Google will stop carrying election ads in the Philippines ahead of the May 2022 presidential vote, the internet giant said yesterday, similar to action it has taken in the United States.

Chinese warplanes made 159 incursions into Taiwan’s air defence zone in November according to AFP’s database, the second-highest month on record as Beijing continues to pile military pressure on the democratic island.

China told Indonesia to stop drilling for oil and natural gas in maritime territory that both countries regard as their own during a months-long standoff in the South China Sea earlier this year, four people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

An Indian man has built a one-third sized replica of the historic Taj Mahal for his wife, but unlike the original, it’s their residence, not a mausoleum.

A police constable in central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh today got the nod from the state home department for getting gender reassigned to male, a senior official said.

Several Indian media outlets have recently criticised USA’s decision to not include Bangladesh in Joe Biden’s Summit for Democracy.

India’s health ministry said yesterday states should ramp up Covid-19 testing as the world battles the new coronavirus variant Omicron, while some cities delayed the reopening of schools as a precautionary measure.

An Afghan asylum seeker set himself on fire in Indonesia yesterday in protest at his seven-year wait for resettlement in a third country, a local refugee coordinator said.

A court in military-ruled Myanmar yesterday deferred the first verdicts in the trial of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi to Dec. 6, a source familiar with the proceedings said.

Myanmar's military government has filed a new corruption charge against deposed civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and former President Win Myint, state-run broadcaster MRTV reported on Tuesday.

The Indian government today said it has not taken any decision yet to prepare a nationwide National Register of Citizens (NRC).

For more than two decades, Taiwan tried to buy a fleet of modern conventional submarines to fend off an existential threat – invasion by China. There were no takers.

India’s parliament yesterday passed a bill to repeal three laws aiming at deregulating agricultural markets, bowing to pressure from farmers who have protested for over a year to demand that the laws be rolled back.

The Lok Sabha, lower House of the Indian parliament, today passed a bill to repeal the three contentious agricultural sector reform laws, against which farmers have been protesting for over a year, within minutes of its introduction without discussion.

Japan will reinstate tough border measures, barring all new foreign arrivals over the Omicron Covid-19 variant, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced on Monday (Nov 29), just weeks after a softening of strict entry rules.

India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party yesterday swept the urban civic body elections in north eastern state of Tripura bagging all the seats of the 51-member Agartala Municipal Corporation and taking control of several other municipalities.

China is expected to continue its much-criticised Zero Covid policy, shutting the country to most of the world as a new study has warned of a “colossal outbreak” with over 6.30 lakh patients per day if it opens up despite Omicron concerns.

The Taliban co-founder and now prime minister of Afghanistan Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund pledged late Saturday that his government will “not interfere” in other countries’ internal affairs, and urged international charities to continue offering aid to the war-ravaged country.

At least 15 people -- heading for a funeral -- were dead when the vehicle carrying them and the mortal remains of the dead rammed into a stationary truck in West Bengal’s Nadia district early today.

The foreign ministers of India, Russia and China on Friday expressed concern at the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Afghanistan and the spread of drug trafficking in the country.