Beijing authorities have sealed off a mall and locked down several residential compounds over a Covid flare-up, as the latest outbreak spread to the Chinese capital’s central districts.

Afghanistan is “at the brink of economic collapse” and the international community must urgently resume funding and provide humanitarian assistance, Pakistan’s foreign minister warned yesterday at a meeting with US, Chinese, Russian and Taliban diplomats in Islamabad.

The Asia-Pacific region must not return to the tensions of the Cold War era, Chinese President Xi Jinping said yesterday, ahead of a virtual meeting with US President Joe Biden expected as soon as next week.

The Chinese Communist Party yesterday passed a “historical resolution”, cementing Xi Jinping’s status in political history.

Heavy rains across southern India and Sri Lanka have killed at least 41 people, authorities said yesterday, with weather forecasters expecting

Children below the age of five have been exempted from both pre- and post-arrival testing for Covid-19 as India today came out with fresh guidelines for international arrivals.

India's Uttar Pradesh state Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) today said it has apprehended two more people, who are allegedly part of a human trafficking syndicate, on a tip-off given by four persons including three Bangladeshi nationals.

West Bengal actress Srabanti Chatterjee, who joined the Bharatiya Janata Party before assembly polls in March-April this year, today quit the saffron party citing its "lack of initiative and sincerity to further the cause of West Bengal".

The Supreme Court on Wednesday grilled Prime Minister Imran Khan over the government's inaction against those responsible for the Army Public School (APS) attack in 2014 and the ongoing talks with the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

India has sent thousands more paramilitary troops into its section of Kashmir, already one of the world’s most militarised zones, after a string of targeted killings by suspected rebels in recent weeks, officials said yesterday.

Up to 5,000 Afghan refugees a day are crossing into neighbouring Iran, compounding the already heavy burden it faces hosting an estimated 3.6 million Afghans, a relief group said yesterday.

Myanmar junta troops have clashed with fighters from a major militant group in Rakhine state, breaking a ceasefire that kept the peace in the western region since the coup, a rebel spokesman said yesterday.

Tibet’s spiritual leader the Dalai Lama criticised the leaders of China yesterday saying they “don’t understand the variety of different cultures” there and there is too much control by the main Han ethnic group.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, who was shot by the Pakistani Taliban for campaigning for girls’ education, got married on Tuesday in a small ceremony in Birmingham, central England, she announced on social media.

Heavy rains on Sri Lanka’s coast and in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu have killed at least 25 people, destroyed thousands of homes and snarled traffic, authorities said.

In a veiled message to Pakistan, top national security advisers of eight Asian countries today got together for the first time in New Delhi and called for a peaceful, secure and stable Afghanistan and non-interference in its internal affairs.

An American journalist detained in military-ruled Myanmar accused of incitement is facing new charges of sedition and terrorism, his lawyer said on Wednesday, in a setback for US efforts to secure his release.

Malala Yousafzai, the campaigner for girls' education and Nobel Peace Prize laureate who survived being shot aged 15 by a Taliban gunman in her native Pakistan in 2012, has got married, she said on social media on Tuesday.

In Taliban’s first news briefing since their return to power in Kabul, the group’s spokesperson said the new regime would be “positively different” from their 1996-2001 stint, which was infamous for deaths by stoning, girls being banned from school and women from working in contact with men.

India is set to issue tourist visas from November 15 after a pause of 19 months for the global coronavirus pandemic, much to the cheer of Bangladeshis who account for the largest share of foreign tourist arrivals in the neighbouring country.