South Korea yesterday decided against scrapping a critical military intelligence-sharing pact with Japan, in a dramatic 11th-hour U-turn that will come as a relief to the United States.

Malaysian MPs who do not attend enough Dewan Rakyat sittings will get a talking to by the country's Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad himself.

Shinzo Abe entered the history books as Japan’s longest-serving premier on Wednesday, but many of his ambitious goals, including a constitutional revision to strengthen the military, appear far from reach.

Some anti-government protesters trapped inside a Hong Kong university yesterday tried to flee through the sewers, where one student said she saw snakes, but firemen prevented further escape bids by blocking a manhole into the system.

Newly elected Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa yesterday named his brother Mahinda as Prime Minister, cementing the grip on power of a clan credited with crushing the Tamil Tigers a decade ago.

A coal mine explosion killed 15 people in north China's Shanxi province, state media reports.

Another summit between North Korea and the US would be “useless” unless Washington offers new concessions in their nuclear negotiations, Pyongyang said yesterday, hours after Donald Trump hinted at the prospect.

Sri Lanka's new president and scourge of the Tamil Tigers Gotabaya Rajapaksa urges minorities unnerved by his election victory to work with him, as he is sworn in at a ceremony steeped in symbolism for his core supporters.

The US and South Korea will postpone joint air drills in an “act of goodwill” towards the nuclear-armed North, US Defence Secretary Mark Esper said yesterday, after months of deadlocked diplomacy with Pyongyang.

A rare and huge leak of Chinese government documents has shed new light on a security crackdown on Muslims in China’s Xinjiang region, where President Xi Jinping ordered officials to act with “absolutely no mercy” against separatism and extremism, The New York Times reported.

Hong Kong protesters shot bows and arrows and hurled petrol bombs from a barricaded university campus yesterday, as police charged and charged again, firing tear gas and blue liquid from water cannon after fiery clashes overnight.

Gunmen fired on buses carrying minority Muslim voters in northwest Sri Lanka on Saturday, police say, as an election official admitted failures to protect vulnerable communities ahead of presidential polls.

Bangladesh thanks all the UN member states as a resolution on the situation of human rights of the Rohingya Muslims and other minorities in Myanmar has been adopted at the Unites Nations (UN).

The Chinese and Hong Kong governments condemns an attack by a "violent mob" on the city's justice secretary in London, the first direct altercation between demonstrators and a government minister during months of often violent protests.

Indonesia issues a tsunami alert after a powerful earthquake struck in the sea near the Moluccas, prompting panicked islanders to flee to higher ground, according to residents and a media report.

Bangladesh has been identified as the highest risky country in terms of bribery threats in South Asia, says a latest international report.

The office of the Chief Justice of India (CJI) is a public authority under the Right to Information (RTI) Act and is liable to provide information sought in public interest, a five-judge Constitution Bench led by CJI Ranjan Gogoi declared yesterday.

Uighur activists said Tuesday they have documented nearly 500 camps and prisons run by China to detain members of the ethnic group, alleging that Beijing could be holding far more than the commonly cited figure of one million people.

At least 72 per cent urban Indians believe that India is headed in the right direction compared to 61 per cent global citizens who feel their country is on the wrong track, says a survey by market research firm Ipsos.

Police stepped up security across Sri Lanka yesterday over fears of violence on the final day of campaigning for the fiercely contested presidential election, officials said.