Cambodia goes to the polls on Sunday in nationwide local elections after a two-week campaign that hinted at a return to a more contested political environment in the Southeast Asian country.The opening rally on 21 May was a familiar one in the capital of Phnom Penh: noisy processions of cars, trucks, motorised rickshaws and motorbikes, with people on loudhailers calling for everyone to vote in the elections. Cambodians will be selecting local leaders in each of the country’s 1,652 co

North Korea launched multiple ballistic missiles into waters off its east coast Sunday, South Korea's military said, a day after Seoul and Washington completed their first joint drills involving a United States (US) aircraft carrier in more than four years.Pyongyang has doubled down on upgrading its weapons programme this year, despite facing crippling economic sanctions."Our military detected eight short-range ballistic missiles fired from the Sunan area in Pyongyang, North Korea i

Hong Kong authorities on Saturday strove to stop any public commemoration of the 33rd anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown, with police warning gatherings could break the law as Beijing vies to remove all reminders of the events of 4 June. On that day in 1989, the government sent troops and tanks to break up peaceful protests, crushing a weeks-long wave of demonstrations calling for political change and curbs on official corruption.Hundreds, by some estimates more than 1,000, were

Here are the latest developments in the war in Ukraine.'Victory Will Be Ours': Zelensky' President Volodymyr Zelensky vows that Ukraine will prevail over Russian forces in a video marking 100 days since Moscow invaded its neighbour."Victory will be ours," a defiant Zelensky says in a video together with Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal and presidential advisor Mykhaylo Podolyak at the spot in Kyiv where they addressed the nation at the start of the war and promis

After a mass trauma comes the mass forgetting. No one really wants to talk about COVID any more, even though it tore through every dimension of our lives.

China provides a “glaring example” of how governments are cracking down on religious minorities, a United States (US) official has said, as the Department of State released its annual report on religious freedom around the world.Rashad Hussain, the US ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, said during a news conference on Thursday that “far too many governments remain undeterred of their repression of their citizens”.

Tens of thousands of people cheered Queen Elizabeth II on Thursday as she kicked off the first of four days of celebrations marking her record-breaking 70 years on the throne.The 96-year-old royal's appearance at the Platinum Jubilee – a milestone never previously reached by any British monarch – had been in doubt due to illness and recent mobility problems.But dressed in dove blue, her hands clasped on a walking stick, she appeared on the Buckingham Palace balcony to take a salute after

China's Foreign Affairs Minister Wang Yi has been on a marathon tour across the Pacific Islands – his visit was a sign of Beijing's willingness to close a sweeping trade and security deal with 10 countries in the region.The ambitious deal – which covered a wide range of issues, from cybersecurity to a Chinese-funded police training academy and setting up more Chinese cultural links across the Pacific nations – was meant to tie the region much closer to Beijing.But it was revealed th

Post-coup violence has pushed the number of displaced people in Myanmar over one million for the first time, the United Nations (UN) has said, warning of "dire" conditions as the monsoon approaches and fighting rages.Almost 700,000 people have been forced to flee their homes since the toppling of Aung San Suu Kyi's government last year, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) said on Tuesday.Civilian militias have formed to fight back against the cou

The Chinese military has said it conducted a “combat readiness patrol” in the sea and airspace around the self-ruled island of Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory.In a statement, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Eastern Theatre Command said the exercises had taken place in recent days and were “a necessary action” against what it described as “US-Taiwan collusion”. “Recently, the United States has frequently made moves on the Taiwan issue, saying one thing and doing ano