CNN – Asia/Pacific

By Brad Lendon, CNN China has finally showed off its most advanced fighter aircraft with domestic-made engines — a significant milestone as Beijing pushes the capabilities of its J-20 stealth jets in a bid to rival the United States’ F-22. The pair of twin-engine J-20s that put on a show for crowds at Airshow China

By Yoonjung Seo, CNN North Korea has fired a projectile presumed to be a short-range missile into waters off the east coast of the Korean Peninsula, according to statements from South Korean officials — just hours before Seoul launched a new submarine. The missile was fired around 6:40 a.m. local time Tuesday, the South Korean

By Radina Gigova, CNN The Pacific island nation of Vanuatu wants the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to weigh in the rights of current and future residents to be protected from climate change. During a speech at the United Nations General Assembly on Saturday, Vanuatu’s Prime Minister Bob Loughman called on the international community to

By Nectar Gan, CNN Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, who spent nearly three years in house arrest in Canada, returned home late Saturday, ending a prolonged extradition fight with the United States and sparking an outburst of national pride in China, where her release has been portrayed as a diplomatic victory for Beijing. Meng, who was

By Jessie Yeung, Gladys Tsai and Kazumi Duncan, CNN At 75, Isao Kakehi was in good health and in love. It was 2013, and he had embarked on an exciting new relationship with Chisako Kakehi, a 67-year-old widow he met through a Japanese matchmaking agency. Within two months, the couple married, moved in together, and

By Tim Lister, Ehsan Popalzai, Brent Swails, Sandi Sidhu and Celine Alkhaldi The Taliban in Afghanistan have put on public display the bodies of four men who were killed after they allegedly carried out a kidnapping in the western city of Herat. A journalist in the city told CNN that a group of four men

By Paula Newton, CNN Two Canadians detained by China for nearly three years have been released, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Friday night. Trudeau said Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor boarded a plane headed for Canada at about 7:30 p.m. ET Friday night and would land in Canada sometime Saturday. “These two men have

By Ben Westcott, CNN In the nearly two years since the pandemic began, Turkmenistan has not seen a single case of Covid-19. Or at least, that’s what the central Asian country’s secretive, authoritarian government claims. Turkmenistan, a former Soviet republic home to nearly 6 million people, is one of at least five countries that have

By Jessie Yeung, CNN With China facing a looming demographic crisis, the government last month passed into law a three-child policy raising the permitted limit on family sizes. But with many couples still hesitant to expand their families, some places are now offering cash incentives to encourage more births. Huangzhugen village, in Lianjiang city in

By Eric Cheung and Brad Lendon, CNN Taiwan on Thursday accused China of “bullying” after Beijing sent a total of 24 warplanes into its air defense identification zone (ADIZ), the third-largest incursion in the past two years of heightened tensions between Beijing and Taipei. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft, including bombers, fighter jets, anti-submarine

By Paula Hancocks and Salai TZ, CNN Five-year-old Su Htet Waing often wakes up crying for her mother and older sister. Hiding in the mosquito-infested jungles of Myanmar in a makeshift tent with her father, her young world has been torn apart. “I want to sleep with mummy, but the police have taken her,” she

By Jessie Yeung and Ben Westcott, CNN After months of lockdown, parts of Southeast Asia are leaving behind their “zero-Covid” policy and charting a path toward living with the virus — despite experts’ warnings that it may be too early to do so. Covid-19 swept across the region this summer, fueled by the highly infectious

By Jessie Yeung and Steve George, CNN Last week, a 47-year-old man stormed into a law firm in China’s Wuhan city and shot dead a lawyer who he had “some disputes with,” according to Chinese state media. He then stuffed his gun, just under 20 inches (50 centimeters) long, into a tennis racket bag and

By Hira Humayun and Helen Regan, CNN Female employees in the Kabul city government have been told to stay home, and only women whose jobs cannot be done by men are allowed to come to work — the latest restrictions imposed by the Taliban in Afghanistan. The order, announced by Kabul’s acting Mayor Hamdullah Nohmani

By Rebecca Wright, Anna Coren and Abdul Basir Bina, CNN Tugging at the folds of the traditional hijab dress, two young sisters jostle and laugh to try to get their mother’s attention as she fries onions on the stove. Along with their 6-month-old sister, the girls are oblivious to the threat they now face from

