Asia

Grand Theft Auto’s wildly popular online multiplayer game has become the latest venue for Hong Kong pro-democracy supporters and Chinese nationalists to wage their ideological battles, with protests now breaking out in the virtual world. Over the last fortnight message boards and social media platforms used by gamers have filled with videos and chatter of […]

Thousands of people in typhoon-prone central Philippines have had their Christmas plans ruined after they were told to leave their homes as a severe tropical storm approaches. Officials on Christmas Eve said residents should evacuate coastal areas, and thousands more were stranded at ports with ferry services shut down as the nation hunkered down for […]

by Anuj Chopra A Saudi court verdict that exonerated the crown prince’s top aides over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi has been globally condemned as a travesty of justice, but won the backing of ally Washington. Five unnamed people were sentenced to death on Monday while three others were handed jail terms totalling 24 […]

by Mussa Hattar Just a few years ago it would have been unthinkable to see owners walking their dogs around the streets of Amman. Now pet hotels are sprouting up across Jordan. Where strays were once mostly left to scavenge for food, Jordanians in a new trend in the Arab kingdom are increasingly willing to […]

China Monday denied allegations that prisoners were being used for forced labour, after a British newspaper reported that a London schoolgirl found a message in a Christmas card claiming to be from inmates at Shanghai’s Qingpu Prison. Supermarket giant Tesco said at the weekend it had stopped production at a factory in China after one […]

Eight people died and hundreds were taken to hospitals in the Philippines after drinking coconut wine believed to contain high levels of methanol, authorities said Monday. The victims all attended gatherings over the weekend in the town of Rizal, southeast of Manila, and complained of stomach pains after drinking the wine, known locally as “lambanog”. […]

by Parvaiz BUKHARI In remote Indian Kashmir people have been offline since August, queuing for hours to pay bills or using government “internet kiosks”. As protests rage in other areas of India, it’s something people outside the Himalayan region are also getting a taste of. Indian authorities, who according to activists lead the world when […]

by Abhaya SRIVASTAVA India’s ruling party launched a video with animated Muslim characters on social media Monday as part of a publicity blitz to try to bust “myths” around a new citizenship law that has sparked deadly protests. The law has stoked concerns that Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government wants to marginalise India’s […]

by Ron LOPEZ / Mikhail FLORES The masterminds of the Philippines’ worst political massacre were found guilty Thursday of murder a decade after they led the killings of 58 people, rare convictions of powerful figures in a country notorious for its culture of impunity. However with dozens of other accused gunmen acquitted, and 80 suspects […]

A top Chinese university has removed references to “freedom of thought” from its charter, triggering a rare act of student defiance, while two other institutions added language stressing fealty to President Xi Jinping and the Communist Party. A video circulating this week showed students at Shanghai’s Fudan University singing the school song — which extols […]

Arsenal midfielder Mesut Ozil has been deleted from Chinese versions of the popular Pro Evolution Soccer (PES) mobile game, the title’s China distributor has said, as the fallout builds over his criticism of the country’s treatment of its Uighur minority. US-listed Chinese internet company NetEase said it removed Ozil from the game due to his […]

by Qian Ye Liu Yantao and six co-workers start toiling on a frozen river in northeast China before dawn, using hand tools and machines to carve large ice blocks for an annual winter sculpture festival. Liu and his team are among more than 100 people who work on the Songhua River to harvest the 170,000 […]

Indonesia’s supreme court has increased the jail term for a Polish man convicted over links to separatist guerrillas in restive Papua, raising the sentence to seven years from five, his lawyer said Wednesday. Jakub Fabian Skrzypski was arrested in August last year, accused of making contact with outlawed rebels in the country’s easternmost territory and […]

Thai police are hunting a convicted serial killer in connection with another murder months after he was released for good behaviour, authorities said Tuesday. Somkid Pumpuang was sentenced to life in 2005 for the killing of five women believed to be involved in the sex and nightlife industry, leading the media to dub him Thailand’s […]

Muslim-majority Indonesia will deploy nearly 200,000 security personnel nationwide ahead of Christmas to guard against potential terror attacks, police said Tuesday. The Southeast Asian archipelago of 260 million has significant numbers of Christians, Hindus and Buddhists who have been targeted by radical Islamist groups. On Tuesday, authorities said some 192,000 police and military personnel would […]