The reopening of secondary schools for girls across Afghanistan on Wednesday prompted joy and apprehension among the tens of thousands of students deprived of an education since the Taliban's return to power.

The search for clues into why a plane made an inexplicable dive and crashed into a mountain in southern China was suspended Wednesday as rain slicked the debris field and filled the red-dirt gash formed by the plane’s fiery impact.

At least 11 workers were burnt to death in their sleep as a fire broke out at a warehouse in southern Indian city of Hyderabad in the wee hours of today, police said.

In a suspected case of an intra-party feud, miscreants set on fire about a dozen houses at a village in West Bengal’s Birbhum district leaving at least seven people dead, police and fire brigade officials said yesterday.

Rescuers combed heavily forested mountain slopes in southern China yesterday, using shovels and torches in their hunt for victims and flight recorders from a China Eastern Airlines 600115.SS jet that crashed with 132 people on board. 

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan trumpeted his Islamic credentials yesterday at a meeting of foreign ministers from Muslim nations, even as he battles the most serious domestic challenge to his rule since coming to power.

Myanmar's junta on Tuesday said it "categorically rejects" a United States declaration that its armed forces committed genocide against the mostly Muslim Rohingya minority during a military crackdown five years ago.

At least ten people have been “burnt alive” in their houses which were set on fire in a village in West Bengal’s Birbhum district.

There were no foreigners among the 132 people on board in China Eastern flight that crashed in mountains in southern China on Monday.

Rescuers in China scoured heavily forested slopes on Tuesday with hopes fading of finding any survivors from the 132 people aboard a China Eastern Airlines (600115.SS) passenger jet that crashed a day earlier in the mountains of southern Guangxi.

United Nations Member States should publicly acknowledge the Rohingya genocide in Myanmar and ensure the UN Security Council refers the situation to the International Criminal Court (ICC), said Fortify Rights today.

Pakistan’s government yesterday asked the Supreme Court to advise if it could seek lifelong disqualification of dissidents from Prime Minister Imran Khan’s ruling party ahead of a no-confidence vote that weakens his prospects of retaining power.

The United States formally determined that Myanmar's army committed genocide and crimes against humanity in its violence against the Rohingya minority, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Monday, warning that as long as the junta was in power nobody in the country would be safe.

The US decision to brand a crackdown by Myanmar's military against the Rohingya minority as genocide is a victory for human rights campaigners but will do little to alleviate the suffering of those still languishing in camps, activists say.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida urged India’s Narendra Modi on Saturday to take a tougher line on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but a joint statement after talks in Delhi fell short of condemning Moscow’s actions.

At least two people in Sri Lanka died while waiting in long queues for fuel, officials said yesterday, as widespread shortages cause misery and hardship across the island nation.

China yesterday imposed stay-at-home orders on millions more people in the country’s northeast as it battles its biggest Covid-19 outbreak in two years. Jilin, the second-biggest city in Jilin province, will lock down about 4.5 million inhabitants for three days from Monday night, local authorities announced.

China stands on the right side of history over the Ukraine crisis as time will tell, and its position is in line with the wishes of most countries, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said.

South Korea’s president-elect said yesterday he will relocate his office from the “imperial” Blue House, in a move critics charged is linked to his belief in shamanistic spiritual practices.

North Korea fired multiple rocket launchers yesterday, Seoul said, the latest in a series of provocations by the nuclear-armed nation to heighten tensions in the region.