News Headlines

A South Korean fisheries official shot dead and allegedly burnt by North Korean soldiers last week would never have defected, his brother said Tuesday, and appealed to Pyongyang to return his body.

The slaughter of cattle will soon be banned in Sri Lanka, the government said Tuesday, in a move widely viewed as a concession to increasingly influential Buddhists in the ruling party.

JAKARTA: Indonesia's parliament on Tuesday (Sep 29) approved President Joko Widodo's US$185 billion budget for 2021, which his finance minister described as both supportive for Southeast Asia's largest economy and also the start of a fiscal consolidation. The budget, which has a smaller fiscal ...

Ligen Eliyas deftly turns the excavator's hydraulic arm to push a huge boulder into the Zanskar river below in a cloud of dust, clearing another bit of land for a strategic highway that India is hurriedly building near the Chinese border.

A Chinese company is entering the global race to help defeat the coronavirus, promising its testing machine will return results faster than a lab and more reliably than at-home screening kits.

A woman from the lowest rung of India's caste system died in hospital on Tuesday weeks after authorities said she was raped by a group of men, triggering protests and opposition criticism over what it said was a failure to protect women.

There are no signs that China is preparing for all-out war with Taiwan, such as massing troops along its eastern coast, Taiwan's defence chief said on Tuesday, after repeated Chinese drills near the island that China claims as its own.

Serum Institute of India said on Tuesday it would get a further US$150 million in funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the GAVI vaccines alliance to make an additional 100 million COVID-19 vaccine doses for India and other low- and middle-income countries next year.

BEIJING: A kindergarten teacher in China has been sentenced to death for poisoning dozens of children in an act of revenge against a colleague that left one toddler dead. A court in the central Chinese province of Henan said Wang Yun put sodium nitrite into porridge being prepared for her ...

Nine in ten coronavirus patients reported experiencing side-effects such as fatigue, psychological after-effects and loss of smell and taste after they recovered from the disease, according to a preliminary study by South Korea.

HANOI: Vietnam's economic growth picked up in the third quarter, boosted by a rally in exports as the country slowly emerges from a virus-induced slowdown. Vietnam has long been one of Asia's fastest-growing economies, and it is heavily reliant on exports, particularly after reaping the benefits ...

North Korea is violating international sanctions aimed at curbing its nuclear programme by exceeding a cap on petroleum imports and sending its workers overseas, including a former Juventus footballer, the United Nations said.

Thailand will receive its first foreign vacationers when a flight from China arrives next week, marking the gradual restart of a vital tourism sector battered by coronavirus travel curbs, a senior official said on Tuesday.

South Korea appealed on Tuesday for strict social-distancing despite a slight fall in the number of its new coronavirus cases, with millions of people set to travel for a major holiday.

Amnesty International said Tuesday it has suspended its Indian operations after its bank accounts were frozen in what it called a government "witch-hunt" against rights groups.

Chinese Internet giant Sina has announced plans to delist its US shares and go private, making it the latest to withdraw from the country's stock markets as relations between Beijing and Washington sour.

China will need a plethora of reforms if it is to make a new economic strategy that relies mainly on domestic consumption work, advisers to the Chinese cabinet said on Tuesday.

BENGALURU: India reported its smallest daily rise in coronavirus deaths since Aug 3 of 776, data from the health ministry showed on Tuesday (Sep 29), as global fatalities crossed 1 million and infections surged in several countries. The South Asian country's coronavirus case tally rose to 6.15 ...

Japan Airlines (JAL) will be dropping "ladies and gentlemen" in favor of more inclusive greetings like "attention all passengers" and "welcome, everyone" from October 1 on flights and in airports worldwide.

SEOUL: The missing South Korean fisheries official killed by North Korean soldiers at sea last week had expressed his willingness to defect to the soldiers, South Korea's Coast Guard said on Tuesday (Sep 29). The official's death sparked controversy after his older brother refuted the government's ...

HONG KONG: When Lau Kai Fai, his wife and teenage son moved into a new Hong Kong flat last month, he thought the 290 sq ft of space in his "module home" felt like "winning the lottery". Among the first Hong Kong residents to move into such prefabricated dwellings, built as a transition for people ...

The coronavirus is a wake-up call for the world, and trading blame "will only bring greater disaster", China's foreign minister said Monday.

SHANGHAI: China had 12 new COVID-19 cases on Monday (Sep 28), down from 21 a day earlier, the country's national health authority said on Tuesday. The National Health Commission said in a statement that all new cases were imported infections involving travellers from overseas. The number of ...

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said on Monday that Facebook could not stop him from promoting the objectives of his government, telling the social media giant that they should talk about its purpose in his country.

