CNN – Asia/Pacific

By Jessie Yeung and Nectar Gan, CNN Chinese-Canadian pop star Kris Wu has been formally arrested on suspicion of rape, prosecutors in Beijing said in a statement Monday. The move comes after 30-year-old Wu was first detained on July 31 by police in the Chinese capital, following an online outcry over sexual assault allegation against

CNN Editorial Research Here’s a look at Malaysia, a country located in Southeast Asia. Neighboring regions include Thailand, Borneo, Indonesia, Brunei and the South China Sea. About Malaysia (from the CIA World Factbook)Area: 329,847 sq km Population: 33,871,431 (2022 est.) Median age: 29.2 years Capital: Kuala Lumpur Ethnic Groups: Malay and indigenous 62.5%, Chinese 20.6%,

By Clarissa Ward, Tim Lister, Angela Dewan and Saleem Mehsud, CNN Taliban fighters entered Afghanistan’s Presidential Palace hours after President Ashraf Ghani fled the country on Sunday, a milestone in the insurgent group’s assumption of control over capital city Kabul. One unit shared pictures of the palace interior — intact, but empty and apparently abandoned

By Jessie Yeung, CNN Civil Human Rights Front (CHRF), the pro-democracy group that organized some of Hong Kong’s biggest protests, announced Sunday that it was disbanding — the latest of a string of civic organizations that have dissolved in the wake of a sweeping national security law. CHRF, an over-arching organization of local pro-democracy groups,

By Emiko Jozuka, CNN At least four people are presumed dead and two are missing after torrential rain triggered mudslides throughout Japan. Three of those victims in Nagano prefecture’s Okaya City were presumed dead, though workers were able to pull out five people alive. Authorities said Friday that a 59-year-old woman in Unzen, Nagasaki prefecture,

By Cyril Vanier and Jo Shelley, CNN It’s been years since Haji and his wife have had a good night’s sleep. “All night, my wife wakes up,” says Haji. “She’s scared. If [she hears] somebody is coming, she calls me, ‘Haji, someone is coming!’” His wife says the first thing she does is hide the

By Lauren Said-Moorhouse, CNN Over the last week, the Taliban has made significant gains across Afghanistan and now control over half of the country’s provincial capitals. Cities like Kandahar, Herat and Kunduz are among those now under control of the Taliban, whose fighters are circling ever closer to the capital, Kabul. CNN spoke to Afghans

By Akanksha Sharma, Masrur Jamaluddin and Hilary Whiteman, CNN Taufiq Hidayat enters the homes of the dead to claim bodies no one will touch. He leads a dozen volunteer undertakers who take calls from grieving families in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, the center of one of the world’s largest Covid-19 outbreaks. “It’s really tough and

By Nectar Gan, CNN Chinese health authorities have issued new guidelines upping the requirement of mask wearing for the public — including in outdoor areas, as the country grapples with its worst resurgence of Covid-19 in more than a year. The Delta variant outbreak spreading across more than half of China’s provinces has put authorities

By Nectar Gan, Jessie Yeung and Steve George, CNN After spending nearly 1,000 days in a Chinese jail cell, Canadian businessman Michael Spavor has finally received his court verdict — yet there is still no clarity on how much longer he will actually remain behind bars. Spavor, an entrepreneur with business ties in North Korea,

By Clarissa Ward, Brad Lendon and Rob Picheta, CNN The Taliban have seized Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second-largest city, and a number of other provincial capitals, as the insurgent group accelerates its rapid advance towards the capital Kabul. Afghan Member of Parliament Gul Ahmad Kamin told CNN on Friday that Kandahar had been taken. The city, which

By Sophia Saifi and Ben Westcott, CNN Pakistan’s foreign minister has accused India and Afghanistan of backing a suicide bombing which killed nine Chinese workers on July 14, and called for the remaining perpetrators to be handed over to Islamabad for trial. The attack, which took place in Pakistan’s northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, left 13

By Yoonjung Seo and Jessie Yeung, CNN Former K-pop star Seungri was sentenced to three years in jail on Thursday by a South Korean military court, more than two years after sexual assault allegations first emerged stunning the country. The former Big Bang member had been indicted without detention in 2020 for allegedly organizing prostitutes

By Jessie Yeung, CNN Scientists have confirmed the discovery of two massive new dinosaur species in northwest China — some of the first vertebrates uncovered in the region, according to a new study published Thursday. A number of fossils have emerged from China’s northwest region in recent years, including Xinjiang and the Turpan-Hami Basin. The

Story by Reuters A Panamanian-registered ship ran aground in a northern Japan harbor, then split in two and was leaking oil, but there were no injuries among the 21 crew and the oil leak was being controlled with no signs it had reached shore, the Japan Coast Guard said. The 39,910-ton vessel, the “Crimson Polaris,”

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 Jessie Yeung and Nectar Gan, CNN Two explosive rape allegations have rocked China in recent weeks, turning a spotlight on the country’s stifled #MeToo movement and problems of sexual assault. On Monday, the e-commerce giant Alibaba said it had fired an employee who was accused of sexually assaulting another employee during a business trip.

