Yangon / AFP Former UN chief Kofi Annan will advise Myanmar’s new government on resolving conflicts in Rakhine, a region divided on religious grounds and home to the stateless Muslim Rohingya, it was announced on Wednesday. The country’s western state is deeply scarred by bouts of sectarian bloodshed in 2012 that forced more than 100,000 Rohingya into squalid displacement camps. …

  Seoul / AFP North Korea on Wednesday test-fired a submarine-launched missile 500 kilometres (around 300 miles) towards Japan, marking what weapons analysts called a clear step forward for its nuclear strike ambitions. The flight distance, which was tracked by South Korea’s military Joint Chiefs of Staff, far exceeded any previous SLBM tests, suggesting significant progress in technical prowess. A …

  Manila / AFP President Rodrigo Duterte has said his threat to pull the Philippines out of the United Nations for criticising his deadly crime war was just a “joke”, while attempting a light-hearted wordplay on genocide. Duterte on Sunday said he may withdraw the Philippines from the world body after a UN human rights expert said last week his encouragement …