A small group of Afghan women yesterday staged a defiant protest in Kabul against a Taliban order banning them from universities, an activist said, adding that some were arrested.

President Gabriel Boric of Chile, whose country has the largest Palestinian population outside of the Middle East, said Wednesday that he planned to open an embassy “in Palestine”.

A Shanghai hospital has told its staff to prepare for a “tragic battle” with Covid-19 as it expects half of the city’s 25 million people will get infected by the end of next week, while the virus sweeps through China largely unchecked.

India has started random Covid-19 sampling on incoming international air travellers but said there is no plan yet to stop flights from countries which reported new cases of the virus.

The UN Security Council called for Myanmar's junta to release Aung San Suu Kyi Wednesday as it adopted its first ever resolution on the situation in the turmoil-ridden Southeast Asian country.

At least five people were killed and more than 70,000 rushed to evacuation centres in Malaysia after monsoon-triggered floods inundated the country’s north, authorities said yesterday.

Up to 20 people have died of hunger or thirst on a boat carrying ethnic Rohingya that has been stranded at sea for two weeks off India’s coast,

Nepal’s top court yesterday ordered the release of Charles Sobhraj, the French serial killer portrayed in the Netflix series “The Serpent” who was responsible for a string of murders across Asia in the 1970s.

The Philippines said yesterday it was “seriously concerned” over a report that China has started reclaiming several unoccupied land features in the disputed South China Sea.

Hundreds of young women were stopped by armed guards yesterday from entering Afghan university campuses, a day after the nation’s Taliban rulers banned them from higher education in another assault on human rights.

The head of the World Health Organization said he was "very concerned" Wednesday about an unprecedented wave of Covid cases in China, urging Beijing to provide detailed information about the severity of the situation.

Dozens of hearses queued outside a Beijing crematorium on Wednesday, even as China reported no new COVID-19 deaths in its growing outbreak, sparking criticism of its virus accounting as the capital braces for a surge of cases.

Says a student in Kabul, asking not to be identified, as hundreds of young women are stopped by armed guards from entering Afghan university campuses

Myanmar police have arrested 12 suspected members of a human trafficking gang linked to the deaths of 13 Rohingyas, the military said.

The Taliban authorities on Tuesday ordered a nationwide ban on university education for females, as the hardline Islamists continue to crush Afghan women’s right to education and freedom.

Southeast Asian politicians yesterday called for the rescue of a boat carrying as many as 200 Rohingya refugees including women and children stranded at sea for several weeks.

All 33 suspected militant prisoners who seized a Pakistan police station over the weekend were killed and their hostages freed in a clearance operation by special forces yesterday, the defence minister said.

The UN Security Council is likely to vote on Wednesday on a draft resolution demanding an immediate end to violence in Myanmar and urging its military junta to release all political prisoners, including ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi, diplomats said.

The Taliban authorities yesterday ordered a nationwide ban on university education for females, as the hardline Islamists continue to crush Afghan women’s right to education and freedom.

All 33 suspected militant prisoners who seized a Pakistan police station over the weekend were killed and their hostages freed in a clearance operation by special forces today, the defence minister said.