Deposed Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi is “indispensable” in restoring democracy to the military-ruled country and must be included in any peace talks, regardless of her conviction, the Philippines’ foreign minister said yesterday.

Thailand has reported its first death from the highly contagious Omicron coronavirus variant, a health official said.

Singapore’s leader said the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) should continue excluding Myanmar’s junta from its meeting until it cooperates on an agreed peace plans.

A Myanmar junta court has hit ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi with five new corruption charges related to the alleged hiring and purchase of a helicopter, sources close to the case told AFP.

North Korea fired at least two ballistic missiles yesterday, its third test in less than two weeks, just hours after criticising a US push for new sanctions over the previous launches as a “provocation” and warning of a strong reaction.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has urged the United States and the World Bank to unfreeze Afghan funds, locked since the Taliban’s return to power, to prevent “the nightmare unfolding in Afghanistan” from getting worse.

Myanmar junta has ordered all military personnel not to answer letters related to arrest warrants or summons from the International Criminal Court (ICC) or the Argentinian judiciary on the human rights violation of the Rohingyas and other communities in the country, according to Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK (BROUK).

An Indonesian woman has been flogged 100 times in Aceh province for adultery while the male involved, who denied the accusations, received just 15 lashes.

A 34-year-old man was on Thursday (Jan 13) charged in a district court with attempting to bribe a nurse to falsely record that he had received his second vaccination dose.

North Korea fired a suspected ballistic missile into the sea yesterday, with South Korea’s military warning the second such weapons test in less than a week showed clear signs of progress.

A Myanmar junta court yesterday convicted Aung San Suu Kyi of three criminal charges, sentencing her to four years in prison in the latest in a slew of cases against the ousted civilian leader, a source familiar with the proceedings said.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen's official visit to Myanmar, his meeting with the self-declared State Administration Council leader Min Aung Hlaing, and their joint press statement, are a "brazen and dangerous" attempt to seize the initiative away from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' (ASEAN's) collective approach to the crisis in Myanmar, says a rights body today.

A Myanmar junta court on Monday convicted Aung San Suu Kyi of three criminal charges, sentencing her to four years in prison in the latest in a slew of cases against the ousted civilian leader.

A prominent Afghan university professor who openly criticised the Taliban’s hardline regime has been arrested in Kabul, a spokesman for the government said.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi was in Sri Lanka yesterday seeking to advance Beijing’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative as the island nation tries to rescue itself from a foreign currency and debt crisis, partly due to infrastructure built with Chinese loans that don’t generate revenue. 

Colombian Victor Escobar became the first person in the Andean country with a non-terminal illness to die by legally regulated euthanasia late on Friday, his lawyer Luis Giraldo confirmed.

Former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, 96, successfully underwent an "elective medical procedure" and is expected to be discharged in a few days, the National Heart Institute said on Sunday.

The Taliban’s religious police have put up posters around the capital Kabul ordering Afghan women to cover up, an official said Friday, the latest in a string of creeping restrictions. 

At least 21 people died in an enormous traffic jam caused by tens of thousands of visitors thronging a Pakistani hill town to see unusually heavy snowfall, authorities said yesterday. 

Former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad was admitted to hospital yesterday, the medical facility said, weeks after he was discharged following a check-up.