China yesterday tightened overseas travel restrictions for its citizens as part of efforts to contain rising coronavirus cases, after reporting its highest  number of infections in six months.

Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin yesterday defied mounting pressure to quit, saying he retained majority support among lawmakers and would prove it when the southeast Asian nation’s parliament reconvened next month. 

Foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have appointed Brunei's second minister for foreign affairs, Erywan Yusof, as special envoy to Myanmar, the group said on Wednesday.

India’s first indigenous aircraft carrier “Vikrant”, the largest and most complex warship to have been built in the country, today set out for sea trial.

A powerful blast followed by sporadic gunfire hit Afghanistan's capital Kabul on Tuesday near the city's heavily fortified "Green Zone", an area home to government buildings and foreign embassies, police officials said.

Authorities in China’s Wuhan said yesterday they would test the city’s entire population for Covid-19, as the virus returned to the place where it first emerged and the highly contagious Delta variant drove tightening lockdowns worldwide.

China’s climate envoy yesterday said the world’s most populous nation would release its updated plans to reduce carbon emissions “in the near future” as nations prepare to meet later this year for a pivotal global conference.

North Korea wants international sanctions banning its metal exports and imports of refined fuel and other necessities lifted before it restarts denuclearisation talks with the United States, South Korean lawmakers said yesterday.   

More than 100 protesters have been charged under Thailand’s royal insult laws since last July, when rallies across the kingdom began demanding reforms to the unassailable monarchy, a lawyer representing the activists and an AFP tally showed yesterday.

The United States said that Myanmar’s junta was playing for time with a two-year election timeframe as Secretary of State Antony Blinken prepared to encourage Asean to appoint an envoy. 

At least 16 people have been killed and a quarter of a million people displaced from their homes after heavy monsoon rains lashed eastern India, officials said yesterday, as the air force joined rescue efforts. 

Myanmar’s neighbouring countries and international organisations need to act now to prevent Myanmar from becoming a regional epicenter of Covid-19 pandemic, experts suggested.

Afghan forces battled on Monday (Aug 2) to stop a first major city from falling to the Taleban as the United States and Britain accused the insurgents of massacring civilians in a town they recently captured near the Pakistan border.

An earthquake of magnitude 5.8 struck Indonesia's Mentawai island region on Tuesday, according to the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC).

Two states in India’s north-east have agreed to resolve their differences peacefully after their long-running border dispute erupted into deadly violence last week, reports AFP.

The death toll from floods in central China last month is at least 302 with dozens of people still missing, officials said yesterday, after record downpours dumped a year’s worth of rain on a city in just three days, reports AFP. Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan province and the epicentre of the record flooding, was hardest-hit with 292 people dead and 47 missing, according to a provincial government press briefing, as residents were trapped in subway trains, underground car parks, and tunnels. Images of passengers inundated by shoulder-height water went viral on Chinese social media on Line 5 of the city subway where 14 people died, while dozens of cars in a tunnel were tossed aside by the deluge, many with passengers still inside.

Members of a shadow government set up by opponents of Myanmar’s coup yesterday condemned the country’s military ruler for taking on the role of prime minister in a caretaker government and said the move was designed to try to win legitimacy.

President Ashraf Ghani yesterday blamed Afghanistan’s fast-deteriorating security situation on a “sudden” decision by the United States to withdraw its troops, but said his government had a plan to bring conditions under control within six months.

In its article, titled “Bangladesh and Pakistan - Formerly one Nation, today a World Apart”, IFFRAS (International Forum for Rights and Security) described how Bangladesh became a “miracle story” and Pakistan a “disaster tale”. 

The death toll from floods in central China last month is at least 302 with dozens of people still missing, officials said, after record downpours dumped a year's worth of rain on a city in just three days.