Asia & Pacific

In an era of increased cooperation among the countries comprising southeast and central Asia, Myanmar has joined with China to stage a series of unprecedented naval drills.

Reports that China either murdered or jailed 18 to 20 CIA agents between 2010 and 2012, crippling US spying operations in Beijing, came on the heels of the country’s historic Belt and Road Forum.

Taking a page straight out of late-night 1970s UHF television advertising, a US shipbuilder has urged Washington to spring for three new aircraft carriers simultaneously, because buying more stuff saves money.

A high-level North Korean detector has ominously claimed that the DPRK military has hundreds and hundreds of attack drones capable of carrying biological and chemical agents to attack Seoul within a single hour.

On Tuesday, the head of Japan’s Self Defense Forces said that North Korea has reached a “new stage” in its effort to build a long-range nuclear-armed missile capable of reaching the US mainland, and that Pyongyang’s threats require close collaboration between the US, Japan and South Korea.

The 70-year-old Governor of the State of Iowa, Terry Branstad, has been approved as the new US ambassador to China by a member majority vote in the US Senate from both Republicans and Democrats. Sputnik takes a look at how the new diplomat will affect bilateral relations.

In a rare bit of good news for privacy activists in the United States, a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that a legal challenge to the massive global surveillance architecture of the NSA may proceed, amid claims that the agency routinely invades the privacy rights of citizens while trampling on the laws of the US Constitution.

Seoul and Pyongyang should hold bilateral talks concerning the growing nuclear threat emanated from North Korea, South Korean Nominee for Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon said on Tuesday.

Philippines' President Rodrigo Duterte declared on Tuesday a martial law on the southern island of Mindanao, following the deadly firefight between government security forces and Islamists, Filipino Foreign Minister Alan Peter Cayetano said on Tuesday.

South Korean experts managed to establish the type of missile that the DPRK military launched on May 21. According to sources in the Defense Ministry of the Republic of Korea, it was a Pukykson-2 type missile. In the West, it is known as KN-15.

Close on the heels of the maiden flight of HTT-40 (PT-2), the second prototype of India’s indigenously built single-engine, three-ton light utility helicopter (LUH) made its maiden flight on Monday at its facility in Bengaluru. The flight was conducted without any snag in 22 minutes.

The Indian Army claimed on Tuesday that it had destroyed several Pakistan Army posts along the Line of Control across the Rajouri sector in punitive artillery fire. The Line of Control is the de facto border between India and Pakistan in Kashmir.

Scorching heat, coupled with drought, which has prompted a water crisis in several parts of India, has led to more than a 200 deaths as the temperature has soared to 49.3 degrees Celsius in India.

An "unidentified object" crossed the inter-Korean border from North Korea Tuesday, Yonhap news agency reported, citing South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).

Turkey's Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office issued arrest warrants for 144 people in the Turkish Armed Forces on suspicion of ties to the movement of US-based Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen, local media reported on Tuesday.

The Philippines does not want to be a pawn in the standoff between the United States and China in Southeast Asia. Washington may not help Manila in the event of a conflict with Beijing, and this is why the Philippines will continue talks with China, experts told Sputnik.

China looks set to foil India’s bid for Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) membership again as Beijing has hinted that its position on the admission of non-NPT members remains unchanged.

Ex-South Korean President Park Geun-hye, accused of multiple cases of corruption, has denied all charges during the first court hearing, which started on Tuesday.

A United Airlines flight from Shanghai to Newark was delayed for more than three hours on Sunday because an elderly man wearing a “Make America Great Again” cap became unruly and had to be removed.

Around 140 men were detained following a Monday raid by local law enforcement officers on a gay bar near Jakarta, Indonesia.