Four people are killed and another 24 injured when an earthquake shakes southwestern China, local authorities say.

UN Security Council European member states and Britain on Thursday denounced violence in Myanmar and expressed concern over the coronavirus pandemic in the country, in a document China refused to endorse, diplomatic sources say.

Chinese youngsters in the global virus epicentre of Wuhan file back to class, wearing masks and walking in single file past thermal scanners.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was not gravely ill, two South Korean government sources said on Tuesday, following reports he had undergone a cardiovascular procedure and was now in "grave danger".

Thailand has found the largest number of nests of rare leatherback sea turtles in two decades on beaches bereft of tourists because of the coronavirus pandemic, environmentalists say.

Sixty-three Bangladeshis reportedly have tested positive for Covid-19 in Malaysia.

The Chinese city where the coronavirus epidemic first broke out, Wuhan, ends a two-month lockdown, but a northern town started restricting the movement of its residents amid concerns of a second wave of infections in mainland China.

The World Health Organization emphasises on a stronger effort from society and governments in South-East Asia to prevent a long-haul struggle with the coronavirus pandemic and avert further loss of human life and other resources.

The top official in China’s coronavirus epicentre of Wuhan warned residents to stay vigilant and avoid going out, even as the latest data showed a decline in new cases in the mainland and no new infections in the central city.

Should more of us wear face masks to help slow the spread of coronavirus?

India will pull out of a three-week lockdown in phases, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said yesterday, as officials battle to contain the country’s biggest cluster of coronavirus infections in the capital, New Delhi.

Eighteen firefighters and one forestry guide died while fighting a huge forest fire in southwestern China, the local government said yesterday.

A Myanmar journalist faces up to life in prison for publishing an interview with a rebel group operating in the country’s restive Rakhine state a week after the insurgents were classified as a terrorist organisation.

Nuclear-armed North Korea successfully tested “super-large multiple rocket launchers”, state media said yesterday, but leader Kim Jong Un was not described as commanding the drill as analysts say Pyongyang seeks to normalise its launches.

India is still in the local transmission stage of the coronavirus pandemic, the government said yesterday, responding to questions about a health ministry document that said the country was currently in “local transmission and limited community transmission phase.”

Uzbekistan locks down more cities and districts, and announces large bonus payments for medical workers, in its effort to slow the spread of coronavirus, as it reports the country's first death and the number of cases climbed to 83.

Nine doctors have died in the Philippines from the coronavirus, the country’s top medical association said yesterday, as hospitals were overwhelmed and medics complained about a lack of protection on the front lines.

Malawian Vice President Saulos Chilima has filed a lawsuit against President Peter Mutharika after he refused to fire the electoral commissioners who oversaw last year’s failed election, his lawyer said yesterday.

Sri Lanka’s president yesterday pardoned and released an army officer on death row for slitting the throats of Tamil civilians, including four children, during the island’s bloody civil war.

India yesterday announced a 1.7-trillion-rupee ($22.6-billion) economic stimulus plan providing direct cash transfers and food security measures to give relief to millions of poor people hit by a nationwide lockdown over a coronavirus pandemic.