Taiwan will keep bolstering its defences to ensure nobody can force them to accept the path China has laid down that offers neither freedom nor democracy, President Tsai Ing-wen said yesterday, in a riposte to Beijing that its government denounced.

Hundreds of people in restive Indian-administered Kashmir have been detained by police investigating a spate of targeted killings by suspected rebels, officials told AFP yesterday.

Lee Jae-myung became the presidential candidate for South Korea's ruling party on Sunday, hoping to overcome a property scandal and gather national support while conservative opponents trade barbs over anal acupuncture and fortune-tellers.

India today dismissed any possibility of a major countrywide disruption in electricity supply due to “shortage” of coal, terming it as “entirely misplaced fears” and stressing that “ample coal is available in the country to meet the demand of power plants”.

Nuclear scientist Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan passed away in Islamabad on Sunday morning at the age of 85.

China ordered miners in Inner Mongolia to ramp up coal production and oil prices jumped on Friday as a record surge in the cost of gas revived demand for the most polluting fossil fuels to keep factories open and homes heated.

China said on Saturday it pressed the United States to eliminate tariffs in talks between the countries’ top trade officials that Washington saw as a test of bilateral engagement between the world’s biggest economies.

China will make the protection of nature a priority and crack down on damage to habitats, the government said in a policy paper days before it hosts talks aimed at drawing up a new global biodiversity treaty.

The International Criminal Court on Friday said it cannot rule on a prosecutor’s request to resume a war crimes investigation of Afghanistan until it can decide who represents the country in international bodies.

“Realising national reunification by peaceful means best serves

Chinese President Xi Jinping yesterday vowed to realise peaceful “reunification” with Taiwan, though did not directly mention the use of force after a week of tensions with the Chinese-claimed island that sparked international concern.

Veteran Philippine journalist Maria Ressa yesterday said her Nobel Peace Prize was for “all journalists around the world”, as she vowed to continue her battle for press freedom.

The European Foundation for South Asian Studies (EFSAS) has observed that the Pandora Papers reflect a deep-seated malaise in South Asia, Pakistan in particular.

Strolling casually with their machine guns in hand, Halimi and hundreds of fellow Taliban fighters enjoyed a rare day off with a visit to a popular waterside amusement park in Kabul.

The world should urgently provide promised aid to Afghanistan, the UN refugee agency said on Saturday, warning that a lack of resources is hampering efforts to avert an economic crisis that could push fresh flows of refugees to its neighbours and beyond.

International craze aside, the Netflix original series “Squid Game” is inspiring parodies and send-ups throughout the South Korean entertainment industry.

Singapore is opening its borders to more countries for quarantine-free travel as the city-state seeks to rebuild its status as an international aviation hub, and prepares to reach a "new normal" to live with COVID-19.

With India aiming to vaccinate its entire adult population of 94 crores by end of 2021, the government today announced the imposition of Quantitative Restrictions (QR) on the export of three categories of syringes, used in administering Covid-19 vaccines, for three months to ensure their availability in the domestic market.

A US delegation will meet with senior Taliban representatives in Doha on Saturday and Sunday in their first face-to-face meeting at a senior level since Washington pulled its troops from Afghanistan and the hardline group took over the country, two senior administration officials told Reuters.

A suicide bomb attack on worshippers at a Shia mosque in the Afghan city of Kunduz killed at least 55 people yesterday, in the bloodiest assault since US forces left the country.