At least 21 people have been killed in flooding and landslides in the north-eastern Indian states of Sikkim and Assam, reports say. In Sikkim, rescue workers recovered the bodies of 16 people, including members of the Indo-Tibetan border police. Five people are still missing. Five people died in Assam. Reports say thousands may still be [...]
has spared the high-flying police chief whose flight to a US consulate led to the toppling of leader Bo Xilai, with a court in Chengdu handing him a relatively lenient 15 year jail sentence on Monday. Wang Lijun, 52, had previously been Bo’s right hand man in Chongqing, winning plaudits for the pair’s populist anti-gang [...]
The disgraced politician at the center of China’s biggest political scandal in years has been linked to a criminal act for the first time since he was removed from office, the state-run Xinhua news agency has reported. Bo Xilai, who was head of the Communist Party in the southwestern city of Chongqing and once seen [...]
At least 14 people have died in a roadside bomb attack in northwestern Pakistan near the Afghanistan border, police officials say. Sunday’s blast hit a vehicle believed to be carrying members of a peace jirga, and injured at least four people. Ejaz Abid, a senior police officer, said the blast struck a passenger van in [...]
Torrid protests against Japan flared in Chinese cities for a second day on Sunday, with the government struggling to find a balance between venting public anger and containing violence that could backfire ahead of a delicate leadership succession. The protests over islands claimed by both countries broke out in Beijing and other cities on Saturday, [...]
A Pakistani hospital official says at least 60 people have been killed in a fire that raged in a garment factory in the southern city of Karachi, bringing the death toll in two deadly fires in the country to 85. The head of the emergency department at the Civil Hospital in Karachi, Tariq Kamal Ayubi, [...]
Speculation has been mounting about the whereabouts of China’s Vice-President Xi Jinping, who has not been seen for over a week. He cancelled a meeting with the visiting Danish prime minister on Monday – his fourth missed appointment. He also failed to attend an important Communist party meeting on Friday. Mr Xi is expected to [...]
The arrest of an anti-corruption cartoonist in India on charges of sedition has sparked off criticism. Aseem Trivedi was held in the city of Mumbai over the weekend for his cartoons allegedly mocking the Indian constitution. Mr Trivedi was also charged with insulting the national flag and remanded in police custody till Sunday. The cartoonist [...]
Pakistani police say a Muslim cleric planted evidence to link a Christian girl to blasphemy — a new twist in a case that has fanned flames of religious tension in the country and attracted worldwide interest. The imam, Khalid Jadoon Chishti, will himself face blasphemy charges for tearing pages out of a Quran to use [...]
Iran will hold a large-scale military drill involving all its air defense systems next month, an Iranian commander was quoted as saying on Saturday, one of a number of military simulations it has carried out this year. The air defense drill will include fighter jets and simulate emergency situations, said Farzad Esmaili, commander of the [...]