CNN – Asia/Pacific

By Emiko Jozuka and Jessie Yeung, CNN More than a decade after Japan’s worst nuclear disaster, the town that hosts the disabled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant finally lifted its evacuation order on Tuesday, allowing former residents to come home. The town of Futaba, previously deemed off-limits, is the last of 11 districts to lift

By Sophia Saifi, Kathleen Magramo, Mayumi Maruyama and Angela Dewan, CNN UN Secretary General António Guterres on Tuesday warned that the world is “sleepwalking” into environmental destruction, as he launched a flash $160 million appeal for flood-ravaged Pakistan. More than 1,100 people have been killed and 33 million others impacted in one of the country’s

By Nectar Gan, CNN Chinese authorities have charged 28 people and detained eight police officials following a brutal assault on a group of women earlier this summer that shocked the country and provoked widespread anger. The attack at a barbecue restaurant in the early hours of June 10 in the northeastern city of Tangshan saw

By Sophia Saifi and Kathleen Magramo, CNN Pakistan is racing to prevent further loss of life as it reels from one of its worst climate disasters with floodwater threatening to cover up to a third of the country of 220 million people by the end of the monsoon season. Climate change minister Sherry Rehman said

By Heather Chen, CNN The Malaysian army has apologized after two of its vehicles broke down in Kuala Lumpur on two consecutive days, blocking traffic and inviting derision on social media. The first incident occurred on Friday, when a PT-91M Twardy tank stalled with engine problems on a highway near the country’s Parliament building, the

By Michelle Velez and Teele Rebane, CNN Severe rains and flooding have killed at least 1,033 people, including 348 children, and left 1,527 more injured in Pakistan since mid-June, officials said on Sunday. The country’s National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) added that 119 people had died and 71 injured in the last 24 hours alone.

By Brad Lendon, CNN Two United States Navy warships have entered the Taiwan Strait in what is the first US naval transit in the waterway since US-China tensions spiked this month over a visit to the island by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The guided-missile cruisers USS Antietam and USS Chancellorsville were on Sunday making the

By Heather Chen, CNN When Singapore announced this week it would end a colonial-era law that criminalized sex between men, it looked like a big victory for gay rights advocates in the Southeast Asian country. On second look, to many it appeared to be a double-edged sword. That’s because as it put an end to

By Sophia Saifi, Akanksha Sharma and Asim Khan for CNN, and Reuters At least 33 million people have been affected by deadly flooding in Pakistan, the country’s climate change minister said on Thursday. Since mid-June, 937 people have died from severe rain and flooding across the South Asian country, according to the country’s National Disaster

By Gawon Bae and Jessie Yeung, CNN South Korea has broken its own record for the world’s lowest fertility rate, according to official figures released Wednesday, as the country struggles to reverse its years-long trend of declining births. The country’s fertility rate, which indicates the average number of children a woman will have in her

By Angus Watson, Xiaofei Xu and Niamh Kennedy, CNN The United Kingdom’s former ambassador to Myanmar has been charged with immigration offenses by the country’s military junta, it said in a statement Thursday, after she and her husband were taken into custody the night before. Myanmar authorities alleged the address Vicky Bowman had registered to

By Sophia Saifi, Rhea Mogul and Azaz Syed, CNN Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan was granted an extension of his pre-arrest bail on Thursday while police investigate whether he violated anti-terror laws. The news was celebrated by hundreds of Khan’s supporters, who rallied outside the Anti-Terrorism Court in the capital, Islamabad, where the ousted

By Gawon Bae, Paula Hancocks and Tara Subramaniam, CNN Two weeks after North Korea declared victory over the coronavirus, the country has reported four suspected cases in a province near its border with China. The area where the suspected cases were found was “immediately locked down,” state news agency KCNA reported Tuesday. Citing the country’s

By Kocha Olarn and Kathleen Magramo, CNN Thailand‘s Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has temporarily stepped aside as the country’s leader but remains its defense minister, according to a government spokesman. The unusual leadership reshuffle follows a ruling by the Constitutional Court of Thailand on Wednesday, which ordered Prayut to stand aside while it considers if

By Nectar Gan, CNN The Chinese metropolis of Chongqing has rolled out mass Covid testing in its central area amid a record heat wave, leaving millions of residents standing under the sun for hours as they struggle with extreme temperatures and power shortages. Stringent zero-Covid measures enacted by the southwestern mega city to contain an

By Simone McCarthy, CNN It’s been four years since a committee of United Nations experts called attention to “credible reports” that more than 1 million Uyghur and other Muslim minority peoples were interned in extrajudicial camps in Xinjiang in northwestern China for “re-education” and indoctrination. But since that moment in August 2018, the international community