Paetongtarn Shinawatra, whose father Thaksin and aunt Yingluck Shinawatra both led governments toppled by the army, will run under the Pheu Thai Party, the latest incarnation of a populist movement founded by her billionaire family two decades ago. 

Three years after the first case of COVID-19 we look at how it has changed our lives in Asia and what will stick with us even after the pandemic subsides.

Ship tracking data shows the vessel, CCG 5901, has been sailing in the Natuna Sea, particularly near the Tuna Bloc gas field and the Vietnamese Chim Sao oil and gas field since Dec. 30, the Indonesian Ocean Justice Initiative told Reuters.

"Thirty-one (bodies) have been taken to hospitals," police official AK Chhetri told AFP, adding that 36 other bodies were still in the 300-metre (600-foot) gorge the aircraft plunged into.

In her annual press briefing, the foreign minister highlighted Indonesia's aim to take a more expansive leadership role on global issues, but at least one leading researcher noted that she refrained from mentioning key issues relevant to the country.

As this year's ASEAN chair, rights organizations say Indonesia has an opportunity to raise the Rohingya issue to the bloc's agenda, especially as the country had received over 600 Rohingya refugees recently.

Footage shared on social media showed flames on the ground and black smoke billowing into the sky, apparently from wreckage strewn across the crash site.

People in China are resuming travel ahead of the Lunar New Year, despite worries about infections after Beijing dropped COVID-19 curbs last month, with air passenger volumes recovering to 63 percent of 2019 levels since the annual travel season began.

Space defense, US troop deployments and a "hugely significant" deal with Britain: Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is collecting more than souvenirs on his whirlwind diplomatic tour.

The peak of China's COVID-19 wave is expected to last two to three months, and will soon swell over the vast countryside where medical resources are relatively scarce, a top Chinese epidemiologist has said.

Floods and natural disasters that hit all but one Australian state and territory in 2022 cost the economy A$5 billion ($3.48 billion) and stoked inflation according to Treasury estimates which forecast billions more spending in 2023.

The proposed Bilateral Security Treaty, which both parties committed to finish negotiating by April 30, will cover defence, with discussions underway over troop training and joint operations, in addition to issues like climate change and cyber security.

Weeks after unveiling plans to ramp up security spending, Japan sent its defense and foreign ministers to Washington where the two countries issued a statement vowing to "modernize the alliance in order to address the increasingly severe security environment."

People in China worried on Thursday about spreading COVID-19 to aged relatives as they planned returns to their hometowns for holidays that the World Health Organization warns could inflame a raging outbreak.

The British and Japanese prime ministers signed what Downing Street called a "hugely significant" new defense deal allowing UK troops to deploy in Japan as the pair met in London on Wednesday.

South Korea and Japan have in recent weeks imposed fresh travel requirements on all visitors from China, as the world's most populous country battles a surge in Covid cases.

The Indonesian foreign minister stressed that the country would keep ASEAN unity front and center during its 2023 chairmanship.

Countries should consider recommending that passengers wear masks on long-haul flights, given the rapid spread of the latest Omicron subvariant of COVID-19 in the United States, World Health Organization (WHO) officials said on Tuesday.

Mosquitoes that transmit dengue and other viruses have evolved growing resistance to insecticides in parts of Asia, and novel ways to control them are desperately needed, new research warns.

China ditched mandatory quarantines for arrivals and allowed travel to resume across its border with Hong Kong on Sunday, removing the last major restrictions under the "zero-COVID" regime which it abruptly began dismantling in early December after historic protests against the curbs.

Myanmar authorities have sentenced 112 Rohingya, including a dozen children, to between two and five years in prison for attempting to travel to Malaysia "without legal documents", state media reported Tuesday. 

"Usually an autobiography is written by someone who is retiring from his job. I have just been in this [Prime Minister] position for a little over a month," Anwar said responding to a query from one member of the audience who joined a public lecture organized by businessman Chairul Tanjung in South Jakarta.

New ASEAN Secretary-General Kao Kim Hourn will prioritize the six P’s of peace, prosperity, planet, people, partnerships and potentials during his four-year term as administrative head of the bloc, he said in his inaugural speech on Monday.

Indonesia and Malaysia, the world’s largest palm oil exporters, have agreed to build stronger collaboration to further develop the palm oil market and to combat discrimination against the commodity.

Anwar, a long-time opposition leader, was sworn in as the country's 10th prime minister on November 24 to head a unity government in a shaky alliance with the graft-tainted party of his former political rivals.

After three years, mainland China opened sea and land crossings with Hong Kong and ended a requirement for incoming travellers to quarantine, dismantling a final pillar of a zero-COVID policy that had shielded China's 1.4 billion people from the virus but also cut them off from the rest of the world.

The shallow quake hit around 11:30 pm local time (1230 GMT) around 27 kilometres (17 miles) deep, said the USGS, which placed it about 25 kilometres from the village of Port-Olry.

President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo is expected to receive Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim at the Bogor Palace in West Java on Monday.

In recent years, US warships, and on occasion those from allied nations such as Britain and Canada, have sailed through the strait, drawing the ire of China, which claims Taiwan against the objections of its democratically elected government.

Though it has been posited that the Myanmar crisis has caused a rift in the regional grouping, at least two experts refute this premise, saying that working through differing views toward consensus is actually the ASEAN way.