A call by Pakistani religious hardliners for protests fell flat yesterday as Asia Bibi, the Christian woman at the centre of a years-long blasphemy row, was expected to leave the country having cleared a last legal hurdle.

Negotiations in Afghanistan are going well, US President Donald Trump said yesterday, after US officials earlier this week said there had been significant progress in talks to end 17 years of war in the country.

The captain of the US-Bangla plane “seemed to have an emotional breakdown” before the crash in Kathmandu airport last March, Nepali investigators said in the final report published yesterday.

Taliban officials said US negotiators on Saturday agreed on a draft peace pact setting out the withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan within 18 months, potentially ending the United States' longest war.

Talks between US and Taliban officials in Qatar entered a fourth day yesterday, with the two sides trying to establish a mechanism for a ceasefire in the 17-year Afghan war and open dialogue between the insurgents and the Afghan government.

The United Nations yesterday cautioned Nepal that it risked failing war crimes victims as a deadline for investigating atrocities during its decade-long Maoist conflict draws near without a single case being resolved.

Sri Lanka's opposition leader Mahinda Rajapaksa yesterday slammed the efforts being made to formulate a new Constitution, saying Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe's government does not have political moral to introduce it and should therefore hold fresh polls.

Railways Minister Nurul Islam Sujan yesterday vowed to make the sector more service-oriented and pro-people.

A former warlord accused of historic war crimes entered Afghanistan's presidential race yesterday in a new challenge to President Ashraf Ghani who allowed him to return from exile two decades he was forced out by the Taliban.

Pakistan's new chief justice was sworn yesterday, pledging reform of a Supreme Court whose controversial decisions include ousting a prime minister and freeing a Christian accused of blasphemy.

Prime Minister Imran Khan yesterday lashed out at the opposition for disrupting National Assembly proceedings by staging regular walkouts.

The newly appointed Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen termed the Rohingya influx “a very serious issue” and said there is no easy solution to the humanitarian crisis.

The Rakhine State government has banned all humanitarian assistance groups from villages in northern Rakhine State where renewed violence recently has sparked security concerns, reports Myanmar Times.

Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh is convicted in the murder case of journalist Ram Chander Chhatrapati.

Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan on Wednesday sacked the chiefs of Sui Natural Gas Pipeline Limited (SNGPL) and Sui Southern Gas

A new five-judge Constitution bench of the Indian Supreme Court will hear the Ayodhya title dispute case on another day as one of the

Delhi plans to create a special home for both elderly people and some of the Indian megacity's thousands of cows, in a new animal welfare blitz also aimed at reducing numbers of monkeys and stray dogs.

Sri Lanka's prime minister said yesterday the country was struggling to pay back its ballooning foreign debt, blaming a recent political crisis for dealing a "death blow" to the economy.

India's federal police chief was ousted on Thursday by a panel led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the government said, drawing criticism from the main opposition Congress party.

Dhaka is utterly disappointed and aggrieved at Myanmar's allegation of existence of Arakan Army and Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) bases in Bangladesh, the foreign ministry said yesterday.