China has promised four billion yuan (US$588 million) in aid to Cambodia, the Southeast Asian country's Prime Minister Hun Sen said Tuesday on a visit to Beijing.

Recent reports have revealed that villagers in the remote Lao settlement of Huaiyae in the scenic Vang Vieng region north of Vientiane have expressed concern about the possibility of losing their land to a Chinese development project. This was after local authorities were spotted in the town taking measurements and noting the locations of trees.

A decades-long push to halt the violence that has claimed some 150,000 lives in the southern Philippines culminated Monday with a vote on giving the nation's Muslim minority greater control over the region.The poll is the final step in a peace deal with the Catholic-majority country's largest Muslim rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which has been a key force in a separatist insurgency that has raged since the 1970s.Turnout was heavy in core areas of the propose

On a television set in a grim, overcrowded Bangkok detention centre refugees closely followed Saudi woman Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun's quest for resettlement, as the 18-year-old asylum-seeker's case spurred hopes of a major policy turn from Thailand – a country that does not recognise refugees.Qunun fled her family to Bangkok, barricaded herself in an airport hotel room and staved off deportation with her Twitter feed, ultimately gaining refuge in Canada on 12 January.

Klaus Schwab, who founded the World Economic Forum (WEF), has said his childhood during World War II inspired him to build an organisation that would make the world a better place.

Henry Sy, who became a billionaire by parlaying a shoe store into the biggest retailer in the Philippines, has died. He was 94.He died in his sleep this morning, his daughter Teresita Sy-Coson and Jose Sio, chairman of SM Investments Corp. said. Sy had a net worth of US$7.2 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, making him the richest person in the Philippines.“This morning Mr. Sy passed away peacefully as a happy man,” Sio said.Sy’s company started as a shoe store in 1948.

Gunmen in Thailand's deep south shot dead two Buddhist monks and wounded two others inside a temple, police said Saturday, capping a week of deadly violence as the prime minister vowed to "punish" those responsible.Black-clad assailants carrying rifles crept into Rattanaupap temple in Narathiwat province near Malaysia's border on Friday evening and started firing, local superintendent Pakdi Preechachon said.

When the military-backed government of Myanmar began a series of political reforms in 2011, the country’s political landscape changed for good. The political reforms carried out by Myanmar’s then government included the release of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest, the establishment of the National Human Rights Commission, general amnesties for more than 200 political prisoners and many others.

Former members of Singapore’s ruling party are banding together to form a new opposition group as general elections loom, presenting a new challenge to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s government as it prepares for leadership succession.Tan Cheng Bock, who vied to be the president eight years ago, is leading a group of 12 Singaporeans who registered this week to form the Progress Singapore Party, he said in a statement Friday.

Indonesia’s National Police recently announced that it would increase the allowances of police officers by 70 percent. According to police chief General Tito Karnavian, the allowances would apply retroactively and would be paid out this month.