CNN – Asia/Pacific

Story by Reuters A Hanoi court on Wednesday sentenced a prominent Vietnamese political activist to six years in prison for conducting anti-state activities, his lawyer said, in a case that has raised international concerns over the communist country’s treatment of dissidents. Nguyen Lan Thang, 48, participated in environmental and anti-China protests, voiced support for other

CNN By Helen Regan, Sandi Sidhu, Salai TZ and Anna Coren, CNN Relatives were still recovering the charred bodies and limbs of victims killed in a military airstrike on a village in central Myanmar Wednesday, a day after one of the deadliest attacks since the junta seized power in a coup two years ago. An

By Brad Lendon, CNN Japan on Tuesday announced plans to develop and build an array of advanced long-range missiles as it bolsters its defenses amid increasing tensions with neighboring China. The Japanese Defense Ministry said it had signed contracts with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) to develop and mass produce the weapons under a plan extending

By Helen Regan, Sandi Sidhu, Salai TZ and Anna Coren, CNN Relatives were still recovering the charred bodies and limbs of victims killed in a military airstrike on a village in central Myanmar Wednesday, a day after one of the deadliest attacks since the junta seized power in a coup two years ago. An eyewitness,

By Angus Watson, Jake Kwon, Alex Stambaugh and Kocha Olarn, CNN Around 100 people, including women and children, have been killed after Myanmar’s military junta bombed the Kant Balu township in the Sagaing region on Tuesday, according to the shadow government of the ousted administration. The attack resulted in the “loss of scores of innocent

By Chris Lau, CNN A severe sandstorm has cloaked Beijing and China’s northeastern regions for the fourth time in a month forcing some residents to stay indoors to protect themselves from dense air pollution. Images showed the Chinese capital engulfed in a cloud of orange haze on Monday which hung thick in the air into

By Brad Lendon, CNN For the first time, the Chinese navy appears to have simulated strikes by aircraft carrier-based warplanes on Taiwan, as drills around the island wrapped up on their third day. Beijing launched the drills on Saturday, a day after Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen returned from a 10-day visit to Central America and

By Nectar Gan, CNN Lawyer Xu Zhiyong has spent nearly two decades fighting for human rights in China, and on Monday he was handed one of the longest prison sentences ever issued for civil activism under Xi Jinping’s crackdown on dissent. Xu was sentenced to 14 years in prison and his long-time partner and fellow

By Heather Chen, CNN An elderly couple has died after eating poisonous pufferfish in Malaysia, prompting an appeal from their daughter for stronger laws to prevent others from suffering the same fate. Ng Chuan Sing and his wife Lim Siew Guan, both in their early 80s, unknowingly purchased at least two pufferfish from an online

By Brad Lendon, CNN The US Navy has sent a destroyer close to a contested island in the South China Sea that Beijing has fortified with military installations to stake its territorial claims on the region. The sailing came as the Chinese military entered a third day of a show of force around Taiwan, a

By Wayne Chang The Covid-19 virus may have originated from humans, a Chinese scientist has claimed. The genetic sequences of viral samples taken from the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan — thought to be the ground zero site of the pandemic — were “almost identical” to those of patients infected with the coronavirus, suggesting that

By Eric Cheung, Larry Register and CNN’s Beijing bureau, CNN China said Sunday it was simulating precision attacks on key targets in Taiwan as the military drills it launched in response to the island president’s meeting with the US House Speaker entered a second day. The mock drills included “tactical maneuvers” by the Chinese navy,

By Heather Chen and Kocha Olarn, CNN Her father was ousted from power by a military coup in 2006. Her aunt’s government suffered a similar fate eight years later. Now, Paetongtarn Shinawatra is set to become the latest member of Thailand’s famed political dynasty — after father Thaksin and aunt Yingluck — to take on

By Heather Chen There’s an old Chinese saying that goes: “Kill the chicken to scare the monkey.” Roughly translated it means the best way to intimidate a big rival is to destroy a smaller one. But what happens after that? One man in China appears to have just found out. In a curious court case

By Xiaofei Xu, Wayne Chang, Jade Wurapa and Heather Chen, CNN A Chinese court on Friday sentenced six people to jail for their roles in the human trafficking and abuse of a woman whose appearance in an online video showing her chained by the neck sparked a public outcry. The Xuzhou Intermediate People’s Court in

By Wayne Chang, Sophie Jeong, Heather Chen, Brad Lendon and Eric Cheung, CNN China has started three days of military exercises around Taiwan after the island’s president met the US House Speaker in defiance of repeated threats by Beijing. The exercises, dubbed “United Sharp Sword,” have been denounced by Taiwan. China sees Taiwan as its