News Headlines

Once one of the world's most powerful travel documents, the might of the United States passport has been diminished during the pandemic. With US Covid-19 cases now past the 32.4 million mark, some nations continue to view vacationers warily even as more Americans get vaccinated.

As night falls, a group of fishermen set sail off the coast of northern Taiwan, where they prepare to catch sardines with a traditional method: fire.

Here is a look at the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season.

Emal Ahmadi knew his brother Zamarai wasn't the ISIS-K facilitator that American officials portrayed him to be in the days after his death. Now, at last, the whole world knows that too.

The Taliban have denied claims that Afghan women would be banned from secondary schools after calling on boys, but not girls, to resume education, claiming they needed to set up a "secure transportation system" for female students before allowing them back into classrooms.

If you're planning a trip to Japan, here's what you'll need to know and expect if you want to visit during the global coronavirus pandemic.

Prior to the pandemic, Chiang Mai received around four million international visitors a year, according to Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) figures.

Hundreds of people protested in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar Tuesday, against what they say are Taliban orders for citizens to leave their homes on the eve of winter.

Afghan women around the world are protesting the Taliban's new hijab requirement in schools by posting photos of themselves wearing colorful traditional dresses on social media.

Vietnam and Taiwan are bracing for twin tropical storms which are expected to make landfall over the coming days, with typhoon Chanthu strengthening into a Super Typhoon in the past 24 hours.

North Korea held a midnight military parade in Pyongyang early Thursday to mark the 73rd anniversary of its founding, the country's state media reported.

At least 41 prisoners have been killed and at least eight injured after a fire tore through an overcrowded prison block on the outskirts of the Indonesian capital Jakarta, police said.

Singapore has warned it may need to reimpose Covid-19 restrictions if a new outbreak of the highly infectious Delta variant is not contained, putting at risk the city's shift towards living with the virus.

The leader of a resistance group battling a Taliban offensive in Afghanistan's northern Panjshir Valley said he is in support of clerics in the capital Kabul who have called for an end to the fighting, after a weekend of reported heavy losses.

Tuhan's family crossed the border from China's western Xinjiang region to Afghanistan 45 years ago to escape persecution.

Japanese Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide will not run in his party's forthcoming leadership election, effectively giving up the premiership, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party confirmed Friday.

Abdul Rashid Shirzad was quiet and nervous on the taxi ride with his family to the Kabul airport, the last American-controlled enclave in the Afghan capital.

Two people have died in Japan days after receiving doses from a batch of Moderna Covid-19 vaccines whose use was suspended Thursday following concerns over a contamination risk, the country's Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said Saturday.

As a high schooler growing up in a small town in eastern China, Li Xiaoming dreamed of moving to a big city where he could have a better life.

• Opinion: The buck stops with Biden -- but Trump's role is a doozy • Scathing report says incoherent strategy doomed 20-year US mission in Afghanistan

• How US veterans feel about the war in Afghanistan ending • Analysis: Outreach to the Taliban pays dividends to Putin

In late 2001, the rolling hills to the west of Afghanistan's Maidan Shahr were scarred with the black eruptions of high explosives, as the last few Taliban fighters were pounded by Northern Alliance artillery and American bombers. Then, as suddenly as a thunderclap, silence fell on the battlefield.

It's been years since Haji and his wife have had a good night's sleep.

In less than a week, the Taliban has overrun one-quarter of Afghanistan's provincial capitals in a huge swathe of territory across the north of the country. The security situation here is unravelling faster than almost anyone expected -- with the possible exception of the Taliban themselves.

• Besieged on a 'Taliban-made island,' Kandahar's residents see no way out • Watch: This is what the frontline of the Taliban's brutal advance looks like

India's 1.38 billion-strong population is beaming with pride.

A year and a half since the first Covid-19 cases were identified, many countries in Asia-Pacific feel right back where they started.

Few cases of femicide make headlines in Pakistan, but the beheading of an ambassador's daughter promises to test a legal system activists say has repeatedly failed victims of violence and needs urgent reform.

A Myanmar militia force fighting the army in a central part of the country and residents have found at least 40 bodies in jungle areas in recent weeks, including some showing signs of torture, said a militia member and Myanmar's UN envoy.

Countries across Asia are grappling with their worst coronavirus outbreaks of the pandemic, spurred by low vaccine rates and the highly-contagious Delta variant.

