Arctic states have agreed to let nations located nowhere near the Earth’s north to become observers to their diplomatic council, thus boosting rising superpowers China, India and South Korea that seek to mine the region of its untapped energy and other natural resources.
Hundreds of thousands of people in Bangladesh and Myanmar were ordered to evacuate Wednesday as a cyclone bore down on coastal areas home to flood-prone refugee camps for victims of sectarian unrest.
Bomb attacks in Shi'ite areas of Baghdad and in northern Iraq killed more than 35 people on Wednesday, following weeks of violence by Sunni Islamist insurgents determined to unleash sectarian confrontation.
Two Indian workers were buried alive in the trench of a sewage system project in a sand collapse accident in Abu Dhabi, police said.
Hawkish Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Tuesday Tokyo could mount a military response if foreign submarines enter its territorial waters while underwater, as Japan and China continue to squabble over islands.
At least 94,000 people have been killed during Syria's two-year conflict, but the death toll is likely to be as high as 120,000, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said today.
Police violence including torture, arbitrary detention in labour camps and failure to investigate sexual violence by clients are leading to serious crimes against sex workers in Beijing and across China, a report by a human rights watchdog said today. Sutirtho Patranobis reports.
Human Rights Watch and the Syrian opposition National Coalition have condemned a gruesome video apparently showing a Syrian rebel fighter cutting out the heart of a regime soldier and eating it.
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The annual rush to the hills by villagers keen to harvest a rare aphrodisiac fungus dubbed "Himalayan Viagra" has emptied rural schools in Nepal and forced them to shut as families rush to find the highly valued fungus.
The Japanese military's forced prostitution of Asian women before and during World War II was necessary to "maintain discipline" in the ranks and provide rest for soldiers who risked their lives in battle, an outspoken politician said in comments raising ire with Japan's neighbors.
South Korean President Park Geun-Hye said today she wants talks with North Korea on removing raw materials and finished products from a joint industrial complex closed by military tensions.
Premier Li Keqiang's upcoming visit to Islamabad will strengthen "all weather ties" between the two countries and push strategic cooperation between them to a comprehensive level, China said today. Sutirtho Patranobis reports.
Syrian troops have taken full control of a town near the highway linking the capital Damascus with Jordan, a new advance in the regime's campaign to drive rebels from the strategic south, an activist group said on Monday.
A school pupil was arrested in China for hiring hitmen who killed his father and sister because of the pressure they put on him to study, reports said Monday, highlighting educational stress in the country.
A Japanese woman has spent over $100,000 on surgeries to look like a French doll, undergoing a startling 30 cosmetic procedures to get the desired look.