By Nic Robertson, Ingrid Formanek and Ivana Kottasová, CNN Emal Ahmadi knew his brother Zamarai wasn’t the ISIS-K facilitator that American officials portrayed him to be in the days after his death. Now, at last, the whole world knows that too. Zamarai Ahmadi and nine other civilians, including seven children, were killed in a US

By CNN staff Students and lecturers at Hong Kong‘s most prestigious university returned from summer break this month to a very different institution. The Democracy Wall at the University of Hong Kong (better known as HKU) — a pinboard where students once shared political thoughts — is gone. The student union, which once advocated for

By Nic Robertson, Ingrid Formanek, Taylor Barnes and Ivana Kottasová, CNN The Taliban have denied claims that Afghan women would be banned from secondary schools after calling on boys, but not girls, to resume education, claiming they needed to set up a “secure transportation system” for female students before allowing them back into classrooms. The

By Antonia Mortensen, Tim Lister and Phil Black, CNN Wakil’s eyes fill with tears. He has no idea whether he and his family will get out of Afghanistan, and fears that if they don’t the Taliban will hunt him down and kill him. A former US government employee, Wakil is not his real name; he

By Amy Sood, CNN A Jakarta court on Thursday ruled the Indonesian government had failed to uphold citizens’ right to clean air, in a landmark judgment campaigners hope will force authorities to take action on the city’s notorious smog. The long-awaited decision ends a two-year legal challenge brought by 32 Jakarta citizens against Indonesian President

By Jessie Yeung, CNN An earthquake in China’s southwestern province of Sichuan left at least three people dead and 60 injured on Thursday, according to state-run media. Local authorities put the quake at 6.0-magnitude, while the US Geological Survey (USGS) put it at 5.4-magnitude on an 8-point scale. The quake hit in the early hours

By Brad Lendon and Blake Essig, CNN Japan is drawing a red line around an island chain also claimed by China, pushing back at Beijing’s increasingly aggressive military posturing, and setting the stage for a potential showdown between the region’s two biggest powers. In an exclusive interview with CNN, Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi said

By Sarah Dean, CNN Taliban co-founder and acting Deputy Prime Minister Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar appeared in a television interview Wednesday to refute rumors he had been injured or even killed in a dispute last week at the presidential palace in Kabul. Rumors had been circulating — and widely shared on social media — that

By Becky Anderson, Zeena Saifi and Helen Regan, CNN Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan said the best way forward for peace and stability in Afghanistan is to engage with the Taliban and “incentivize” them on issues such as women’s rights and inclusive government. Speaking to CNN from his private Bani Gala residence in Islamabad on

By Brad Lendon, Jake Kwon, Gawon Bae and Yoonjung Seo, CNN Both North and South Korea tested ballistic missiles on Wednesday, ratcheting up tensions exponentially in what was already one of the most volatile regions on the planet. Pyongyang fired the first missiles on Wednesday, sending two into waters off the east coast of the

By Sarah Dean and Ingrid Formanek, CNN Hundreds of people protested in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar Tuesday, against what they say are Taliban orders for citizens to leave their homes on the eve of winter. Protesters marched in front of the governor’s office in the city after 3,500 people living in a government-owned

By Sandi Sidhu, Julia Hollingsworth, Anna Coren, Abdul Basir Bina and Ahmet Mengli, CNN To the United States military, he was an ISIS-K facilitator they feared was involved in a plot to attack Kabul’s international airport. To his family and colleagues at a US nonprofit, 43-year-old Zamarai Ahmadi was an aid worker applying for a

By Tim Lister, CNN The Taliban’s leaders are rarely seen at public events and do not readily grant interviews or hold news conferences. Many of them move in the shadows, their whereabouts unknown, inevitably generating rumors about their health and about possible internal disagreements. Those rumors gained so much traction in recent days that the

By Nectar Gan, CNN Chinese authorities are rushing to contain a widening Delta variant outbreak in the southern province of Fujian ahead of a major upcoming national holiday, when hundreds of millions of people are expected to travel across the country — creating a window for the highly infectious variant to spread far and wide.

By Jessie Yeung and Gawon Bae, CNN David Cho Yong-gi, a South Korean pastor who founded one of South Korea’s largest and most popular megachurches died on Tuesday morning, his church said in a news release. Cho had been hospitalized since a collapse in June 2020, and died in Seoul after suffering a brain hemorrhage.

