Ousted Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi will not call any defence witnesses at her incitement trial in a junta court, her lawyer said yesterday, as the military hit a detained US journalist with another criminal charge.

Sri Lankan prosecutors yesterday indicted the alleged mastermind of the 2019 Easter Sunday suicide bombings along with 24 men they say were co-conspirators in the island’s worst single terror attack.

Myanmar’s detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi yesterday asked a judge to reduce the frequency of her court hearings due to strained health, her lawyer said, but assured the public there was no concern about her condition.

We are disappointed that the Myanmar authorities have not cooperated with the Special Envoy of the Asean on Myanmar. Unless there is progress, it would be difficult to have the Chairman of the SAC at the Asean Summit.”

Women in Afghanistan who object to what the Taliban have said and done since returning to power are finding it harder to protest, now that impromptu demonstrations have been banned and previous rallies were broken up by gunfire and beatings.

An explosion outside a mosque in the Afghan capital killed at least two people yesterday, senior Taliban officials said.

Afghanistan is facing a breakdown of its economic and social systems that risks turning into a humanitarian catastrophe, the European Union’s foreign policy chief said yesterday.

Bangladesh Naval Ship “Somudra Avijan” reached the southern Indian port of Visakhapatnam today on a five-day visit to the eastern Naval Command to commemorate the birth centenary of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and 50 years of Liberation of Bangladesh.

A bomb exploded in the entrance of a mosque in the Afghan capital on Sunday, leaving “number of civilians dead,” a Taliban spokesman said, in the first major attack on the city after the departure of U.S. forces.

A family of seven, including two children, died when their car fell into a river amid heavy rains in the suburbs of Pakistan’s capital early Saturday, police said.

Children are dying of starvation in Afghanistan, local and international sources said yesterday, following warnings that a million youngsters there could face life-threatening malnutrition by the end of the year.   

Afghan interpreters who worked for the Netherlands have been summoned to appear in court by the Taliban who have threatened their families, Dutch public television NOS reported on Friday. 

Myanmar is facing a “severe crisis” with the number of people needing aid tripling to three million in the eight months since the military launched a coup, the UN humanitarian coordinator to the country said has said.

Myanmar’s junta has said it was unlikely an Asean special envoy tasked with facilitating dialogue in the coup-hit country would be allowed to meet ousted pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Nepal has introduced a third gender category in its census for the first time, a move the Himalayan nation’s LGBTQ community hopes will bring them greater rights.

Russia yesterday threatened to block YouTube and take other retaliatory measures, after the US video-sharing platform blocked the German-language channels of state broadcaster RT.

The Taliban on Wednesday warned of consequences if the United States did not stop flying drones over Afghan airspace.

Women will no longer be allowed to attend classes or work at Kabul University “until an Islamic environment is created,” the school’s new Taliban-appointed chancellor announced Monday, in the latest move excluding Afghanistan’s women from public life.

A 19-year-old Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist from Pakistani Punjab, captured in a massive army operation to stop infiltrations at Jammu and Kashmir’s Uri, has made big revelations to the army including details of his terror training in which the Pakistan Army was allegedly involved.

The UN General Assembly in New York was set to end yesterday but without speeches by those in power in Afghanistan and Myanmar, one of many quirks at this year’s diplomatic marathon that saw 100 leaders defy coronavirus fears to meet in person.