CNN – Asia/Pacific

By Jessie Yeung and Gawon Bae, CNN For years, South Korea’s biggest annual LGBTQ pride celebration has been held in the same grassy square in central Seoul, which fills up with performers and joyful participants decked out in rainbow costumes. But this year, the Seoul Queer Culture Festival (SQCF) has been turned away from the

By Junko Ogura, CNN A police officer was found dead in the grounds of the Japanese Prime Minister’s official residence early Friday morning, according to Tokyo Metropolitan Police, who are investigating the incident as a possible suicide. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida was not at the residence when a fellow police officer found the 25-year-old man

By Simone McCarthy and Juliana Liu, CNN Fang Bin, a retailer turned citizen journalist who documented the early outbreak of Covid-19 in Wuhan, has been released after more than three years’ detention in China, a family member told CNN. Fang disappeared after sharing videos showing the on-the-ground situation in the central Chinese city, the epicenter

By Manveena Suri, Sugam Pokharel and Caolán Magee, CNN A US climber has died on his way to scale Mount Everest on Monday, according to an expedition organizer. “Jonathan Sugarman died at Camp 2 after he began to feel unwell,” Pasang Sherpa told CNN on Tuesday. Seattle-based Sugarman was part of an expedition arranged by

By Heather Chen, Irene Nasser and Teele Rebane, CNN Search efforts are underway for three missing crew members after a Gabon-registered oil tanker caught fire off the coast of southern Malaysia, Malaysian maritime authorities said in a statement. The Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) said it had received an alert at 4pm local time Monday

By Chris Lau, CNN One of the world’s most densely populated cities might seem an unlikely refuge for endangered wildlife. But behind the concrete jungle of Hong Kong, where more than 7 million people mingle in a 430 square mile area home to more skyscrapers than New York city, lies one of the last holdouts

By Sophie Tanno, CNN The influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has hit back at a key agreement made between the US and South Korea, claiming it will only serve to worsen security. Washington and Seoul made a pact at the White House on Wednesday that aims to deter North Korean aggression,

By Tara Subramaniam and Kocha Olarn, CNN Thai police say they are investigating whether a woman arrested this week on suspicion of murdering her friend with cyanide may have done the same to at least 12 other victims in a spate of killings that has transfixed the kingdom. The suspect, who police have identified only

By Jessie Yeung, CNN American singer songwriter Don McLean joked on Thursday that he was planning to sing his iconic “American Pie” with the South Korean president, after the leader entertained US President Joe Biden with a karaoke rendition of the song. The two leaders met Wednesday at the White House state dinner, a glamorous

By Helen Regan, CNN Elephants have lost almost two-thirds of their habitat across Asia, the result of hundreds of years of deforestation and increasing human use of land for agriculture and infrastructure, a new study has found. The Asian elephant, listed as endangered, is found across 13 countries in the continent but their forest and

By Brad Lendon, CNN When the presidents of the United States and South Korea this week announced a landmark deal to deter North Korean aggression, one element of the pact stood out. Plans to deploy a US nuclear-armed submarine to South Korea for the first time since 1981 were the headline act in the unveiling

By Simone McCarthy and Nectar Gan, CNN China has broadened the scope of its already sweeping counter-espionage law in a move that analysts warn could create further legal risks or uncertainty for foreign companies, journalists and academics. The changes expand the definition of espionage from covering state secrets and intelligence to any “documents, data, materials

By Nectar Gan and Wayne Chang, CNN A Taiwan-based book publisher has been placed under investigation in China on suspicion of “endangering state security,” Beijing said Tuesday amid mounting concern over his disappearance. Li Yanhe, better known by his pen-name Fu Cha, was reportedly detained by police in Shanghai in March, shortly after he arrived