By Helen Regan, CNN More than $1 billion in aid has been pledged for Afghanistan to help ease one of the world’s “worst humanitarian crises,” as millions of people in the country could soon run out of food and the economy is on the verge of collapse, the United Nations said on Monday. Speaking at

CNN Editorial Research Here’s a look at the life of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Personal Birth date: September 21, 1954 Death date: July 8, 2022 Birth place: Nagato, Japan (some sources say Tokyo) Father: Shintaro Abe, former Secretary General of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) Mother: Yoko Kishi Marriage: Akie (Matsuzaki) Abe (1987-2022,

By Masoud Popalzai and Celine Alkhaldi, CNN Afghan women around the world are protesting the Taliban‘s new hijab requirement in schools by posting photos of themselves wearing colorful traditional dresses on social media. In recent days the Taliban has mandated the segregation of genders in classrooms and said female students, lecturers and employees must wear

By Sophia Saifi and Ivana Kottasová, CNN A Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) passenger plane from Islamabad touched down in Kabul on Monday morning, according to an airline spokesman. This marks the first flight to land in Afghanistan from neighboring Pakistan since the chaotic final withdrawal of US troops last month. PIA spokesman Abdullah Khan said

By Nectar Gan and Steve George, CNN A man who completed 21 days of mandatory quarantine upon returning to China from overseas has been identified as the likely source of a new outbreak, raising questions over the sustainability of the country’s stringent zero-Covid strategy. The fresh outbreak in Fujian province on China’s southeastern coast has

By Jessie Yeung, CNN China has a new sweetheart: 18-year-old US Open winner Emma Raducanu. The British tennis player defeated Canadian Leylah Fernandez in a straight-sets victory on Saturday, becoming the youngest grand slam winner since Maria Sharapova won Wimbledon in 2004. Raducanu, who was born in Canada to a Chinese mother and a Romanian

CNN Editorial Research Here is a look at North Korea’s nuclear capabilities and the history of its weapons program. 1985 North Korea signs the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). 1993 The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) demands that inspectors be given access to two nuclear waste storage sites. In response, North Korea threatens to quit the

By Samantha Beech, Jake Kwon and Oren Liebermann, CNN North Korea claims it successfully test-fired new long-range cruise missiles over the weekend, according to the country’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). The report, dated Monday, says the country’s Academy of Defense Science successfully test-fired the missiles on September 11 and 12, and that the

By Anna Coren, Radina Gigova and Tim Lister, CNN Harrowing accounts have emerged of the Taliban detaining and brutally assaulting reporters covering a protest in Kabul earlier this week, with one Afghan journalist telling CNN he thought he was going to die. Video journalist Nemat Naqdi and video editor Taqi Daryabi from the Afghan online

By Helen Regan and Angus Watson, CNN Super Typhoon Chanthu made landfall in the far northern Philippines on Saturday, bringing destructive winds and heavy rain to the archipelago. Chanthu, known as Kiko in the Philippines, was one of the strongest storms this year, with sustained winds of 260 kph (160 mph) before landfall — equivalent

By Ishtiaq Mahsud and Rob Picheta, CNN In rural Paktika province — at a border crossing with Pakistan, nearly 200 miles south of Kabul — a Taliban commander surveys the crowds. “I have been assigned as the caretaker of the border crossing here,” he says. “The puppet government is now gone, without any resistance —

By Nic Robertson, CNN Commander Supranullah was busy as we were ushered out of the monsoon rain for shelter on his front porch. The porch doubles as office and bedroom, which is convenient because since becoming the Taliban’s point person sorting problems and authorizing visiting journalists at the border with Pakistan, Supranullah — who like

By Kareem Khadder, Mostafa Salem and Tara John, CNN A second Qatar Airways passenger flight, which arrived in Afghanistan on Friday, has now departed for Doha from Kabul Airport, a day after more than 100 foreign nationals left on another plane with the Taliban’s approval. Friday’s flight was carrying 158 passengers, including US, German, Canadian,

By Haley Brink and Ben Westcott, CNN Vietnam and Taiwan are bracing for powerful twin storms which are expected to make landfall over the weekend. Super Typhoon Chanthu is expected to bring damaging winds and extremely heavy rainfall to Taiwan, while Tropical Storm Conson is forecast to bring flooding rains to Vietnam. Taiwan issued a

