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    Japan rejects more than 99 per cent of refugees attempting to claim asylum in the country, accepting only 28 people in 2016. That was an increase of one person on 2015’s refugee intake. The country approved a further 97 people for Japanese residence on humanitarian grounds last year. Japan saw its highest ever number of applicants for refugee status in 2016, at 10,901, an increase of 3,315 compared to the previous year. Refugee advocates have argued Japan – which has one of the wealthiest economies in the world - has a humanitarian duty to do more, especially given its shrinking population. Japan is a highly homogenous society and has traditionally been sceptical of immigration. Here they do not pay for your studies, they do not help you to get bank loans, or give you soci...

    India’s top court on Friday upheld death sentences against four men who fatally gang raped a woman on board a bus in 2012, a crime that sparked widespread protests and drew international attention to violence against women. It’s a barbaric crime and it has shaken the society’s conscience, Justice R. Banumathi told a packed courtroom as the three-judge Supreme Court panel threw out an appeal on behalf of the defendants. The five men and a juvenile lured the 23-year-old trainee physiotherapist and her male friend on to a minibus in New Delhi on Dec. 16, 2012, repeatedly raping the woman and beating both with a metal bar before dumping them on a road. The woman died of grave internal injuries two weeks later in a Singapore hospital. Applause broke out in court among relatives...

    A new horizon of cooperation in space and telecommunication among the South Asian nations is going to be opened up as the much-awaited South Asia Satellite will be launched on Friday. After the launching of the South Asia Satellite into orbit, the top leaders of the seven South Asian nations will join a videoconferencing from their respective countries. ‘Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will join the videoconferencing from her official Ganabhaban residence in the evening,’ said PM’s Press Secretary Ihsanul Karim. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will participate in the videoconferencing from New Delhi. Besides, the heads of state of Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Nepal and Bhutan are expected to join the videoconferencing from their respective countries, s...

    China has reportedly told its citizens living in North Korea to return home, over fears that tensions between Pyongyang and Washington DC could continue to escalate. The Korea Times reports that the Chinese embassy in North Korea began advising Korean-Chinese residents to return to China last month, over fears the country’s military provocations could lead to retaliation from the US. According to Radio Free Asia, a US-based radio station that broadcasts to Asian countries, the embassy began sending the message to citizens ahead of the 85th anniversary of the Korean People’s Army last month. The radio station quoted a Korean-Chinese man living in Pyongyang who had been contacted by the embassy. Related video: North Korea propaganda video shows missile strike on US Capitol T...

    A Bangladeshi woman was rescued from the brothel in Budhwarpeth, Pune, in December 2015. After her salvage, she had been lured to India under the false pretext of a job, and was instead sold into commercial sex work, had to first find her way home. But now that clearance from her home country to accept her back has come through, she has tweeted a hand-written letter to the Prime Minister to help her convert the Rs 10,000 she had saved in the old denominations to new ones. In her letter to both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and minister of external affairs Sushma Swaraj, the survivor has laid bare her circumstances and how the money she had collected as tips from customers amounting to Rs 10,000 was in the possession of the brothel owners at the time of demonetisation, repor...