Under a special tourist visa scheme aimed at long-stay visitors, those going to Thailand will need to arrange for private flights and undergo a 14-day quarantine before their holiday.

Democratic candidate Joe Biden should maintain a tough stance against China if he wins the US presidential election, but focus more on industrial policy than trade tariffs, according to Nobel-prize winning economist Paul Krugman.

Nepal brought in much heavier punishments for acid attackers on Monday, and restricted production and use of the corrosive liquids after a long campaign by survivors and activists.

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia on Monday (Sep 28) said it will impose strict movement restrictions in four districts in Sabah after reporting more than 1,000 COVID-19 infections there in September. Defence Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob said that as part of efforts to contain the outbreak, non-essential ...

Hong Kong authorities on Monday banned a pro-democracy group from holding a rally on China's National Day, the latest refusal in the semi-autonomous city where protest has been all but outlawed.

British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab will visit the heavily guarded Demilitarized Zone that divides the two Koreas, according to a government schedule of his trip.

Pakistani anti-corruption officials arrested the country's opposition leader on Monday, days after he vowed to help lead efforts to dislodge Prime Minister Imran Khan's government.

Rescuers searched frantically Monday for a 12-year-old girl believed buried for two days under a vast garbage heap which collapsed while she was scavenging in western India.

NEW DELHI: On one hand, Licipriya Kangujam is just like another eight-year-old Indian child - she likes to play outside with her sister and draw pictures. But she's also a climate activist who already has had run-ins with police and security at parliament house, as she seeks to press Prime ...

Two 10-month-old twins were among at least 11 people killed in landslides across an Indonesian city early on Monday, a search and rescue officer said.

Anxiety is rising in India as the country enters the peak period for Hindu religious festivals, after the number of COVID-19 infections topped 6 million on Monday (Sep 28).

KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian king was treated for food poisoning and underwent intervention for sports injuries at the National Heart Institute (IJN), the palace said on Monday (Sep 28).  In a statement issued by palace comptroller Ahmad Fadil Shamsuddin, he said that Al-Sultan Abdullah ...

Beijing on Monday accused the Trump administration of abusing "national power" by trying to ban TikTok, as a federal court gave the video app's US operations a stay of execution.

Beijing on Monday accused the Trump administration of abusing "national power" by trying to ban TikTok, as a federal court gave the video app's US operations a stay of execution.

Senior Afghan peace official Abdullah Abdullah arrived in Pakistan on Monday for meetings in a country seen as vital to the success of Afghan talks aimed at ending decades of war.

BANGKOK: Thailand on Monday (Sep 28) said it will extend a grace period for visa renewals for foreigners stranded in the country due to the COVID-19 pandemic until the end of October, as travel restrictions remain in place and new infections climb globally. The extension will allow foreigners to ...

Chinese Super League teams on Monday began filtering out of sealed-off hotels where they have been confined for the past 10 weeks as part of strict measures to thwart the coronavirus.

Japan's government Monday urged people to seek help if they were struggling to cope, following the death at the weekend of a popular actress.

Warisan should have paid attention to Kadazandusun Murut concerns over livelihoods and undocumented migrants, says James Chin.

TOKYO: Japan Airlines is ditching the phrase "ladies and gentlemen" and instead embracing gender neutral terms during in-flight and airport announcements from next month, the company said Monday (Sep 28). From Oct 1, JAL "will abolish expressions that based on (two types of) sex and use gender ...

SEOUL: South Korea on Monday (Sep 28) expanded the search for a missing fisheries official killed by North Korean troops at sea last week, a day after North Korea accused the South of raising tension by intruding into its territorial waters. South Korea's military has accused North Korean soldiers ...

KOTA KINABALU: Parties in Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) have unanimously agreed to name Sabah Perikatan Nasional (PN) chairman Hajiji Noor as the candidate for the new Sabah chief minister’s post. Hajiji, who is Sulaman state assemblyman, confirmed the matter and that he would take his oath as the ...

Taiwan expressed satisfaction on Monday and said the European Union had stepped in to help after a global alliance of mayors stopped referring to Taiwanese cities as part of China, in a rare win for the island amid growing Chinese pressure.

The owner of Australia's biggest theme park was fined Aus$3.6 million ($2.5 million) Monday for safety failures leading to the deaths of four people on a popular water ride in 2016.

India's coronavirus case tally topped 6 million after it reported 82,170 new infections in the last 24 hours, data from the health ministry showed on Monday.

BEIJING: China's capital called on importers on Monday (Sep 28) to shun frozen food from countries suffering from severe novel coronavirus outbreaks after several cases of imported seafood products testing positive for the virus. "Customs and local governments have repeatedly detected the ...