Fighters from a Myanmar ethnic minority armed group have seized control of a port town after more than two months of intense clashes with junta troops, they said.

Pakistan said yesterday it had “credible evidence” linking Indian agents to the killings of two Pakistani citizens on Pakistani soil.

Pakistan will deploy the army to ensure peace at its general election next month, the prime minister’s office said, amid concerns that recent attacks by Islamist militants could threaten the holding of the February 8 polls.

Six high-ranking Myanmar junta officers who handed over a strategic town to ethnic minority fighters and surrendered with hundreds of troops have been taken into custody, a military spokesman and others told AFP yesterday.

A father killed his son after the pair disagreed about which political party flag to display in the lead-up to Pakistan’s general election, police said.

The Maldives has granted permission for a controversial Chinese vessel to make a resupply call but it will not undertake any “research”, the Indian Ocean archipelago nation’s foreign ministry said yesterday.

In Singapore, where graffiti is banned, young creatives have taken over an abandoned mall, spray painting colourful murals and holding art workshops to bring the space back to life

Three universities affiliated with Pakistan’s military were shut over security threats in the capital Islamabad yesterday, police said.

At least 18 people have died after an explosion at a fireworks factory in central Thailand on Wednesday, a rescue worker said

Malaysia will review bilateral agreements with 15 nations from which it sources labourers in a bid to address exploitative practices and manpower imbalances that have left thousands of migrant workers stranded without jobs, officials said

Former Pakistan prime minister and PTI founder Imran Khan on Monday alleged that PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif was “playing with the support” of “two umpires” and one of them had recently given a “no-ball” in his favour.

The new Maldives president set a deadline on Sunday of March 15 for its giant neighbour India to withdraw all its troops from the tiny Indian Ocean archipelago nation.

Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Saturday rejected an attempt by former prime minister Imran Khan’s party to retain its traditional electoral symbol of a cricket bat, in the latest setback for the jailed leader ahead of a general election.

Pakistan’s former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, whose party is considered a front-runner to win general elections in February, will kick off his campaign next week, aides said, days after the Supreme Court cleared him to run for a fourth term.

In a major relief ahead of the February 8 general elections in Pakistan, the Peshawar High Court (PHC) yesterday declared “illegal” the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) decision to revoke the PTI’s ‘bat’ electoral symbol and reject its intra-party polls.

A week after a major earthquake struck the west coast of Japan, thousands of people are still without water and electricity and have yet to be told when plans to rebuild can begin.

Cash-strapped Sri Lanka’s navy said yesterday it was joining a US-led maritime taskforce to protect international shipping against attacks by Yemen’s Huthi rebels.

Pakistan’s Supreme Court yesterday scrapped lifetime bans on contesting elections for people with criminal convictions, paving the way for Nawaz Sharif to run for prime minister for a fourth time.

The picturesque Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan holds general elections today with serious economic challenges calling into question its longstanding policy of prioritising “Gross National Happiness” over growth.

Japanese prosecutors yesterday made the first arrests in a funding scandal that forced Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to replace four ministers last month, local reports said.