BANGKOK, Dec 8 — Thailand’s Deputy Prime Minister cum Foreign Minister Parnpree Bahiddha-Nukara and his Myanmar counterpart Than Swe discussed the ongoing situation in Myanmar at the sidelines of the 8th Mekong-Lancang Cooperation (MLC) Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Beijing.

SEOUL, Dec 8 — Vice finance ministers of South Korea, China, Japan, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) have agreed to improve a currency swap mechanism as part of efforts to boost overall financial cooperation, said Seoul's Ministry of Economy and Finance yesterday.

JAKARTA, Dec 8 — Indonesia is considering granting visa-free entry to nationals of 20 countries, including the United States, China, Australia, India, South Korea, Germany, Britain and France, to boost its tourism and economy, its Tourism Minister Sandiaga Uno said yesterday.

TOKYOm Dec 7— Deputies of the ASEAN+3 group of nations agreed on Thursday to set up a new regional lending facility to respond to emergencies in the region amid rising uncertainty over a global economic slowdown and elevated US interest rates.

BEIJING, Dec 7  —Top EU officials met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Thursday for their first in-person summit in four years to discuss issues ranging from trade imbalances to Ukraine, with an agenda full of tough rhetoric but light on deliverables.

BRUSSELS, Dec 7 — EU countries and lawmakers have agreed on rules governing artificial intelligence systems such as ChatGPT after 10 hours of discussions, a person with direct knowledge of the talks said on Thursday.

TANAH DATAR, Dec 7 — Rescuers have evacuated all of the climbers who were trapped on Indonesia's Marapi volcano, a spokesperson for the search and rescue agency said on Wednesday, after it erupted this week, killing 23 people.

WASHINGTON, Dec 7 — United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned the Security Council yesterday that the war in the Gaza Strip "may aggravate existing threats to international peace and security." Invoking Article 99 of the UN Charter for the first time since he became the...

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 6 — The airline industry’s net profit is expected to reach US$25.7 billion (US$1=RM4.67) in 2024, accounting for 2.7 per cent in net profit margin, said the International Air Transport Association (IATA).

DUBAI Dec 6 —  UN climate chief Simon Stiell told countries on Wednesday to agree ambitious action to tackle global warming at the COP28 climate summit rather than fall into the trap of point scoring and "lowest common denominator politics".

HONG KONG Dec 6 —TikTok owner ByteDance is offering to buy back around US$5 billion worth of shares from investors at a price that will value the company at about US$268 billion, two people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.

BEIJING, Dec 6 — Declines in China's exports likely slowed in November, a Reuters poll showed on Wednesday, amid mixed signs factories in the world's second-largest economy may be finding their footing after a bruising slump in demand.

BANGKOK,  Dec 6 — Thailand's economy is expected to grow between 2.5 per cent to 3.0 per cent this year, unchanged from a previous forecast, a leading joint business group said on Wednesday.

DUBAI, Dec 6 — Egypt commended the 28th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP28) as a "new era" for global cooperation in addressing climate change.

ISTANBUL, Dec 6 — Beijing on Tuesday announced that its visa-free entry programme for six nations has yielded "positive results," with an increase in the number of people entering Chinese territory since early December.

JAKARTA, Dec 6 — The death toll from the Mount Marapi volcanic eruption in Indonesia's West Sumatra province has risen to 23, all of them hikers, police said today, as ash and smoke blanketed parts of the region.

MANILA, December 6 — Workers, residents, and students evacuated buildings in the Philippine capital Manila yesterday after a 5.9 magnitude earthquake struck off the main Luzon island, according to the state seismology agency and images carried by media.

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 5 — Air cargo volumes for Asia-Pacific airlines increased by 7.6 per cent in October 2023 compared with the same month in 2022, with carriers in the region benefiting from ongoing growth in international cargo tonne-kilometres (CTKs) on three major trade lanes.

GAZA CITY (Palestine), Dec 5 — The Palestinian telecommunications company (PalTel) on Monday said that all communication and internet services in the Gaza Strip have been completely cut off.

DUBAI, Dec 5 — The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria (Global Fund) announced that more than 70 per cent of its funding, totaling over US$9 billion, will be allocated over the next three years to support countries most heavily impacted by climate change, aiming to bolster health programmes.