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 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

CNN Editorial Research Here’s a look at Myanmar, a country in southeast Asia formerly known as Burma. About Myanmar (from the CIA World Factbook)Area: 676,578 sq km (slightly smaller than Texas) Population: 57,526,449 (2022 est.) Median age: 29.2 years Capital: Naypyidaw Ethnic Groups: Burman 68%, Shan 9%, Karen 7%, Rakhine 4%, Chinese 3%, Indian 2%,

CNN Editorial Research Here’s a look at the life of former Chinese President Jiang Zemin. Personal Birth date: August 17, 1926 Birth place: Yangzhou City, Jiangsu Province, China Birth name: Jiang Zemin Father: Jiang Shijun Mother: Wu Yueqing Marriage: Wang Yeping Children: Jiang Miankang and Jiang Mianheng Education: Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Electrical Engineering, 1947

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 Sophia Saifi, CNN Few cases of femicide make headlines in Pakistan, but the beheading of an ambassador’s daughter promises to test a legal system activists say has repeatedly failed victims of violence and needs urgent reform. According to a police report seen by CNN, Noor Mukadam, 27, died on July 20 after being allegedly

By Helen Regan and Jamie Crawford, CNN Two Myanmar citizens have been charged in New York with allegedly plotting to kill or injure Myanmar’s ambassador to the United Nations, Kyaw Moe Tun, the US Attorney’s Office said Friday. The duo are accused of conspiring with an arms dealer in Thailand who sells weapons to the

By Julia Hollingsworth, Yong Xiong and David Culver, CNN When Dennis Hu came home to China for the 2020 Lunar New Year, he thought it would be a brief visit. He planned to enjoy the festivities with his family, renew his United States visa, and then head back to Boston to continue the fourth year

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

CNN Editorial Research Here’s some background information about the Taj Mahal, India’s most popular tourist attraction. The monument is located on the banks of the Yamuna River in Agra, India. Facts The Taj Mahal was built in the 17th century by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan to honor his third wife, Mumtaz Mahal, who died in

By Nectar Gan, CNN China’s spiraling Delta variant outbreak has reached Wuhan, the original epicenter of the pandemic, prompting citywide coronavirus testing as authorities scramble to contain the city’s first reported local infections in more than a year. China is grappling with its worst outbreak in months, with more than 300 cases detected in more

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 Jessie Yeung, CNN The death toll from floods that ravaged central China last month now stands at 302, local authorities said Monday — more than triple the last estimate. Heavy rainfall hit the province of Henan on July 20, causing flooding in numerous towns and cities. Zhengzhou, the provincial capital of 12 million people,

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 Jessie Yeung, CNN Chinese-Canadian pop star Kris Wu has been detained by Beijing police on suspicion of rape after allegedly “repeatedly seducing young women into having sex,” police said in a statement Saturday night. The case against Wu, 30 — whose Chinese name is Wu Yifan — is still under investigation, police in the

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 Nectar Gan, CNN Some of Japan’s victorious Olympic athletes have been subjected to a storm of online abuse from Chinese nationalists following the defeat of their Team China opponents in Tokyo. As of Friday afternoon in Japan, China and the hosts occupied the top two places in the medal table, with a number of

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 Nectar Gan and Steve George, CNN A gold medal-winning Canadian swimmer has made waves in China for her Chinese heritage, sparking heated discussions over the country’s decades-long one-child policy and gender discrimination. Margaret MacNeil shot to international fame Monday after winning the women’s 100-meter butterfly at the Tokyo Olympics, setting an Americas continental record

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

By Jessie Yeung and Chermaine Lee, CNN The first person to be tried under Hong Kong’s sweeping national security law faces life in prison after being found guilty on Tuesday of inciting secession and terrorism, in a landmark court ruling that is likely to have profound implications for the city’s legal system. Tong Ying-kit, 24,

By Jeevan Ravindran, CNN Civilian casualties in Afghanistan reached record levels in the first half of 2021, the United Nations warned Monday, noting that deaths and injuries spiked markedly from May when the United States and its allies began withdrawing troops from the country. Some 5,183 casualties were recorded in the first six months of

By Nectar Gan and Steve George, CNN The Olympics has long been an occasion for celebrating national pride. And for an increasingly confident China, the Tokyo Games is seen as the latest opportunity to showcase its national strength, as it looks to challenge the United States for top spot on the medal table. So far,

By Helen Regan, CNN Two men have been charged with animal cruelty for allegedly striking a police horse during anti-lockdown protests in Sydney, Australia on Saturday, police said, as daily Covid-19 cases in New South Wales state continue to rise. Thousands of people breached coronavirus measures and marched through the center of Australia’s biggest city

