients who recovered from the novel coronavirus and were discharged from hospitals in southern China’s Guangdong province were tested positive again in later check-ups, according to the local health authority.

Sri Lanka yesterday notified the UN that it was withdrawing from a United Nations resolution for investigating alleged war crimes committed during a decades-long conflict with Tamil separatists.

The death toll from violence over the citizenship law in different parts of India’s capital Delhi rises to 27.

A Japanese man recently named the world’s oldest living male has died aged 112, a local official said yesterday. Chitetsu Watanabe, who was born on March 5, 1907 in Niigata, north of Tokyo, died on Sunday at his nursing home in the same prefecture, the official said.

Rival political factions competed to win favour with Mahathir Mohamad yesterday after he plunged Malaysia into political turmoil by resigning as prime minister, reinforcing the likelihood his shock move will strengthen his power.

Malaysia's Mahathir Mohamad goes back to work with the new title of interim prime minister, a day after he resigned the leadership in a shock move that plunged the country into political turmoil.