Sri Lankan police on Thursday blocked Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Minh Tue from continuing his barefoot journey around the South Asian island until he changes his visa, a witness told Radio Free Asia.
North Korean forces deployed in Russia’s Kursk region may soon be sent into annexed regions of Ukraine that remain fiercely contested by Russian and Ukrainian forces, a senior Ukrainian official said.
A Vietnamese Buddhist monk on a barefoot pilgrimage from his homeland to India ran into some unexpected opposition in Sri Lanka on the latest leg of his circuitous journey around Asia.
Chinese authorities have interrogated and detained local Tibetans who posted photos and messages online mourning the loss of an influential Tibetan Buddhist leader said to have died while in custody in Vietnam, two sources from the region told Radio Free Asia.
Myanmar’s junta bombed a monastery in the country’s northwest on Saturday, killing five people, including children, just one day before it publicly announced that a recent earthquake had destroyed almost 10,000 religious buildings across the country.
As the United Nations called for $275 million in aid for quake-hit Myanmar, neighboring China pledged 1 billion yuan (US$137 million), eclipsing the offers from other international donors.
Junta airstrikes in northwestern Myanmar killed more than 30 civilians, including an entire family, residents and officials told Radio Free Asia on Thursday.
The Tibetan government-in-exile called Tuesday for an independent investigation into the death of an influential Tibetan Buddhist leader said to have died in Vietnam, where he was reportedly in hiding from the Chinese government.
A rebel army and allied forces near Myanmar’s northwestern border with India have seized towns that were previously under the junta control, sources told Radio Free Asia.
Some North Korean hospitals are posting prices for treatment and medicine in a break from past practice that suggests authorities are abandoning the goal of providing free health care, sources in the country have told Radio Free Asia.