CNN – Asia/Pacific

By Clarissa Ward, Brent Swails and Laura Smith-Spark, CNN A wedding hall in the west of Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second city, now lies on the front line of fierce fighting between Taliban forces and Afghan government troops. Dust coats the chairs where the guests would normally sit. Instead of the chatter of celebration, gun shots crack

By Mayumi Maruyama, CNN Ten people were stabbed Friday night on a train in Tokyo by a man with a knife, according to the Tokyo Fire Department. The department responded to a call at 8:38 p.m. and found victims with bloodstains when they arrived at the scene. All victims were conscious and one person walked

By Sara Spary and Masrur Jamaluddin, CNN The Indonesian army has hinted that it will end mandatory “virginity tests” for female recruits, in a move that has been welcomed by human rights groups. For decades, the army has subjected female recruits — as well as, in some instances, the prospective wives of male soldiers —

By Yasmin Coles, Sophie Jeong and Jessie Yeung, CNN Residents in the Philippine capital are rushing to get Covid-19 vaccines, crowding into vaccination centers and waiting in long lines outside, ahead of a two-week lockdown that goes into effect Friday evening. Restrictions will be imposed across greater Manila, an urban sprawl of 16 cities that

Story by Reuters A Myanmar militia force fighting the army in a central part of the country and residents have found at least 40 bodies in jungle areas in recent weeks, including some showing signs of torture, said a militia member and Myanmar’s UN envoy. Since the military overthrew the elected government of Aung San

By Nectar Gan and Steve George, CNN As Beijing grapples with a worsening outbreak of the Delta variant, an outlandish conspiracy theory linking the origin of the coronavirus to the United States military has gained renewed traction in China. The wholly unfounded theory, which claims the virus may have been leaked from a US Army

By Helen Regan, CNN Countries across Asia are grappling with their worst coronavirus outbreaks of the pandemic, spurred by low vaccine rates and the highly-contagious Delta variant. While nations such as China, Japan and South Korea are seeing growing outbreaks, the sharp edge of the Delta wave is being keenly felt in Southeast Asia, with

By Brad Lendon, CNN India is sending a task force of four warships into the South China Sea on a two-month deployment that will include exercises with Quad partners the United States, Japan and Australia, India’s Defense Ministry announced Monday. The warships will depart India early this month, the Defense Ministry statement said, without giving

By Nick Paton Walsh, Tim Lister and Barbara Starr, CNN The Taliban have taken over a TV station in Afghanistan’s strategic Helmand province, a source at the TV and radio station told CNN on Monday, marking the latest of a series of advances by the militant group in the country. The Helmand TV station, located

By Nectar Gan and Steve George, CNN China’s hardline zero Covid strategy is facing a fresh challenge from the rapid spread of the Delta variant, amid concerns over the efficacy of Chinese vaccines against the highly contagious strain. The Delta variant, which appears to cause more severe illness and spreads as easily as chickenpox according

By Yong Xiong, CNN A reactor at Taishan Nuclear Power Plant in southern China’s Guangdong province has been shut down because of fuel rod damages, the company that runs the plant said in a statement on Friday. State-owned China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN) said in the statement that “a small amount of fuel damage”

By Julia Hollingsworth, Nectar Gan and CNN staff, CNN In a meeting room decorated with a stylized hammer and sickle flag, Kelly Hu detailed her shortcomings. Since childhood, the 20-year-old student had wanted to join the longest-running and largest communist party in the world, having grown up hearing “red tales” of its revolutionary past from

By Eric Cheung, CNN Hong Kong police have arrested a man after he allegedly booed the Chinese national anthem while watching an Olympics award ceremony inside a shopping mall, authorities said on Friday. The 40-year-old man was accused of “insulting” the anthem when watching a live stream of an award ceremony on Monday, which showed

By Jessie Yeung and Chermaine Lee, CNN The first person charged and convicted under Hong Kong’s national security law was sentenced to nine years in prison on Friday, setting a likely precedent for how future cases will be tried. Tong Ying-kit, 24, received a six-and-a-half-year prison term for the charge of incitement to secession for

By Sophie Jeong and Brad Lendon, CNN The Philippines is restoring a military agreement with the United States that makes it easier for US forces to move in and out the country and signals to China a renewed commitment to the 70-year-old US-Philippine alliance. Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana and US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin

By Brad Lendon, CNN The South China Sea has been a hotbed of naval activity this week, with a British aircraft carrier strike group, an American surface action group, and forces from China’s People’s Liberation Army all staging exercises in the contested waterway. The British Royal Navy’s aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth has been the

By Ben Westcott and Nectar Gan, CNN Among the recriminations and accusations, there was one point of consensus when American and Chinese diplomats met in the coastal city of Tianjin earlier this week: no one wants to see the world’s most important relationship deteriorate into armed conflict. But there was little consensus on a concrete

By Jessie Yeung, CNN Beijing recorded its first Covid-19 case in nearly six months on Wednesday, as Chinese authorities scramble to prevent the spread of the Delta variant amid an outbreak linked to an airport in the populous eastern city of Nanjing. China recorded 49 new cases on Wednesday, including 24 local infections from three

By Eric Cheung and Ben Westcott, CNN China’s Foreign Minister met with senior leaders of the Taliban in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin on Wednesday in the latest sign of warming ties between Beijing and the resurgent Islamist group. During a meeting with Taliban’s co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who heads the group’s political

By Kocha Olarn, Helen Regan and Sophie Jeong, CNN Thai citizens seeking Covid-19 treatment in Bangkok are being returned to their hometowns by train, in an effort to alleviate the burden on the capital’s medical system. Thailand is struggling to contain its worst Covid-19 wave of the pandemic, with hospitals in Bangkok becoming overwhelmed by

By Helen Regan, CNN Bhutan has fully vaccinated 90% of its eligible adult population in a week with Covid-19 shots, a feat that has been described as a “success story” and a “beacon of hope” for other countries in the region, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said Tuesday. The tiny South Asian kingdom of 770,00

By Brad Lendon and Nectar Gan, CNN China is building a second field of missile silos in its western deserts, according to a new study, which researchers say signals a potential expansion of its nuclear arsenal and calls into question Beijing’s commitment to its “minimum deterrence” strategy. Identified via satellite imagery, the new missile base