Myanmar released about 20 political prisoners on Friday, a top official said, hours before its reform-minded leader was due to leave on a landmark visit to the United States to meet President Barack Obama. President Thein Sein, a former general, has freed hundreds of political detainees since coming to power in early 2011 as part [...]

President Thein Sein’s historic invitation to the White House is an endorsement of “Myanmar’s Spring” and a further sign that the former pariah’s reforms are irreversible, a senior Myanmar official said. Washington will welcome the former general on Monday in a hugely symbolic reward for sweeping changes since he took power two years ago. He [...]

Hundreds of garment factories in a Bangladesh manufacturing hub reopened Friday, days after they were closed down due to unrest sparked by the country’s worst industrial tragedy, employers said. Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association shut down the factories at the Ashulia industrial area on the outskirts of the capital Dhaka earlier this week after [...]

Voters in the Philippines appear to have delivered a resounding victory to President Benigno Aquino in midterm elections. The son of former President Corazon Aquino looks set to control both houses of Congress, giving him a mandate to continue his reform policies. His biggest worry now is making them stick. In the first half of [...]

Thailand and Cambodia yesterday agreed to strengthen cooperation and solve any border conflicts with mutual trust. Defence minister ACM Sukampol Suwannathat met his Cambodian counterpart general Tea Banh at a general Border Committee (GBC) meeting at a golf resort in Rayong province. After the meeting, Sukampol told the press that both countries had agreed to [...]

Australia’s richest person Gina Rinehart on Friday accused the government of using the mining industry as an ATM, warning of an unhealthy reliance on the sector and unsustainable debt levels. In a speech to the Australian Mines and Metals Association conference, the outspoken tycoon, chair of Hancock Prospecting, cautioned that without reform Australia risked the [...]

Lockheed Martin Corp is well on the way to fixing the F-35s performance and helmet problems, Australian military chiefs said on Thursday, rejecting criticism the troubled jet will be overmatched by newer Russian and Chinese aircraft. In testimony to parliament on the F-35, for which Australia is one of the largest international buyers with plans [...]

In mid-April, a platoon of Chinese soldiers trooped some 20 km into territory considered India’s and pitched tents and unfurled banners. When detected by Indian forces, the Chinese refused to leave, triggering a tense three-week standoff between the two Asian giants that ended only after both sides backed down from their wind-swept Himalayan posts and [...]

China’s new leadership seems to have a new slogan – “control coal” – and Australia’s coal exporters underestimate their resolve to cap consumption of the fossil fuel at their peril, a Chinese researcher says. China’s leaders under President Xi Jinping say they plan to enforce a target of limiting annual coal use to 4 billion [...]

A court has sentenced a Malaysian couple to 24 years in prison for fatally starving their Cambodian housemaid. Police found the body of Mey Sichan at the couple’s home in Malaysia’s northern Penang state in April last year. Medical reports said she weighed only 26 kilograms (57 pounds). The Penang High Court on Thursday convicted [...]

Two distraught Australian children who saw their mother drown and their father disappear at sea were reunited with relatives as police Friday continued to scour the ocean for the missing man. The body of Kathreen Ricketson, 41, washed ashore as the children, 13 and 10, watched on Wednesday near the idyllic West Australian holiday spot [...]

Australian fast bowler Shaun Tait has strongly denied any link to the arrest of three Indian teammates allegedly involved in spot-fixing during an Indian domestic Twenty20 cricket tournament. Test player Shanthakumaran Sreesanth and fellow bowlers Ankeet Chavan and Ajit Chandila were all arrested Thursday, Indian police said, with 11 bookmakers also detained in connection with [...]

The licence to operate the Auckland Blues Super 15 franchise has been partially sold-off to a private investment firm, the New Zealand Rugby Union (NZRU) said on Friday. NZRU chief executive Steve Tew said the deal, which involves Auckland-based Bolton Equities taking a 40 percent stake in the three-time champion’s operations, was part of a [...]

Two global labour umbrella groups on Thursday praised top retailers for joining their drive to make Bangladesh’s garment factories safer, after 1,127 people died in a factory collapse last month. “This accord is a turning point. We are putting in place rules that mark the end of the race to the bottom in the global [...]

Bangladesh will reopen more than 300 garment factories on Friday, ending a three-day forced closure due to worker protests over pay and working conditions after a building collapse killed more than 1,100 people. A series of deadly incidents at factories in Bangladesh, the world’s second-biggest exporter of clothing after China, has focused global attention on [...]

Australia on Thursday extended tough refugee policies to any asylum-seeker who lands on its mainland, allowing them to be banished to remote Nauru or Papua New Guinea for detention. Until now, the government only had powers to send boatpeople for indefinite detention in the Pacific when they reached its remote offshore territories such as Christmas [...]

A ceiling collapse at a Cambodian shoe factory killed two workers Thursday, spurring a government vow to inspect all garment plants amid heightened safety fears after last month’s disaster in Bangladesh. Local rescue teams, helped by soldiers, scrambled to search through the rubble of the fallen structure early Thursday, which appeared to have been on [...]

