China’s Communist Party elite kicked off a key meeting in Beijing yesterday, as the country’s leadership faces pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, a protracted trade war, and a slowing economy.

Myanmar’s army said it had rescued 14 people seized by insurgents in restive Rakhine state after Arakan Army rebels reported many dead in military attacks on boats carrying soldiers and police said it had taken prisoners.

India has taken up Pakistan’s denial of use of its airspace to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s flight with the International Civil Aviation Organisation, government sources said yesterday.

After India’s biggest firework party of the year, Delhi awoke to a pollution hangover yesterday with the capital forced to breathe hazardous levels of toxic particles.

Prime Minister Imran Khan yesterday said he could not give a guarantee about anyone’s life, referring to the Islamabad High Court proceedings last week in which the bench had asked government representatives to “take responsibility” for incarcerated former premier Nawaz Sharif’s health.

Scores of workers were racing against time yesterday to try to rescue a two-year-old boy trapped for more than 72 hours down a 26-metre (85-feet) well in south India, officials said.

Myanmar’s army sunk several boats carrying dozens of soldiers and police officers taken hostage by rebels in the restive western Rakhine state, the Arakan Army said yesterday, adding that many had died.

Pakistan has again denied India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi permission to fly through its airspace due to “ongoing grave human rights violations” in Indian-administered Kashmir.

North Korea yesterday said the United States must not exploit the “close personal relations” between Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump as negotiations over Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal remain deadlocked.

Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets yesterday at pro-democracy protesters who defied authorities to hold a rally on Hong Kong’s scenic harbourfront, the latest flashpoint in months of political unrest gripping the city.

Young, aspirational and poor Vietnamese are risking their lives to travel to Europe, taking on large debts to join well-worn trafficking routes in the hope of a better future thousands of miles from their rural homes.

Myanmar’s army sunk several boats carrying dozens of soldiers and police officers taken hostage by rebels in the restive western Rakhine state, the Arakan Army says, adding that many had died.

Many of the 200 Bangladeshi workers forcibly who were sent back from Saudi Arabia have said they were deported despite having legal documents.

China has invited a Taliban delegation to attend an “intra-Afghan” conference in Beijing, a militant spokesman said yesterday, after a prospective deal between the United States and the insurgents collapsed last month.

Food insecurity in North Korea is at “an alarming level,” with nearly half the population of 11 million people undernourished, the United Nations independent investigator on human rights in the country said on Tuesday.

Beijing is drawing up a plan to remove Hong Kong’s beleaguered Chief Executive Carrie Lam, the Financial Times reported yesterday, after nearly five months of pro-democracy unrest.

China’s foreign minister has denounced months of pro-democracy unrest in Hong Kong as “violence pure and simple”, accusing foreign forces and the international media of fuelling the political crisis.

The United States and South Korea must produce new solutions for the current standoff on the Korean Peninsula, a senior North Korean military official said yesterday, warning that hostile policies towards Pyongyang would lead to serious consequences.

Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing leader and the city’s police chief apologised yesterday as they visited a mosque that was struck with blue dye from a water cannon during the latest bout of violent protests.

India yesterday slammed Pakistan for unilaterally stopping postal mail service between the two nations, saying the move was in contravention of international norms.