Malaysia will this week host a summit of Muslim leaders billed as a forum to look at the Islamic world's problems, but it will be closely watched for Middle East power plays and their stance on China's Uighur minority.Leaders from Iran, Turkey, and Qatar will be among hundreds of delegates attending the three-day event set to discuss myriad challenges faced by Muslims.The summit has been pushed by Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who has long championed greater solidarity

Thailand recently witnessed, what is considered by many, to be the largest street protest in more than five years (before the military coup of 2014). Thousands of people gathered on the skywalk linking the National Stadium and Siam Bangkok Mass Transit System (BTS) stations, chanting “Prayut get out” at an anti-military demonstration on Saturday. Heading the protest?

Philippine journalist Maria Ressa said Monday she would not be silenced as she launched her defence against a libel charge that press advocates call an attempt to curb her news site's critical coverage of President Rodrigo Duterte.Her site Rappler has written extensively and often critically on Duterte's policies, including his deadly drugs war that rights groups say may amount to crimes against humanity."I can go to jail for 12 years for this (case), that is the maximum senten

Thousands rallied in Bangkok behind the popular leader of an upstart anti-establishment party on Saturday, in the first major protest since March elections returned a junta-aligned government to power.Protesters held signs calling for democracy and flashed a three-finger salute, a rallying symbol used by the Future Forward Party (FFP) that got more than six million votes in the election, thanks to mostly young Thais weary of the military's role in politics. The party's popu

Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi urged United Nations (UN) judges on Thursday to throw out a genocide case against Myanmar, warning it risked reigniting the crisis that forced nearly three quarters of a million Rohingya Muslims from their homes.In her closing arguments after a three-day hearing at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), Myanmar's de facto civilian leader issued a stark warning to judges that allowing Gambia's case against Myanmar to go ahead could "under

A North Korean man is likely to face money-laundering charges in the United States (US) after a Malaysian court approved his extradition Friday, in a case his lawyers claim is politically motivated. Mun Chol Myong has denied FBI claims that he led a criminal group that violated sanctions by supplying luxury goods to his isolated homeland and laundered funds through front companies. The 54-year-old, who has lived in Malaysia with his family for a decade, was arrested in May f

Singapore has defended a controversial new law against misinformation that it has wielded against Facebook, after an opposition party launched a withering attack on the legislation.The law gives ministers in the tightly-regulated city powers to order internet platforms to put warnings next to posts they deem false, but activists fear it could be used to stifle dissent.Authorities used the measure twice last month, ordering Facebook to put a correction by a post for the first time, and telling

Malaysia's leader-in-waiting Anwar Ibrahim was Thursday questioned by police over allegations he sexually assaulted a male former aide, the latest such scandal to hit the veteran politician's career.Anwar said he was quizzed at national police headquarters over the claims by Muhammed Yusoff Rawther, which he has vehemently denied.The lawmaker, seen as the likely successor to Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, spent almost a decade in jail after being convicted of sodomising a young ma

Last week, in a letter to the Cambodian Editor Forum, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen wrote a statement which seems to counter his alleged actions in the lead up to the country’s controversial July 2018 general election: “News media should dare to speak the truth.”Hun Sen, however, has been accused of not only jailing his opponents – making the July election a supposed farce – but in May 2018, his administration had also purportedly clamped down on media freedom. In that mo

Nearly 100 Rohingya appeared in a Myanmar court Wednesday after being arrested for trying to flee persecution, their lawyer said, as leader Aung San Suu Kyi addressed the UN's top court to deny allegations of a genocidal campaign against the ethnic minority.One-by-one, the weary detainees stepped down from a police van at the courthouse in the western Myanmar city of Pathein.Their crime was to leave their home townships without permission from authorities.Rohingya in Rakhine state live u