Asian News

August 21, 2017 12:12 PM

BANGKOK (REUTERS) - Two men from Myanmar convicted of killing two British backpackers on a Thai holiday island in 2014 submitted their final appeal on Monday (Aug 21) against the death sentence.

August 21, 2017 12:02 PM

PETALING JAYA (THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) - The Royal Malaysia Navy has despatched ships and a helicopter to help in the search-and-rescue (SAR) operations after a US warship and a merchant vessel collided seven nautical miles off the coast of Johor.

August 21, 2017 11:46 AM

PUTRAJAYA - Malaysia's Federal Court on Monday (Aug 21) stayed a lower court's ruling that allowed a Muslim child conceived outside marriage to take his father's name instead of a 'bin Abdullah' patronym, pending the Johor religious authority's bid to intervene in the case.

August 21, 2017 11:31 AM

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan's premier said on Monday (Aug 21) the government will minimise the probability of another power blackout but cannot guarantee that there will be no recurrence.

August 21, 2017 10:41 AM

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean President Moon Jae In said on Monday (Aug 21) joint military exerciseswith US forces starting on Monday are purely of a defensive nature and do not aim to raise tensions on the Korean peninsula.

August 21, 2017 10:38 AM

AMMAN (REUTERS) - A reduction in US troops taking part in a joint exercise with South Korean forces this year simply reflects a need for fewer personnel and is not because of tensions with North Korea, Defence Secretary Jim Mattis has said.

August 21, 2017 10:25 AM

PUTRAJAYA - The former assistant governor of Malaysia's central bank is giving his testimony on Monday (Aug 21) during a hearing of the Royal Inquiry Commission (RCI) into Bank Negara Malaysia's (BNM) foreign exchange losses.

August 21, 2017 10:17 AM

SHANGHAI (REUTERS) - The censorship in China of hundreds of academic papers from a prominent journal will have little impact because readership is so small, but if Western institutions don't like the way things are done in China they can leave, the state-run Global Times newspaper said in an editorial on Monday.

August 21, 2017 9:49 AM

TAIPING (THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) - The Malaysian government is ready to set up a royal commission of inquiry (RCI) to probe the Memali tragedy in 1985 if there is demand for it, said Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.

Aid agencies are warning of a humanitarian crisis following recent flooding.

In recent years politicians and thinkers in the developed world have found themselves struggling to explain three trends that have gripped advanced economies: the long-term fall in real interest rates adjusted for inflation, the fall in workers’ real wages, and the sharp rise in inequality between rich and poor. In truth, these three trends are easy enough to understand if you take a global, rather than a national or regional view. They can all be explained by the economic rise of China....

August 21, 2017 9:22 AM

MANILA (PHILIPPINE DAILY INQUIRER/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) - The Court of Appeals has shut the door on US Marine Lance Corporal Joseph Scott Pemberton's attempt to overturn the 10-year jail sentence meted out to him by an Olongapo City Regional Trial Court (RTC) for killing transgender Jeffrey "Jennifer" Laude.

The US Navy says 10 of its sailors are missing and five are injured after the guided-missile destroyer USS John S. McCain collided with a tanker east of Singapore early on Monday morning. A search-and-rescue effort was under way after what was the second accident involving US Navy destroyers in Asian waters in little more than two months. The Navy said in a statement the USS John S. McCain collided with the merchant vessel Alnic MC at 5.24am local time while “the ship was transiting to a...

The incident off Singapore is the second serious collision involving a US Navy ship in two months.

August 21, 2017 8:36 AM

PUTRAJAYA (THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) - After being in remand for five days, former Felda chairman Tan Sri Mohd Isa Abdul Samad was released on bail on Sunday (Aug 20) when the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) decided not to apply to extend his remand.

Pyongyang has already lashed out at the annual drills, saying they were "adding fuel to the fire".

August 21, 2017 7:59 AM

BEIJING (XINHUA) - China's new generation bullet train, the Fuxing, will run on the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway from September 21 at 350 kilometres per hour, China Railway Corp. said Sunday.

August 21, 2017 7:58 AM

JAKARTA (NYTIMES) - Dita Wahyunita does not like walking the streets of the Indonesian capital.

The brutality of online attacks on some Muslim women in Malaysia have led to calls for changes in law.

The BBC visits the border between North and South Korea and talks to the European observers who monitor the ceasefire.