Asia News

A preacher in Saudi Arabia was convicted of raping and killing his 5-year-old daughter. He has been sentenced 8 years in prison and 800 lashes. His second wife, who took part in the crime, was sentenced to 10 months in prison and 150 lashes. Reportedly, he had tortured and raped his daughter after he had doubted her virginity.

Followed by China's air patrol expansion, South Korea on Sunday announced to expand its air patrol zone to include airspace over East China Sea, which is also claimed by Beijing and Tokyo. The move, which comes for the first time in 62 years, is the latest sign of a broadening discord among the Northeast Asian neighbors.

Aiming to cater to the world's fastest growing consumer technology markets, Google on Wednesday opened it's first data centres in Asia (Taiwan and Singapore). However, the company has no plans to open one in China or India due to the regulations. The tech giant also announced that it abandoned plans to build a third data centre in Hong Kong.

The Philippines' civil aviation authority on Tuesday said it would allow passengers to use portable electronic devices like mobile phones and laptops to make calls and access Internet during flights. However, only conditional use of the devices would be allowed. Earlier, the US and the European Union had also made similar announcements to relax restrictions on the devices.

More than 19,000 people have been displaced in Indonesia due to a volcano that has been erupting for months, an official said on Tuesday. According to the National Disaster Mitigation Agency, Mount Sinabung, situated on the western island of Sumatra, sent hot rocks and ash 7,000 metres (23,000 feet) in the air on Monday night and Tuesday morning.

In his new year message, North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un on Wednesday said, "If the war breaks out again in this land, it will bring about a massive nuclear disaster and the US will never be safe". Kim added he would not beg for peace and vowed to protect North Korea with strong self-defence measures against enemies.