Sri Lanka’s President Gotabaya Rajapaksa named two more relatives to a new government unveiled yesterday, further consolidating his family’s grip on power.

Bollywood star Sanjay Dutt, whose life has been so colourful and tragic that it became the subject of a biopic, has been diagnosed with lung cancer, Indian media reports said yesterday.

On the bridge of one of the world’s biggest container ships, a worker in a grey protective suit installs the compass that will guide the leviathan across the world.

Bhutan has been largely shielded from coronavirus but yesterday, the remote Himalayan kingdom famous for measuring gross national happiness went into lockdown for the first time.

Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha yesterday said he is concerned about a growing student protest movement after another student group issued an unusually frank 10-point call for reform of the monarchy.

The head of a UN investigative body on Myanmar said Facebook has not released evidence of “serious international crimes”, despite vowing to work with investigators looking into abuses in the country including against the Rohingya Muslim minority.

A “rare and important” pair of iconic glasses worn by Indian independence hero Mahatma Gandhi look set to sell for tens of thousands of pounds after a British auction house put them up for sale on Monday.

Hong Kongers rushed to buy pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily yesterday in a show of support for its owner, who was arrested a day earlier as police rounded up critics of China.

The family of three missing Kashmiris have alleged the trio was killed in a staged operation by the Indian army, bringing back memories of past cases of extrajudicial killings in the Muslim-majority region.

Long lines of people bought up copies of the Apple Daily paper at Hong Kong newsstands to support a free press in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory.

A Kashmir politician who died of gunshot wounds yesterday has become the fifth member of India’s ruling nationalist party to be killed by militants in the turbulent region since last month.

A US cabinet member heaped praise on Taiwan’s democracy and its success in battling the coronavirus as he met the island’s leader yesterday during a historic visit that China has slammed as a threat to peace.

Hong Kong pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai was arrested yesterday and led in handcuffs through his newspaper office as police raided the building, part of a sweeping crackdown on dissent since China imposed a security law on the city.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina congratulates her Sri Lankan counterpart Mahinda Rajapaksa on his party’s victory in the recently held parliamentary polls.

At least 26 people have died after 46 days of heavy rains in South Korea, with the country's longest monsoon in seven years causing more flooding, landslides and evacuations.

Thai authorities arrested a student leader and legal adviser yesterday over anti-government protests, a legal group said. Protesters, led by student groups, are returning to Thailand’s streets calling for the ousting of a conservative government led by pro-military politicians.

Sri Lanka’s ruling Rajapaksa brothers secured a two-thirds majority in a parliamentary election that will allow them to rewrite the constitution and increase their power, final results showed yesterday.

Even as Pakistan this week drew international attention to the plight of Muslims in Indian Kashmir, Islamabad stayed conspicuously silent about another embattled Muslim community -- China’s Uighur population.

Malaysia’s former finance minister Lim Guan Eng is charged with corruption over a $1.5 billion undersea tunnel project and slams the move as political persecution by the new government.

At least 30 people were injured in a grenade attack on a rally in Karachi on Wednesday, as Pakistan marked the first anniversary of India’s revocation of Kashmir’s semi-autonomy.