New Zealand’s Supreme Court on Thursday granted Kim Dotcom leave to appeal a ruling that US authorities do not have to disclose all of the evidence they have against the Megaupload founder. The Court of Appeal in March had overturned a decision ordering US prosecutors to hand over the evidence to Dotcom’s legal team as [...]

The ceiling of a Cambodian factory that makes Asics sneakers collapsed on workers early Thursday, killing two people and injuring seven, in the latest accident to spotlight lax safety conditions in the global garment industry. About 50 workers were inside the factory, south of the capital Phnom Penh, when the ceiling caved in, said police [...]

Finalists for Tourism Australia’s ‘Best Jobs in the World’ contest have been announced, with candidates from the US leading the charge, followed by England and France. In all, 18 candidates from 12 countries have been shortlisted from a pool that started with 330,000 applicants from 196 countries, in one of the most successful international tourism [...]

The Arctic Council agreed on Wednesday to admit emerging powers China and India as observers, reflecting growing global interest in the trade and energy potential of the planet’s Far North. The organisation, which coordinates Arctic policy, is gaining clout as sea ice thaws to open up new trade routes and intensify competition for oil and [...]

A couple were sentenced to 24 years’ jail each after they were found guilty of starving their Cambodian maid to death last year. In his judgment, Justice Datuk Zamani Abdul Rahim said the case had damaged Malaysia’s image as Cambodia wanted to stop sending its citizens here as domestic workers. Admonishing the couple, Soh Chew [...]

Japan’s economy expanded at a rapid clip at the start of the year, the first hard evidence that prime minister Shinzo Abe’s sweeping stimulus is beginning to rouse consumers and businesses into action even as risks loomed in the horizon. Corporate investment, seen as an essential ingredient of a sustained recovery, fell for the fifth [...]

Cambodia and the United States will hold a joint military exercise dubbed “Angkor Sentinel” from May 16-29 in Kampong Speu province, aiming at promoting bilateral ties, said a media statement from US Embassy to Cambodia on Wednesday. Angkor Sentinel 2013 is a major, bilateral exercise that continues a substantial, multi-year effort by US Army Pacific [...]

China downplayed border tensions with India on Thursday, days before the new Chinese premier visits the neighbouring country on his first foreign visit since taking office in March. Disagreements over the Himalayan frontier can be handled under existing mechanisms and should not affect overall relations, vice Foreign minister Song Tao told reporters at a briefing. [...]

A defendant on trial over a fatal gang-rape in New Delhi last December is critically ill after being attacked in prison, his lawyer said Wednesday, weeks after the main accused died in the same jail. Vinay Sharma was rushed to the state-run Lok Nayak Hospital in New Delhi on Tuesday with chest injuries after he [...]

It probably shouldn’t come as a surprise that none of the biggest American retailers signed a global accord to improve the safety of garment factories in Bangladesh. Wal-Mart Stores didn’t sign. Gap didn’t. J.C. Penney didn’t. These companies are concerned about preventing the fires and collapses that have killed more than 1,100 Bangladeshi workers in [...]

An accord designed to prevent another deadly disaster in Bangladesh’s garment industry drew sharp criticism from a major US retail trade group on Wednesday, which said it would constrain legal rights of US companies, even as more European retailers signed on to the pact. Wednesday is the deadline for retailers to decide whether to sign [...]

Authorities in Myanmar struggled on Wednesday to evacuate tens of thousands of people, most of them Rohingya Muslims, before a cyclone reaches camps in low-lying regions that have been their home since ethnic and religious unrest last year. Cyclone Mahasen has already killed at least seven people and displaced 3,881 in Sri Lanka, its Disaster [...]

Fiji’s attorney-general on Wednesday accused Australia of treating the South Pacific nation in a “high-handed” manner in a stand-off over diplomatic representation. Australia agreed to restore full diplomatic ties with Fiji’s military regime last year after the two countries’ top envoys were sent home in tit-for-tat expulsions in 2009. However, Fiji has refused to endorse [...]

Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the country’s top lender by market value, on Wednesday posted an 8.57 percent rise in third-quarter cash profit to A$1.9 billion ($1.88 billion), helped by a higher net interest margin. The unaudited cash profit in the three months to March compared with A$1.75 billion a year ago. Cash profit, which excludes [...]

India has concurred with the Chinese desire for early settlement of the border issue, leading diplomats with long years in the field to smell a deal in the offing. On Monday, a senior Chinese government official called the three-week face off between Indian and Chinese troops on a desolate plateau in the high ranges of [...]

Bangladeshi garment manufacturers on Wednesday hailed an agreement by top retailers to make the country’s factories safer, saying it reflected their long-term commitment to improving working conditions. Global high street brands including Benetton, Carrefour and Marks & Spencer committed to abide by an agreement to improve working conditions in Bangladeshi factories after a plant there [...]