CNN Editorial Research Here’s a look at the life of Japan’s former Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga. Personal Birth date: December 6, 1948 Birth place: Yuzawa, Akita Prefecture, Japan Father: Wasaburo Suga, strawberry farmer Mother: Tatsu Suga, schoolteacher Marriage: Mariko Suga Children: 3 sons Education: Hosei University, B.A. in Law, 1973 Other Facts Suga is the

By Kara Fox, CNN The Taliban announced the formation of an interim government for Afghanistan this week, with a hardline group of veteran militants at the helm. Notably absent from Tuesday’s announcement were women — and the post for the Ministry of Women appears to have been scrapped all together under the new regime. Despite

By Mostafa Salem, Laura Smith-Spark and Sam Kiley, CNN The first international passenger flight to take off from Afghanistan since the chaotic US military airlift last month landed in Qatar on Thursday, carrying more than 100 foreign nationals, including Americans, according to a source with knowledge of the matter. Passengers on board the chartered Qatar

By Jaide Timm-Garcia and Helen Regan, CNN The last known member of Afghanistan’s Jewish community left the country on Friday, taking 30 other people with him — including 28 women and children — on a five day mission to safety, according to the group who carried out the evacuation. Zebulon Simentov lived in and maintained

By Ben Westcott, Jake Kwon and Gawon Bae, CNN South Korea has become the latest country in the Asia Pacific region to consider abandoning its coronavirus elimination strategy, announcing plans to potentially lift Covid-19 restrictions despite rising case numbers. Seoul is attempting to bring the country’s fourth — and largest — Covid-19 outbreak under control,

By Helen Regan and Hande Atay Alam, CNN China will provide almost $31 million worth of food, winter weather supplies, vaccines, and medicine to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, China’s Foreign Ministry said Wednesday. Hua Chunyin, spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry, said the decision was announced during the first meeting of the foreign ministers of Afghanistan’s neighboring countries

By Jake Kwon and Brad Lendon, CNN North Korea held a midnight military parade in Pyongyang early Thursday to mark the 73rd anniversary of its founding, the country’s state media reported. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un appeared on a platform in Kim Il Sung square and waved at the crowd, but there was no

By Masoud Popalzai, Laura Smith-Spark and Tim Lister, CNN Taliban fighters used whips and sticks against a group of women protesting in Kabul on Wednesday following the announcement of a hardline, male-only interim government, in the group’s latest crackdown on dissent in Afghanistan. Videos and images received by CNN show the women chanting, “Long live

CNN Editorial Research Here is a look at the life of former Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte. Personal Birth date: March 28, 1945 Birth place: Maasin, Southern Leyte, Philippines Birth name: Rodrigo Roa Duterte Father: Vicente Duterte, lawyer and politician Mother: Soledad (Roa) Duterte, teacher Marriage: Elizabeth Zimmerman (annulled in 2000) Children: with Elizabeth Zimmerman: Paolo,

By Jessie Yeung and Gawon Bae, CNN A plucky four-year-old dog named Baekgu has shown once again why dogs are man’s best friend. Baekgu’s owner, a 90-year-old woman with dementia living in South Korea’s Hongseong county, went missing on August 25, according to press releases from the county and provincial governments. When police checked the

By Ben Westcott, CNN A typhoon headed toward Taiwan and the southern coast of China is rapidly gaining in speed and strength ahead of an expected landfall later this week. Typhoon Chanthu has rapidly intensified in the past 36 hours from a tropical depression into a severe typhoon, according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center,

By Brad Lendon, CNN Two Royal Navy patrol ships left the United Kingdom on Tuesday for a five-year deployment that will see them act as “the eyes and ears” of Britain from the west coast of Africa, to the west coast of the United States, according to a British Defense Ministry statement. “Two-thirds of the

By Jessie Yeung and Eric Cheung, CNN Four activists from the Hong Kong pro-democracy group that organizes the city’s annual Tiananmen Square vigil were arrested early Wednesday morning, after the group refused to comply with a police order to submit information on national security grounds. Police had sought details concerning the group’s funding and membership

By Tim Lister and Eliza Mackintosh, CNN The Taliban on Tuesday announced the formation of a hardline interim government for Afghanistan, filling top posts with veterans of the militant group who oversaw the 20-year fight against the US-led military coalition. No women or members from Afghanistan’s ousted leadership were selected for acting cabinet positions or

