Thousands of mourners packed a pagoda in Vietnam's Buddhist heartland on Sunday to pay tribute to the late Vietnamese monk and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh, credited with bringing mindfulness to the West.The Zen master, whose reach within Buddhism was seen as second only to the Dalai Lama, died aged 95 on Saturday at the Tu Hieu Pagoda in the city of Hue.Widely known as the father of mindfulness, Thich Nhat Hanh spent nearly four decades in exile after he was banished from his homeland

Vietnamese are paying hundreds of dollars for gold plated tiger models as gifts as the Lunar New Year draws near, bucking a major economic slowdown caused by the pandemic.Tet, as it is known in Vietnam, is the most important festival of the year and the occasion for people to give gifts to loved ones and business partners.With the year of the tiger starting on 1 February, many are choosing pricy models of the striped felines.Thousands of 24-carat gold plated tigers are hitting high-end souven

Persistently high levels of ozone pollution in Asia are costing China, Japan and South Korea an estimated US$63 billion annually in lost rice, wheat and maize crops, a new study says.While ozone forms a protective layer around the Earth in the upper atmosphere, it is a harmful pollutant at ground level.It is created by a chemical reaction when two pollutants, often emitted by cars or industry, combine in the presence of sunlight and it can interfere with plant photosynthesis and growth.The re

There have been precious few positives during the COVID pandemic but British academics may have unearthed one: people look more attractive in protective masks.Researchers at Cardiff University were surprised to find that both men and women were judged to look better with a face-covering obscuring the lower half of their faces.In what may be a blow for producers of fashionable coverings - and the environment - they also discovered that a face covered with a disposable-type surgical mask was li

United States (US) surgeons have successfully implanted a heart from a genetically modified pig in a 57-year-old man, a medical first that could one day help solve the chronic shortage of organ donations.The "historic" procedure took place Friday, the University of Maryland Medical School said in a statement on Monday.

Thousands more people have fled swamped homes as heavy rains exacerbated flooding in seven Malaysian states, officials said Sunday, with over 125,000 people evacuated in total since mid-December. The National Disaster Management Agency said the weeks-long bout of bad weather was expected to carry on until Tuesday.

The death toll from one of the most destructive typhoons to hit the Philippines in recent years rose to 388 on Monday, the government said, as disease outbreaks threatened some of the stricken areas.Typhoon Rai struck the south and centre of the Asian nation on 16 and 17 December, toppling power lines and trees and unleashing deadly floods that also left hundreds of thousands homeless.The civil defence office in Manila raised the death toll from Rai to 388 with 60 others missing and hundreds

Chheut Dina was only a few days into her reduced shift cleaning Siem Reap International Airport when she was told not to come back to work.After 10 months with practically no tourism, the airport dropped its contract with Dina’s employer in December 2020, forcing her to cut spending on her family of seven and refinance a US$11,000 loan she took out before the pandemic.

Father Ricardo Virtudazo stands in a pool of water in his typhoon-hit church in the southern Philippines, delivering Christmas Day Mass to dozens of devotees whose wishes this year were for new roofs, food and fine weather.More than a week after Super Typhoon Rai cut through the archipelago, killing nearly 400 people and leaving hundreds of thousands homeless, survivors clung to family and faith after their homes - and planned festivities - were wiped out.“What’s important is all of us are sa

Concepcion Tumanda picks through the mud-caked wreckage of her home on a Philippine island devastated by Typhoon Rai that left hundreds dead across the country and survivors pleading for food and water.Rai slammed into the popular tourist destination of Bohol last Thursday, dumping torrential rain, ripping off roofs, uprooting trees and smashing fishing boats."The house was destroyed, everything was broken," Tumanda told AFP, weeping as she stood in the ruins of her home in the rive