Myanmar's detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi is ailing and a request for an outside physician to see her has been denied by the country's military rulers, a source familiar with the matter and the shadow government loyal to her said on Tuesday

A man shot and wounded a Christian priest in eastern Pakistan, according to a police complaint released yesterday, just weeks after vigilante mobs in the area attacked churches and burnt down homes, displacing hundreds in the small religious minority community.

A bomb attack on a government compound in the Myanmar border hub of Myawady killed five government and security officials and wounded 11 policemen, sources told AFP on Monday

Nine soldiers were killed in a restive western region of Pakistan on Thursday after a suicide bomber rammed his motorbike into their military convoy and detonated, army and officials said.

Myanmar’s junta yesterday ordered the expulsion of East Timor’s top diplomat in the country over a meeting his government held with a banned shadow administration.

Myanmar is planning to temporarily restrict rice exports to control rising domestic prices, an official of its rice industry body said yesterday, joining India, the world’s biggest shipper of the staple amid tightening world supplies.

"We will temporarily limit rice exports for about 45 days from the end of this month," says a senior member of the Myanmar Rice Federation

Thailand’s new prime minister vowed to bring four years of change to the kingdom as he took office yesterday.

Thailand's former premier Thaksin Shinawatra was moved from prison to a police hospital on Wednesday, officials said, a day after he was jailed on his return from 15 years in exile

He was ousted in a coup 17 years ago and spent the last 15 of them in self-imposed exile, but Thailand's billionaire former premier Thaksin Shinawatra still casts a remarkable shadow over the kingdom's politics

Thailand's divisive ex-leader Thaksin Shinawatra returned to the kingdom Tuesday, after 15 years in exile and hours before parliament votes for a new prime minister

Police in Pakistan have arrested two Christians accused of blasphemy, a spokesperson said yesterday, two days after a Muslim mob burnt churches and houses in the minority’s settlement, saying the two men had desecrated the holy Quran.

Eleven more properties were issued with prohibition of disposal orders in the billion-dollar anti-money laundering case involving foreigners from Fujian

Thailand’s Pheu Thai party yesterday received a boost in its efforts to form a government after a ninth party joined its alliance and a senior member of a rival, military-backed party pledged its support to try to end months of deadlock.

Pakistan’s jailed former prime minister Imran Khan appealed against his conviction and three-year sentence on corruption charges yesterday, his lawyer said, a ruling which analysts say is likely to fuel political instability.

War crimes committed by Myanmar’s military, including the bombing of civilians, have become “increasingly frequent and brazen”, a team of United Nations investigators said in a report published yesterday.

Pakistan’s former prime minister Imran Khan is being held in a small, dirty prison cell, one of his lawyer’s said yesterday after being given access to the former cricket star in jail as he prepares to appeal against his graft conviction.

Pakistani former prime minister Imran Khan’s lawyers could not reach him yesterday after he spent the night in a jail near the capital following his arrest the previous day on a corruption conviction, a spokesperson said.

Record-breaking mountaineering duo Kristin Harila and Tenjin “Lama” Sherpa were greeted with a heroes’ welcome in Nepal yesterday after the pair successfully conquered the world’s highest peaks.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has proposed that parliament be dissolved on August 9, three days before the end of its term, political sources said yesterday, paving way for a general election by November.