CNN – Asia/Pacific

By Nectar Gan, CNN China has reiterated its unswerving commitment to its longstanding zero-Covid policy, despite mounting public frustration the stringent measures are costing the very lives they’re intended to protect. Unfounded rumors of an exit from the costly strategy had sent Chinese stocks soaring last week, but at a news conference Saturday, Chinese health

By Jessie Yeung and Kristie Lu Stout, CNN At a glitzy finance summit in Hong Kong this week, the city’s leader triumphantly told a room packed with top Wall Street executives that the Asian hub was back in business. “The worst is behind us,” he declared. Two days later, tens of thousands of rugby fans

By Yoonjung Seo and Heather Chen, CNN South Korea scrambled about 80 fighter jets after detecting a large number of North Korean warplanes during a four-hour period Friday, the country’s military said, in a further escalation of regional tensions. In a statement, the South Korean military said it spotted about 180 North Korean military aircraft

By Nectar Gan, CNN The death of a 3-year-old boy following a suspected gas leak at a locked down residential compound in northwestern China has triggered a fresh wave of outrage at the country’s stringent zero-Covid policy. The boy’s father claimed in a social media post that Covid workers tried to prevent him from leaving

By Rebecca Wright, Ivan Watson, Jake Kwon and Tom Booth, CNN When he arrived in the South Korean city of Seoul in late August, American exchange student Steven Blesi quickly developed a wide circle of friends from around the world. The 20-year-old from Atlanta was studying at the city’s Hangyang University, as part of a

By Gawon Bae, Junko Ogura and Yoonjung Seo, CNN North Korea‘s suspected launch of its most powerful intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) failed on Thursday morning, according to a South Korean government source, as Pyongyang intensified its battery of missile tests against a backdrop of US and South Korean military drills that had been scheduled to

By Jessie Yeung and In Jeong Kim, CNN Investigators probing the crowd crush that killed 156 people during Halloween festivities in South Korea raided police stations across Seoul on Wednesday. The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said the investigators raided eight of its offices and seized internal reports and documents relating to reports made by members

By Yoonjung Seo, Sophie Jeong, Junko Ogura and Hilary Whiteman, CNN The South Korean military said Wednesday North Korea launched the highest number of short-range missiles in a day as Seoul retaliated to Pyongyang’s latest barrage of weapons tests, further escalating tensions in the region. North Korea fired as many as 23 missiles of different

By Jake Kwon, Sophie Jeong, In Jeong and Heather Chen, CNN ln a cavernous Seoul gymnasium Tuesday, grieving families inspected neat rows of belongings left behind at the scene of the deadly street crush in Itaewon. Shoes, bags, glasses, notebooks, wallets, cardholders and colorful hats were laid out on makeshift tables and exercise mats along

By Manveena Suri, Swati Gupta and Hira Humayun, CNN Nine people have been arrested over the collapse of a suspension bridge in India’s western Gujarat state that killed at least 134 people on Sunday, police said. The suspects are all associated with Oreva, a Gujarat-based electrical appliances manufacturer that performed maintenance on the 230-meter long

By Christian Edwards, CNN British entrepreneur Richard Branson has declined an invitation from the Singaporean government to take part in a live television debate on the death penalty. Branson — a long-time campaigner against capital punishment — had criticized Singapore’s decision in April this year to execute 33-year-old Nagaenthran Dharmalingam for drug trafficking. In a