TOKYO: Throughout her open water career, Chantal Liew has faced doubts, obstacles and questions.  Why this sport? Why the sacrifice? Why the Olympics?  And in the shimmering waters of Tokyo Bay on a baking hot summer’s morning, she answered them once and for all.  Liew, Singapore’s first open ...

JAKARTA: Thousands of military personnel from Indonesia and the United States are participating in joint drills for two weeks, described as the largest ever between the two countries.  The exercises, focused on island defence, are being held in three locations - Sumatra, Kalimantan and Sulawesi ...

KUALA LUMPUR: Southeast Asian foreign ministers on Wednesday (Aug 4) picked Brunei Second Foreign Minister Erywan Yusof as their special envoy to Myanmar, in a breakthrough after months of delay for regional mediation to help end the country's deepening crisis. Erywan has been tasked with ending ...

HANOI: Vietnam will slash the duration of mandatory quarantine for foreign visitors from two weeks to just seven days, its health ministry said on Wednesday (Aug 4), as the Southeast Asian country battles its biggest COVID-19 outbreak yet. Vietnam successfully contained the virus for much of last ...

BANGKOK: Thailand on Wednesday (Aug 4) banned sunscreens containing chemicals that damage coral reefs from its marine national parks. The kingdom's sandy beaches have long been popular destinations for millions of tourists but concerns are growing that the lotions they use as protection from the ...

TOKYO: Japan warned on Wednesday (Aug 4) that coronavirus infections were surging at an unprecedented pace as new cases hit a record high in Tokyo, overshadowing the Olympics and adding to doubts over the government's handling of the pandemic. The Delta variant was leading to a spread of ...

BANGKOK: Visitors to Thailand's resort island of Phuket in July were at just 1 per cent of pre-pandemic levels, an official told Reuters, as a bid to revive tourism to the Southeast Asian country gets off to a slow start amid its biggest COVID-19 outbreak yet. The island reopened last month under ...

The opposition has also urged the prime minister to hold a special parliamentary meeting no later than Aug 9 so that the motion of confidence can be tabled and debated.

DHAKA: Several lightning bolts hit a Bangladesh wedding party within a few seconds on Wednesday (Aug 4), killing 16 people and injuring the groom, officials said. The group had just left a boat at the riverside town of Shibganj to take shelter from the thunderstorm when the lightning struck, a ...

JAKARTA: Indonesia recorded a grim milestone of more than 100,000 deaths from COVID-19 on Wednesday (Aug 4), data from the country’s health ministry showed, with the Southeast Asian nation recently accounting for one in five fatalities globally. Indonesia has been battling a tide of coronavirus ...

SINGAPORE: Malaysia reported 19,819 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday (Aug 4), setting a new record for daily infections since the start of the pandemic. Deaths from COVID-19 also rose to a new daily record of 257, up from the previous record of 219 fatalities set two days ago. Aside from 23 ...

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said he still commands the parliamentary majority, adding that he has received statutory declarations (SDs) from MPs who pledged their support.  In a televised address on Wednesday (Aug 4), he said he will prove his majority in the ...

LONDON: Britain has been granted 'dialogue partner' status by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, a joint communique issued by the group said. "We agreed to accord the United Kingdom the status of Dialogue Partner of ASEAN in view of its individual relationship with ASEAN as well as its ...

BANGKOK: Myanmar is limiting the number of foreign staff allowed to work in domestic banks, a move that industry sources warn could further impede financial development in a country that had seen a boom in foreign investment before the military coup. A letter dated Aug 2 and posted on the central ...

NEW DELHI: India is sending a naval task force to the South China Sea this month to expand security ties with friendly countries, officials said on Wednesday (Aug 4), signalling its intent to play a bigger role in regional efforts to counter China. The Indian military has been traditionally wary ...

BEIJING: China reported on Wednesday (Aug 4) the most new locally transmitted COVID-19 cases since January as some cities stepped up restrictions, cut flights and increased testing to get to grips with an outbreak driven mainly by the Delta variant. The travel restrictions and closures led Nomura ...

BANGKOK: The chair of Thailand's Thonburi Healthcare Group (THG) said on Wednesday (Aug 4) that a deal to import 20 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine was unlikely to happen, despite his earlier claims that a deal was close. Thailand is battling its biggest COVID-19 outbreak yet ...

South Korea posted a sharp increase in its coronavirus cases on Wednesday as it struggled to tame its fourth wave of infections amid the spread of new virus variants strains.