CNN – Asia/Pacific

By Ivana Kottasová, Tim Lister, Nick Paton Walsh, Clarissa Ward, Hannah Ritchie and Barbara Starr, CNN Twelve provincial Afghanistan capitals are now under Taliban control after the militant group captured strategic cities on Thursday, leaving the Afghan capital of Kabul increasingly beleaguered and cut off from the rest of the country. The city of Herat,

By Gawon Bae and Chandler Thornton, CNN A senior North Korean official has denounced South Korea over its joint military exercises with the United States, which are due to begin this week, warning that such actions risked provoking “a serious security crisis.” “They must be made to clearly understand how dearly they have to pay

By Ben Westcott, CNN A Chinese court has sentenced Canadian businessman Michael Spavor to 11 years in prison for espionage, more than two years after he was first detained. Spavor, a Beijing-based businessman who regularly traveled to North Korea, was sentenced after being found guilty of spying and illegally providing state secrets to foreign countries,

By Kocha Olarn and Rob Picheta, CNN Police in Thailand have arrested a 27-year-old man who they say confessed to killing a Swiss tourist on the resort island of Phuket. Nicole Sauvin-Weisskopf, 57, arrived on the island on July 13, and her body was found on August 5 by a local resident. At a press

By Rob Picheta, CNN A baby born weighing just 212 grams (7.5 ounces) — about as heavy as a softball or an apple — has left hospital after more than a year and arrived at her family home. Kwek Yu Xuan was born almost four months prematurely in Singapore in June 2020, and was considered

By Nectar Gan, CNN China has punished more than 40 local officials for failing to control a spiraling Delta variant outbreak, as authorities scramble to curb the worst resurgence of Covid-19 the country has seen in over a year. The current outbreak, which first emerged in the eastern city of Nanjing, has spread to over

Story by Reuters Myanmar’s foreign ministry said on Monday that an alleged plot in New York against United Nations ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun, an opponent of the ruling junta, had nothing to do with the country and was a US domestic case. It was the military government’s first statement since the arrest of two Myanmar

By Jessie Yeung and Steven Jiang, CNN A Chinese court has upheld the death sentence for Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, a Canadian convicted of drug smuggling in China in 2018. The Liaoning High People’s Court said in a statement Tuesday that they rejected his appeal because “the facts identified in the first trial were clear, the

By Nectar Gan and Steve George, CNN With the Olympic flame extinguished in Tokyo, all eyes are now on Beijing for the 2022 Winter Games less than six months away. Scheduled to take place from February 4 to 20, the Winter Games is seen as a major moment of pride in China, with Beijing poised

By Kareem Khadder, Nick Paton Walsh and Jessie Yeung, CNN The Taliban have seized the city of Taloquan in northeastern Afghanistan, marking the fifth provincial capital to fall under their control in just a matter of days, a local journalist confirmed to CNN on Monday. Taloquan, the capital of Takhar Province, is just the latest

By Julia Hollingsworth, CNN A year and a half since the first Covid-19 cases were identified, many countries in Asia-Pacific feel right back where they started. While Britons hit the nightclubs after a long winter of coronavirus restrictions, millions of people in Australia and China are back in lockdown. Health systems in Malaysia, Thailand and

By Jennifer Hauser, Tara John and Nick Paton Walsh, CNN The Taliban has seized control of Kunduz in northern Afghanistan, local officials told CNN on Sunday. It is the first major city to fall to the insurgent group since they began their offensive in May, and marks a big blow to the Afghan government. Kunduz

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