Thousands of Muslims have rallied across the South Asia nations of India, Bangladesh and Pakistan over derogatory remarks on Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) by two officials from India’s ruling party that has triggered a diplomatic backlash against New Delhi.

The Malaysian government has agreed to abolish the mandatory death penalty, with a substitute sentence to be imposed at the discretion of the courts.

A driver for the World Health Organization in Myanmar has been shot dead, his employer said, adding that the circumstances of the killing were not yet clear.

UN human rights experts have condemned the Myanmar military junta’s attempts to establish a “digital dictatorship” in Myanmar by imposing further restrictions on the access to internet, internet shutdowns, online censorship, surveillance and other barriers to internet access.

Bangladeshi workers should be allowed into Malaysia to address its shortage of workers in crucial sectors, says the National Association of Private Employment Agencies Malaysia (Papsma), in a call to Putrajaya.

A cabinet minister in crisis-hit Sri Lanka was convicted of extorting money from a businessman over a land deal yesterday, a rare guilty verdict in a graft case in the South Asian country.

South Korea and the United States said they fired eight surface-to-surface missiles off South Korea’s east coast early yesterday, responding to a barrage of short-range ballistic missiles launched by North Korea on Sunday.

Fifty-nine Rohingya people have been discovered on a Thai island, saying they were abandoned by traffickers en route to Malaysia, a police officer said yesterday.

Myanmar junta troops have torched hundreds of buildings during a three-day raid in the country’s north, local media and residents said, as the military struggles to crush resistance to its rule.

Hong Kong authorities yesterday detained multiple people as they pounced on any attempt at public commemoration of the 33rd anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown, as China vies to remove all reminders of the deadly event.

The Pakistani Taliban on Thursday declared an indefinite ceasefire with Islamabad, saying “substantial progress” had been made in peace talks in the Afghan capital. The TTP is a home-grown movement but shares roots with the Afghan Taliban, who Pakistan has claimed lets its fighters to stage assaults from Afghan soil.

Turkey has told the United Nations that, at the behest of its president, it wishes from now on to be called “Turkiye” in all languages, the UN announced Thursday.

Dialogue between Myanmar’s junta and ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi to end the bloody crisis unleashed by the toppling of her government last year is “not impossible”, a junta spokesman told AFP yesterday.

President Xi Jinping hailed China’s rule over Hong Kong on Friday as he led 25th anniversary celebrations of the city’s handover from Britain, insisting that democracy was flourishing despite a years-long political crackdown that has silenced dissent. 

Plunging casino revenues in Macau, the world's largest gambling hub, are taking a heavy toll on the wider economy, forcing hundreds of businesses to close down and pushing unemployment to its highest level since 2009.

A bomb blast killed one person and injured nine others in a busy district of central Yangon yesterday, a Myanmar police source told AFP.

A record one billion methamphetamine pills were seized in East and Southeast Asia last year, the UN said yesterday, as crime gangs exploited the Covid-19 pandemic and instability in coup-hit Myanmar to boost their activities.

About two dozen Afghan women chanting “bread, work, freedom” protested in the capital yesterday against the Taliban’s harsh restrictions on their rights.

Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan’s surprise decision about not going ahead with the sit-in at the end of the long march left almost everyone baffled — foes and allies alike — but there is convergence on one thing — the manner in which it all ended, at least for now, carried clear indications of who made it happen.

At least 16 people from Myanmar’s Rohingya minority have died after a storm capsized the boat they were traveling on to seek refuge in another country, officials and a recovery team member said Tuesday.