China underwent scrutiny of its human rights record at a key UN meeting yesterday, with Western countries calling for more protections for Xinjiang Uyghurs and greater freedom in Hong Kong while Beijing said it had made historic progress.

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.

Three people were killed and dozens injured after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck along the mountainous China-Kyrgyzstan border on Tuesday, authorities said

Sri Lanka's parliament began debating on Tuesday a social media regulation bill dubbed "draconian" by the opposition, which could make companies criminally liable for posts authorities deem harmful

A military plane from Myanmar crashed with six people on board while landing at an airport today on the outskirts of Aizawl, the capital city of the north-eastern Indian state of Mizoram, officials said

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

A 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck along the mountainous China-Kyrgyzstan border on Tuesday, injuring at least three people

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

Pakistan said yesterday Iran’s foreign minister will visit the country next week, signalling efforts to mend relations after the neighbours exchanged missile strikes last week at what they said were militant targets.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday led the consecration of a grand temple to the Hindu god Lord Ram on a site believed to be Ram’s birthplace, in a celebratory event for the Hindu majority of the world’s most populous nation.

A Chinese research vessel is on its way to the Maldives, according to an Indian military official and an independent researcher, as new Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu deepens ties with Beijing, distancing from New Delhi.

More than 500,000 Afghans have fled Pakistan in the four months since Islamabad ordered undocumented migrants to leave or face arrest, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said yesterday.

A Sri Lankan political party leader was killed along with four others yesterday, authorities said, in a rare drive-by shooting.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi today inaugurated the Ram temple in Uttar Pradesh's Ayodhya amid religious fervour, signifying a triumph of his muscular Hindu nationalist politics ahead of the parliamentary elections due in a few months.

Japan switched off its Moon lander almost three hours after a historic touchdown on Saturday, to allow for a possible recovery of the craft, the space agency said Monday

Forty-seven people were buried when a landslide struck a remote and mountainous part of southwestern China on Monday, state media reported

India plans to erect a fence along its vast and porous frontier with Myanmar and will scrap a free movement border zone agreement, Indian media reported yesterday.

Russian aviation authorities said on Sunday a Russian-registered plane with six people thought to be on board disappeared from radar screens over Afghanistan the previous night, after local Afghan police said they had received reports of a crash

A spacecraft of Nasa, orbiting the moon, sent laser beams which successfully bounced off a tiny mirror-based instrument on board the lander that is now on the lunar following India’s landmark moon mission last year.

Eight people were killed in a factory explosion in eastern China’s Jiangsu province yesterday, state media reported.