Charles Sobhraj, a convicted killer who police say is responsible for a string of murders in the 1970s and 1980s, was released from a Nepal prison yesterday after nearly two decades behind bars.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has warned the Taliban that the United States will impose “costs” on the group if it does not reverse its recent ban on women attending university in Afghanistan.

Sixteen Indian army men died today after a truck carrying them skidded down a steep slope and fell into a gorge in the north eastern state of Sikkim, the army said in a statement.

A policeman was killed and at least six people — including four police officers and two civilians — were injured in a suicide blast in Islamabad's I-10/4 sector on Friday, police officials said.

Prices in Japan rose at their fastest pace since 1981 in November, data showed Friday, fuelled in part by higher energy costs.

President Gabriel Boric of Chile, whose country has the largest Palestinian population outside of the Middle East, said Wednesday that he planned to open an embassy “in Palestine”.

A Shanghai hospital has told its staff to prepare for a “tragic battle” with Covid-19 as it expects half of the city’s 25 million people will get infected by the end of next week, while the virus sweeps through China largely unchecked.

The UN Security Council called for Myanmar’s junta to release Aung San Suu Kyi as it adopted on Wednesday its first ever resolution on the situation in the turmoil-ridden Southeast Asian country.

A regional envoy tasked with solving the Myanmar crisis will attend an informal meeting in Thailand on Thursday, Cambodia said, with a Thai government source indicating the junta’s foreign minister would attend.

A small group of Afghan women yesterday staged a defiant protest in Kabul against a Taliban order banning them from universities, an activist said, adding that some were arrested.

India has started random Covid-19 sampling on incoming international air travellers but said there is no plan yet to stop flights from countries which reported new cases of the virus.

The UN Security Council called for Myanmar's junta to release Aung San Suu Kyi Wednesday as it adopted its first ever resolution on the situation in the turmoil-ridden Southeast Asian country.

Up to 20 people have died of hunger or thirst on a boat carrying ethnic Rohingya that has been stranded at sea for two weeks off India’s coast,

Nepal’s top court yesterday ordered the release of Charles Sobhraj, the French serial killer portrayed in the Netflix series “The Serpent” who was responsible for a string of murders across Asia in the 1970s.

The Philippines said yesterday it was “seriously concerned” over a report that China has started reclaiming several unoccupied land features in the disputed South China Sea.

Hundreds of young women were stopped by armed guards yesterday from entering Afghan university campuses, a day after the nation’s Taliban rulers banned them from higher education in another assault on human rights.

At least five people were killed and more than 70,000 rushed to evacuation centres in Malaysia after monsoon-triggered floods inundated the country’s north, authorities said yesterday.

The head of the World Health Organization said he was "very concerned" Wednesday about an unprecedented wave of Covid cases in China, urging Beijing to provide detailed information about the severity of the situation.

Dozens of hearses queued outside a Beijing crematorium on Wednesday, even as China reported no new COVID-19 deaths in its growing outbreak, sparking criticism of its virus accounting as the capital braces for a surge of cases.

Says a student in Kabul, asking not to be identified, as hundreds of young women are stopped by armed guards from entering Afghan university campuses