The US Department of State, in collaboration with the Department of Health and Human Services, has launched the Welcome Corps, a new private sponsorship program that will enable Americans to sponsor refugees arriving through the US Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP), directly support their resettlement, and make a difference by welcoming these new neighbours into their communities.

Rescuers used drones and abseiled down a deep gorge yesterday looking for the last missing person from Nepal’s worst air disaster in 30 years, in which at least 71 people died including small children.

Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has made a conditional offer to his Indian counterpart to open talks on all outstanding issues between them, including disputed Kashmir, which he believes could be facilitated by the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Vietnam President Nguyen Xuan Phuc has resigned, state media said Tuesday, after days of rumours he was about to be sacked amid a major anti-corruption drive that has seen several ministers fired.

Gunmen shot dead an Afghan former lawmaker and one of her bodyguards in the capital Kabul in a night-time attack at her home, police said yesterday.

The provincial assembly in Pakistan’s most populous province, Punjab, was dissolved late Saturday, in a move orchestrated by former prime minister Imran Khan as part of a bid to force early general elections.

Myanmar's junta has carried out air strikes on an ethnic armed group's base near the border with India, the rebels and media said Wednesday, with one bomb landing close to the international boundary.

Pakistan has stepped up efforts to secure money from an international money lender and a friendly state as the South Asian country faces an unprecedented economic crisis.

A prisoner was killed and more than 60 wounded after a riot broke out at a Myanmar prison west of Yangon, the junta said yesterday.

Myanmar’s junta is holding talks with three ethnic rebel groups on staging elections in areas they control, a rebel spokesman said yesterday, as the military prepares for polls the US has said will be a “sham.”

Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing said it would hold “free and fair” multiparty elections as it marked Independence Day yesterday, days after increasing Aung San Suu Kyi’s jail term to 33 years. The junta is preparing for fresh elections later this year

Sri Lanka began a fresh austerity drive yesterday, freezing government recruitment as new taxes and higher electricity prices kicked in with authorities trying to secure an IMF bailout.

Islamic State yesterday claimed responsibility for an attack on Taliban forces in Kabul.

Kim Jong Un has called for an “exponential” increase in North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, including mass producing tactical nuclear weapons and developing new missiles for nuclear counterstrikes, state media said yesterday.

The United Nations said Thursday it would not stop providing help to Afghanistan despite the Taliban ban on women working in the country’s aid sector.

Ousted Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was sentenced to another seven years in jail as her long series of trials ended on Friday, with the Nobel laureate now facing more than three decades behind bars.

At least 19 people were killed and up to 30 were missing after a huge fire tore through a casino-hotel complex in a Cambodian town on the Thai border, officials said yesterday.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has kicked off a key meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party, state media reported yesterday, a venue he has often used to announce major policy decisions marking the New Year.

South Korea accused the North of flying several drones across their shared border yesterday, prompting Seoul’s military to deploy warplanes to shoot them down -- with local media reporting one of the planes later crashed.

A Myanmar junta court will give its verdicts on five remaining charges in the 18-month trial of jailed civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Friday, a legal source told AFP.