Pentagon chief Jim Mattis tried to clear up doubts about the US administration's North Korea strategy Tuesday, backing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's effort to find a diplomatic solution to the nuclear standoff.Defence Secretary Mattis was speaking two days after President Donald Trump appeared to undermine his top diplomat by saying Tillerson was "wasting his time" by maintaining contacts with Kim Jong-Un's regime.State Department officials insist Trump was not c

ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) is facing unpredictable times ahead.

Bangladesh has deployed secret police in the burgeoning refugee camps near its border with Myanmar, where Rohingya claiming to be members of a militant group say they have found fertile ground for recruitment.Authorities in Bangladesh, which was already grappling with its own Islamist militancy problem before the latest mass influx of Rohingya refugees, have repeatedly said there are no extremists among the new arrivals.But inside the camps are a number of self-proclaimed members of the ARSA

Now is not the time to talk to North Korea, the White House declared Monday, as President Donald Trump appeared to undermine efforts to force Pyongyang to the table.Until this weekend, Washington's plan to counter Kim Jong-Un's increasingly sophisticated nuclear arsenal seemed to be to employ sanctions and diplomatic pressure to convince him to talk.Secretary of State Rex Tillerson confirmed this on Saturday in Beijing when he told reporters Washington is using diplomatic channels t

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen’s crackdown on his critics have taken a turn for the worse as opposition parliamentarians have fled the country for fear of being incarcerated like their opposition leader, Kem Sokha.Hun Sen’s actions came amidst fears that his 32-year rule in the country might end due to increased support for the opposition.

A senior Myanmar minister proposed Monday to take back the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya who have fled across the border after a military crackdown, Bangladesh said, but gave no details of how the huge task could be achieved.More than half a million Rohingya have arrived in Bangladesh over the last five weeks after militant attacks on police checkposts there sparked violent reprisals, with entire villages burned to the ground.Most are now living in desperate conditions in overcrowded camp

Two women go on trial Monday accused of murdering the half-brother of North Korea's leader, in an audacious assassination in Malaysia that stunned the world and sparked a diplomatic crisis.Indonesian Siti Aisyah and Vietnamese Doan Thi Huong arrived at the heavily guarded court outside the capital Kuala Lumpur for the proceedings, handcuffed and wearing bulletproof vests.The defendants were arrested just days after the killing of Kim Jong-Nam on February 13 as he waited to board a plane

Bangladesh is to move to a camp at least 15,000 Rohingya refugees who have settled in a restive hill district near the border with Myanmar, a local official said Sunday.Most of the estimated half a million Rohingya who have arrived in southeastern Bangladesh over the last five weeks after fleeing violence in Myanmar are crammed into the camps that have sprung up on government land.But thousands of the mainly Muslim refugees have settled in the nearby district of Bandarban, part of the Chittag

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has said he would not cooperate with a special anti-corruption prosecutor's investigation into allegations he acquired ill-gotten wealth, vowing he would "not submit" to its authority.The ombudsman said last week it was investigating claims Duterte's bank accounts had hundreds of millions of pesos (millions of dollars) which he failed to disclose as required by law.Duterte responded by lashing out at the ombudsman, calling the agency &q