The United States has an “unwavering” commitment to the Philippines, US Vice President Kamala Harris told the country’s president yesterday during a visit aimed at countering China and rebuilding ties that were fractured over human rights abuses in the Southeast Asian nation.

A shallow 5.6-magnitude earthquake killed at least 162 people, with hundreds injured and others missing, when it toppled buildings and triggered landslides on Indonesia's main island of Java on Monday, officials said.

Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim said on Monday he is in talks with the party of ex-premier Najib Razak, who is in jail for corruption, to form the next government after an inconclusive election.

A shallow 5.6-magnitude earthquake killed at least 62 people, with hundreds injured and others missing, when it toppled buildings and triggered landslides on Indonesia's main island of Java on Monday, officials said.

The Malaysian King has extended the Monday 2pm deadline by 24 hours for rival coalitions to form a government.

Rival Malaysian political blocs on Monday tried to woo smaller parties to form a coalition government after the weekend's general election that saw major gains by a conservative Islamist party.

Rival blocs yesterday claimed they had secured the support they needed to form a government after Malaysia’s hotly contested polls saw no party emerge with a clear majority of parliamentary seats.

North Korea yesterday fired an intercontinental ballistic missile in one of its most powerful tests ever, with Japan saying the weapon may have had the range to hit the United States mainland.

The military junta in Myanmar has released up to 6,000 prisoners including four foreigners under an amnesty, according to independent news outlet, Myanmar Now.

The crisis-hit Sri Lankan economy can turn around by the end of 2023 if budget policies, which are not limited to the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) recommendations, are followed, President Ranil Wickremesinghe said in the budget speech on Monday.

Afghanistan’s supreme leader has ordered judges to fully enforce aspects of Islamic law that include public executions, stonings and floggings, and the amputation of limbs for thieves, the Taliban’s chief spokesman said.

Gyms and public baths are now also off limits to Afghan women, the Taliban confirmed yesterday, days after banning them from parks and funfairs.

Southeast Asian leaders agreed Friday to engage Myanmar opposition groups as they seek ways to quell the country's escalating bloodshed which has seen thousands killed in clashes since last year's coup.

Seven people have been killed in fighting between the Philippine military and Muslim rebels in the country's south, authorities said Thursday, in one of the deadliest clashes since a landmark peace pact was signed in 2014.

The United Nations yesterday warned of a worsening food crisis in bankrupt Sri Lanka and said the number of people needing urgent humanitarian help had doubled to 3.4 million.

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan said yesterday he welcomed the government’s offer to launch a judicial commission to investigate the attack in which he was shot in the leg on Thursday.

More than 80 Rohingya people seeking to travel by boat to Malaysia have been detained in Myanmar’s southeast after traffickers abandoned them, a security source told AFP yesterday.

Mahathir Mohamad, the nearly 100-year-old elder statesman of Malaysian politics, yesterday filed his candidacy in what is likely to be his final race, as campaigning for upcoming general elections began.

Myanmar’s military government is responsible for a lack of progress on a peace plan agreed with Asean, Indonesia’s foreign minister said yesterday, adding the regional bloc has done its part in trying to end hostilities in the strife-torn country.

Afghanistan’s opium poppy cultivation this year is up by a third, the UN’s drugs agency said yesterday, in its first report on the issue since the hardline Taliban took power in 2021.