By Steven Jiang and Steve George, CNN The breakdown in US-China relations is due to some people in the United States treating China as an “imaginary enemy,” Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng was quoted as saying during a meeting with US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman on Monday, according to a statement provided

By Jake Kwon, Kara Fox and Will Ripley, CNN The Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony is a gratuitously enjoyable affair, with bulging muscles and beaming athletes proudly walking the Parade of Nations — and into our hearts. The made-for-TV spectacle is an entry way for some viewers to learn more about countries and athletes that they

By Helen Regan and Chandler Thornton, CNN For almost two weeks, a thick, black smudge stained the sky off Sri Lanka’s western coast — smoke from a burning container ship nine nautical miles out to sea. The Singapore-flagged X-Press Pearl caught fire on May 20 en route to Colombo carrying 350 metric tons of oil

By Jessie Yeung and Yoonjung Seo, CNN North Korea is doubling down on its culture war, warning citizens to stay away from all things South Korean — including its fashion, music, hairstyles and even slang. In the past decade, South Korea has emerged as a formidable cultural force, with products from makeup to K-pop and

By Jack Guy, CNN Scientists have discovered previously unknown viruses dating from 15,000 years ago in ice samples taken from a glacier in the Tibetan plateau. The viruses are unlike any that have been cataloged by scientists before, according to a study published earlier this week in the journal Microbiome. A team including climate scientists

By Nectar Gan and Jessie Yeung, CNN As record heat waves hit western North America and deadly floods swept Germany, the growing risks associated with climate change have grabbed headlines, and prompted widespread discussions in the West. Scientists have been warning for years that the climate crisis would amplify extreme weather, making it deadlier and

By Barbara Wojazer, Zachary Cohen, Michael Callahan and Jessie Yeung, CNN The French power company that co-owns a nuclear plant in China would shut it down if it could, due to damage to the fuel rods, a spokesperson said — but the decision is ultimately up to the plant’s Chinese operator. The spokesperson for Electricite

By Sandi Sidhu, Anna Coren, Helen Regan and Abdul Basir Bina, CNN Sohail Pardis was driving from his home in Afghanistan’s capital Kabul to nearby Khost province to pick up his sister for the upcoming Eid holiday celebrations to mark the end of Ramadan. It was supposed to be a happy occasion enjoyed with family.

By Nectar Gan and Zixu Wang, CNN At least 33 people have died and eight remain missing in central China, as authorities ramp up rescue and recovery efforts following devastating floods that submerged entire neighborhoods, trapped passengers in subway cars, caused landslides and overwhelmed dams and rivers. Torrential rains have battered Henan province since last

By Ben Westcott, Isaac Yee and Yong Xiong, CNN The Chinese government will not participate in a second phase of the World Health Organization’s investigation into the origins of Covid-19, a top health official announced Thursday, after the possibility of the virus leaking from a Wuhan lab was included on the proposal. Zeng Yixin, deputy

By Helen Regan, CNN A severe Covid-19 wave is devastating Myanmar — a country already on its knees following February’s military coup — with people queuing for hours for oxygen in major cities and the seriously ill dying at home because they are too scared to visit understaffed, ill-equipped hospitals. Images from the biggest city,

By Nectar Gan and Jessie Yeung, CNN Last week, the Biden administration warned American companies about the risk of doing business in Hong Kong, citing Beijing’s increasing crackdown on the city. “The bottom line is that businesses should be aware that the risks faced in mainland China are now increasingly present in Hong Kong,” White

By Rhea Mogul, CNN For much of last year, it seemed like Indonesia had managed to keep its Covid-19 outbreak largely under control. Now, the island nation — home to about 270 million people — has become Asia’s new epicenter of the pandemic, reporting more daily cases and deaths than hard-hit India as a devastating

By Jessie Yeung, Nectar Gan and Zixu Wang, CNN Terrified subway passengers in central China were left clinging to ceiling handles inside flooded cars on Tuesday, trapped up to their necks in rising water, as record-breaking rains devastated parts of Henan province. At least 12 people have been confirmed dead in Zhengzhou, the provincial capital,

By Amy Sood, CNN A 16-year-old boy was due to be charged with murder by Singapore police on Tuesday after a 13-year-old boy was found dead with multiple wounds in a school bathroom along with an ax. According to a police statement, officers found the victim on Monday with multiple wounds and he was pronounced

By Sophia Saifi and Ehsan Popalzai, CNN Afghanistan is withdrawing its diplomats from Pakistan following the alleged abduction of the ambassador’s daughter in the capital Islamabad, according to the Afghan foreign ministry. Silsila Alikhil, the daughter of Najib Alikhil, Afghanistan’s ambassador to Pakistan, was “abducted for several hours and severely tortured by unknown individuals on

By Nectar Gan, CNN The death of nine Chinese workers in a bus explosion in Pakistan has underscored the security risks attached to China’s overseas projects, as anti-China sentiment simmers in countries where official ties with Beijing are strong. The bus was carrying a convoy of Chinese engineers to the construction site of the Dasu