South Korea voiced regret Thursday at North Korea's decision to spurn an offer of formal talks on removing goods from a joint industrial complex closed by military tensions.

A total of 69,789 residents in Myanmar's western Rakhine state have been evacuated as of Wednesday to avoid possible threat from Cyclone Mahasen, official media said Thursday.

A ceiling collapse at a Cambodian shoe factory killed at least one worker on Thursday, police said, with regional industrial safety in the spotlight after last month's disaster in Bangladesh.

Japan said Thursday that its economy grew again in the quarter to March, pointing to a recovery as Tokyo and its hand-picked central bank team set about stoking the world's third-largest economy.

An angry President Barack Obama sacked the acting head of the US Internal Revenue Service on Wednesday over a fast moving scandal sparked when officials unfairly targeted conservative groups.

Health care workers and institutions came under violent attack in 22 countries last year, including 150 killings, the Red Cross said Wednesday, lamenting that such violence deprives millions of people in need of care.

A three-year-old boy has died after being left inside a private school bus for several hours in sweltering heat, Thai police said Wednesday, the second such death of a toddler in recent weeks.

Hong Kong's security minister came under fire Wednesday for saying that women should "not drink too much" if they wanted to avoid being raped.

Philippine President Benigno Aquino apologised Wednesday for the killing by his country's coastguard of a Taiwanese fisherman, and appealed for calm amid deepening outrage in Taiwan.

Doctors on Wednesday successfully carried out life-saving surgery on an Indian baby suffering from a rare disorder that caused her head to swell to nearly double its size, her neurosurgeon told AFP.