🇧🇩 Bangladesh

Workers return to garment factories despite record deaths

Hundreds of thousands of garment workers rush to major cities after the government said export factories could reopen despite the deadly coronavirus wave.

Rohingya refugees at risk during monsoon

Heavy rains this past week displaced more than 21,000 Rohingya refugees with resulting flooding and mudslides destroying about 6,418 shelters. With months of monsoon season still ahead, the refugees face heightened risks as they are being prevented from taking measures that could lessen the devastation from flooding.

🇨🇳 China

Death toll in Henan floods rises with dozens missing

The death toll from last month’s devastating floods in central China rose to 302 with dozens still missing.

iSpace fails to reach orbit again

The flight test of China's Hyperbola-1 rocket, built by the Chinese company iSpace, was unsuccessful making this the second such failure in less than six months.

Shares slide as online games branded 'electronic drugs'

Shares in Tencent and NetEase shares fell more than 10% in early Hong Kong trade after a state media outlet called them "electronic drugs". The companies managed to regaining some of those losses.

🇮🇳 India

Dalit girl rape and murder

Protests are continuing for the fourth day over the alleged gang rape, murder and forced cremation of a nine-year-old girl in Delhi as the girl's parents have accused a Hindu priest and three others of attacking her when she had gone to fetch drinking water from the crematorium's cooler.

India building secretive base in Mauritius

Recent satellite images and other documents detail progress on the construction of two naval jetties and a large runway on the remote Mauritian island of Agaléga where military analysts have told Al Jazeera the structures that are so far visible on the largely inaccessible Indian Ocean territory are almost certainly for military purposes.

First women-led unicorn readies IPO

e-commerce beauty products site Nykaa, led by founder Falguni Nayar, filed preliminary documents late Monday for an initial public offering, which Bloomberg News has reported could value the business at more than USD4 billion.

🇲🇾 Malaysia

PM says he still has majority

Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin insisted he still had the support necessary to lead the country after members of his key coalition ally said they would no longer back him following a rare rebuke from the king, amid continuing political tension in the midst of a surging coronavirus pandemic. Hundreds of Malaysians staged an anti-government protest on Saturday in defiance of a ban on public gatherings under coronavirus curbs, piling pressure on the embattled prime minister to resign.

🇸🇬 Singapore

Singapore ranked joint forth best economy

Singapore came in joint fourth in the world for how fast its start-ups turned into unicorns, according to a global ranking by British price comparison website Money.co.uk. Singapore's six unicorns took an average of six years and 11 months to cross USD1 billion  in valuation. They include ride-hailing giant Grab and image recognition technology firm Trax.

Police cameras to double to more than 200,000 over next decade

Singapore aims to have more than 200,000 police cameras by at least 2030, Minister for Home Affairs K Shanmugam said, over double the current number of cameras deployed across the country.

🇱🇰 Sri Lanka

West Container Terminal at Colombo Port gets 25-year tax holiday

The West Container Terminal at Colombo Port built by India’s Adani group and John Keells Holdings will cost USD650 million and get a 25-year tax holiday, a government notice said.

Ban on fertiliser relaxed

Minister of Finance Basil Rajapaksa issued a gazette notification re-authorizing the import of several types of chemical fertilisers.

Facebook groups gray market for the country’s weed dealers

Despite a law introduced in 1935 under British colonial rule criminalising it, cannabis is the most-used illicit drug in Sri Lanka, with an estimated 600,000 users. In recent years, cannabis has become extremely popular with Gen Z.