Asia Today

Today's news: Exit polls from the Indian elections give a two-thirds majority for the BJP; Surprise resignations among officials overseeing Indonesia's new capital project; Maldives bans entry to Israelis; South Korea's response to junk-filled balloons launched by the North.

Today's news: Tensions with China at defence chiefs' forum in Singapore; Thailand wants to use mini nuclear reactors for power generation; Skilled foreign workers in Japan tend to stay; Volcano alert in Indonesia; In Russia, May frosts decimated fruit and vegetable production. Relatives of Kazakh prisoners in Xinjiang prevented from entering the Chinese consulate in Almaty.

News of the day: China abolishes preferential tariffs on imports of 134 Taiwanese products. Modi goes to meditate in a temple for 45 hours at the end of the election campaign. Illegally mined gold from Africa passes through the United Arab Emirates. South Korea wants to send a spacecraft to the moon by 2032.

Today's news: Four Pakistanis killed in a shootout on the border with Iran; Netanyahu surpasses Gantz in an Israel poll for the first time since October 7; Hun Manet announces the start of work on the Funan Techo canal in August; In Kaliningrad, Rosatom top management and the IAEA discuss the Zaporižja nuclear power plant.

Today's news: the Taiwanese government will reject the disputed Parliamentary Powers Act passed by the opposition yesterday; Floating dock that was supposed to bring aid to Gaza damaged by storm surges; Pyongyang sends 200 balloons loaded with rubbish to the South; Phnom Penh names one of its major thoroughfares after Xi Jinping.

Today's news: Closed-door meeting at the UN Security Council on the massacre in the Rafah tent city; An impending motion of no confidence in Premier Marape overshadows news of the giant landslide in Papua New Guinea; Hong Kong renounces plan to contain waste; In Chechnya Kadyrov chooses Daudov as the new premier.

Today's News: Tokyo, Seoul and Beijing talk about the denuclearisation of North Korea while Pyongyang announces the launch of a new rocket; Brazil wants to apologise for Japanese human rights violations after World War II; With the boom of 5G and artificial intelligence n China in 2023 data production will grow by 22.44%; Turkmenistan wants to become the world's first tobacco-free country.

Today's headlines: WFP says floods in Afghanistan have exacerbated the country’s hunger crisis. Over 300 people are killed and 1,182 houses buried in a massive landslide in Papua New Guinea. Tens of thousands of people take to the streets in Taiwan against pro-Chinese reforms currently before parliament. Laos fails to stop human trafficking, especially of young people.

Today's news: Poverty in Lebanon tripled in a decade; Summit between leaders of South Korea, China and Japan on 26-27 May in Seoul, first trilateral talks in four years; Heavy pre-monsoon rains claim seven victims in Kerala; A centuries-old Armenian church reopens in Zakho, Iraq; Russian local government offers children a prize trip to ‘fascinating’ North Korea.

Today's news: Up to 75 per cent of the Palestinians in Gaza are forcibly displaced, the Israeli army advances to Rafah, attacks in Jenin and authorises the return to three settlements in Samaria; Between 2016 and 2023, the Chinese authorities drove out more than 700,000 Tibetans; The Indonesian parliament wants to change the media law in a restrictive way; Bangladesh ruling party member found dead in India, three compatriots detained.

Today's news: Over 1400 academics sign a petition to the Israeli government to end the war in Gaza; In Beijing, the Minister of Agriculture is also under investigation; Nepalese Sherpa climbs Mount Everest for the 30th time, an all-time record; Vietnamese police arrested a prominent trade unionist; Concern in Moscow over attack on foreign tourists in Afghanistan.

Today's news: India's anti-terror section arrested four Sri Lankans for pro-Isis propaganda; At least two dead and 10 injured in a knife attack on a primary school in southern China; The heat wave that is also affecting Myanmar has claimed at least 100 lives, including children; Seoul bans a North Korean propaganda video that went viral glorifying Kim Jong-un.