By Jake Kwon, Tim Lister, Lauren Said-Moorhouse, Gianluca Mezzofiore and Celine Alkhaldi, CNN The Taliban used gunfire, detentions and beatings to crush dissent over their rule on Tuesday, as scores of Afghan protesters marched through Kabul in the largest demonstration the capital has seen since the militant group seized power last month. According to photos

By Tim Lister and Radina Gigova, CNN A flimsy gray curtain divides a university classroom in Kabul in two — on one side sit the male students, on the other the female students, wearing hijabs. It’s a glimpse into what education could look like in Afghanistan under Taliban rule, as some students returned to classrooms

By Helen Regan and Kocha Olarn, CNN Myanmar’s shadow government has launched what it called a “people’s defensive war” against the military junta, urging citizens across the country to revolt. In a video address posted on his official Facebook page on Tuesday, acting president of the National Unity Government (NUG) Duwa Lashi La called on

By Ben Westcott, CNN Singapore has warned it may need to reimpose Covid-19 restrictions if a new outbreak of the highly infectious Delta variant is not contained, putting at risk the city’s shift towards living with the virus. The number of new Covid-19 infections in Singapore doubled in the past week, according to the country’s

Story by Reuters Vietnam jailed a man on Monday for five years for breaking strict Covid-19 quarantine rules and spreading the virus to others, state media reported. Le Van Tri, 28, was convicted of “spreading dangerous infectious diseases” at a one-day trial at the People’s Court of the southern province of Ca Mau, according to

By Joshua Berlinger, CNN When FBI agent Mark Calnan finally met the kingpin whose drug syndicate he’d been investigating for the past six years, he was surprised. With his black hair parted down the middle and modest fashion sense, Tse Chi Lop didn’t look like the head of a multinational operation that had flooded the

By Jaide Garcia and Jonny Hallam, CNN The Taliban murdered a pregnant policewoman in front of her family on Saturday night, according to her son. Her death, in the central Afghanistan province of Ghor, adds to mounting concerns about the repression of women under the Taliban’s rule. The victim’s full name was Negar Masoomi, her

By Nic Robertson, Nilly Kohzad, Tim Lister and Helen Regan, CNN The Taliban have claimed victory in Afghanistan’s Panjshir province, with a spokesman saying the region had been “completely conquered” following two weeks of fierce fighting with a resistance group. Panjshir was the last remaining hold-out among Afghanistan’s 34 provinces to resist the Taliban. If

By Tim Lister, Radina Gigova and Lauren Said-Moorhouse, CNN and CNN contributors Heavy fighting was reported Sunday in parts of northern Afghanistan’s Panjshir Valley, where rebel fighters from the National Resistance Front (NRF) have been battling a Taliban offensive. Panjshir, a strategic slice of mountainous terrain rich with precious mineral resources around 90 miles north

By Asim Khan and Sophia Saifi, CNN Three people have died and 15 were injured in an attack on paramilitary troops in the city of Quetta in Pakistan’s southwestern province of Balochistan. Quetta is the capital of Balochistan province near the Afghan border. The province has seen a decades-long insurgency by separatists who demand independence

By Ivan Watson and CNN staff Tuhan’s family crossed the border from China’s western Xinjiang region to Afghanistan 45 years ago to escape persecution. Now, as the Taliban exerts control over the country, she fears she and other ethnic Uyghurs could be sent back to China by members of the militant group keen to curry

By Celine Alkhaldi, Sam Kiley, Rob Iddiols, Tim Lister and Lauren Said-Moorhouse, CNN A small group of Afghan women braved the Taliban-controlled streets of Kabul once more on Saturday to demand equal rights and the ability to participate in government, CNN has confirmed. In a bold public challenge to the militant group’s rule, female activists

By Angus Watson, Nectar Gan and AnneClaire Stapleton, CNN The man responsible for Friday’s knife attack in New Zealand has been named as Ahamed Aathill Mohamed Samsudeen, CNN affiliate RNZ reports. A suppression order concealing the man’s name and other details from the public was lifted after it was challenged by the New Zealand government.

By Nathan Hodge, Mia Alberti and Celine Alkhaldi, CNN A group of Afghan women activists staged a small protest in Taliban-controlled Kabul Friday calling for equal rights and full participation in political life, CNN has confirmed. In spite of the risk, a group called the Women’s Political Participation Network marched on the street in front