Australian prime minister Julia Gillard began the hard sell of Labour’s lean election year budget on Wednesday, insisting it was in the nation’s interest and offered enough to see her secure another term. Delivering the final budget before polls on September 14, Labour emphasized big-ticket reforms to education and disability care while stating tough choices [...]

New Zealand on Wednesday gave the green light to an alliance between Qantas and Emirates, saying it will increase competition on the busy trans-Tasman route between Australia and New Zealand. Transport minister Gerry Brownlee said he had no objection to a deal, unveiled earlier this year, allowing the airlines to cooperate on passenger and cargo [...]

Myanmar’s reform-minded president will speak in Washington on Monday during a landmark visit as the United States encourages changes in the former pariah nation, hosts said. President Thein Sein will speak Monday at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies and the US Chamber of Commerce, the country’s largest business federation, spokespeople for the [...]

A boat carrying about 100 Rohingya Muslims capsized off western Myanmar and many were feared drowned at the beginning of a mass evacuation from low-lying regions ahead of a powerful storm, a United Nations official said on Tuesday. The tropical depression, likely to strengthen into Cyclone Mahasen this week, threatens areas of Myanmar where about [...]

A US senator said Tuesday he would insist on guarantees on human rights in nations such as Vietnam and Malaysia as a dozen nations negotiate a vast trans-Pacific free trade agreement. Senator Ben Cardin, who heads the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on East Asia, welcomed movement including Japan’s interest in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which would [...]

India’s prime minister will visit Tokyo this month, an official said Tuesday, in a trip that had to be scrapped last year after a general election was called in Japan. Prime minister Shinzo Abe’s cabinet on Tuesday approved a plan to invite Manmohan Singh for a four-day stay from May 27, top government spokesman Yoshihide [...]

UN leader Ban Ki-moon called on rival Bangladesh political parties to calm tensions ahead of a looming election. In a meeting with Bangladesh Foreign minister Dipu Moni, Ban also “reiterated his increasing concern about the recent wave of violence” linked to Islamic militants in Bangladesh, UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said on Monday. Ban “stressed the [...]

A boat carrying up to 150 Rohingya Muslims fleeing a cyclone has capsized off Myanmar’s coast, the UN said on Tuesday, as the storm threatened to strike flood-prone Rakhine State over coming days. The boat went missing on Monday night after it left Pauktaw township, a spokeswoman for the UN Office for the Coordination of [...]

Vietnamese rubber firms bankrolled by an arm of the World Bank and Germany’s Deutsche Bank are driving a land-grabbing crisis in Southeast Asia, activists said Monday. Indigenous ethnic minorities are bearing the brunt of the seizures, which have affected tens of thousands of villagers and led to the clearance of swathes of protected forests, according [...]

Treasurer Wayne Swan vowed to keep Australia among the world’s top economies and talked up his party’s poll hopes on Tuesday as he prepared to unveil a lean budget with little to offer a hostile electorate. Swan’s centre-left Labour party is on track to lose September 14 elections in a landslide to the Tony Abbott-led [...]

Glencore Xstrata on Monday dumped plans for a new billion-dollar coal export terminal in Australia’s Queensland state, citing poor current market conditions and concerns about the industry outlook. The decision to scrap the Balaclava Island Coal Export Terminal, effective immediately, follows the merger of mining giant Xstrata with Swiss commodities trader Glencore and a review [...]

Bangladeshi salvage workers on Monday neared the end of their search for victims of the collapse of a factory building, scouring the basement of the complex that crumbled in on itself and killed 1,127 people. A series of deadly incidents at factories, including a fire in November that killed 112 people, has focused global attention [...]

Bangladesh’s army announced Monday that it was wrapping up its search for bodies following last month’s collapse of a garment factory complex, saying that it now believed a total of 1,127 people were killed. The army general in charge of the marathon recovery effort said that he was now handing over operational control to civilian [...]

Hundreds of factories which form the hub of Bangladesh’s garment industry are to close indefinitely after worker unrest sparked by the death of more than 1,100 colleagues, employees announced Monday. As the search for bodies from last month’s collapse of a factory complex wrapped up, the textile industry’s main trade body said all operations at [...]

India’s Tata Steel, one of the world’s biggest steelmakers, announced a $1.6 billion asset writedown Monday, blaming slumping demand in its main European market. The company, which had sales of $26 billion in the 2012 financial year, said the writedown was due to “weak economic and market conditions” in Europe that it forecast would continue [...]

Myanmar’s president will soon make the first state visit to the United States by a leader of the former pariah nation in almost half a century, state television announced Monday. It did not say exactly when former general Thein Sein – whose quasi-civilian government has won international plaudits for its political reforms since taking power [...]

Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, the man who will lead Pakistan following his party’s victory in elections, Monday said he has invited Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh to attend his oath taking ceremony. Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) has secured comfortable position in the May 11 elections and is now consulting with his close aides to form [...]