Colombo / AFP Police fired teargas and water cannon to disperse thousands of opposition-backed protestors outside parliament on Saturday as law makers debated the annual budget. Demonstrators led by loyalists of former president Mahinda Rajapakse held up traffic and blocked the main access to the parliament complex for several hours in the capital. Opposition lawmaker Ranjith Soysa said protesters …

  Maungdaw / AFP Malaysia accused Myanmar of engaging in the “ethnic cleansing” of its Rohingya minority on Saturday, as former UN chief Kofi Annan visited a burned out village in strife-torn Rakhine state. Tens of thousands of Muslim Rohingya have fled their homes since a bloody crackdown by the Myanmar army in the western state of Rakhine sparked by a …

  Bangkok / AFP A prominent Thai dissident was arrested under the country’s draconian royal defamation law on Saturday for sharing a BBC Thai profile of the new King Maha Vajiralongkorn on Facebook, supporters said. Thailand’s monarchy is protected from any criticism inside the kingdom by a harsh lese majeste law, use of which has skyrocketed since the military seized …