Hong Kong on Tuesday reduced the minimum age for getting vaccinated with China's Sinovac Covid-19 shot to six months from three years after several young children became infected with the virus.

Thailand is close to introducing chemical castration as a means of tackling sex crime after lawmakers approved a bill that will give some offenders the right to choose the procedure in return for a reduced prison sentence.

Thailand announced on Friday it would abandon its much-criticized pre-registration process for foreign visitors and no longer require face masks to be worn in public, responding to a slower Covid-19 spread.

China launched its third aircraft carrier on Friday, the domestically designed and built Fujian, state media reported, sending a statement of intent towards rival powers including the United States as it continues to modernize its military.

Japan's government is not liable for damages demanded by people whose lives were devastated by the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the country's top court said on Friday, according to Japanese media, the first such ruling in a series of similar cases.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's support edged down less than a month before a parliamentary election, with more than half of voters critical of how his government is handling rising prices, according to a survey published on Thursday.

Japan ran its biggest single-month trade deficit in more than eight years in May as high commodity prices and declines in the yen swelled imports, clouding the country's economic outlook.

North Korea has reported an outbreak of an unidentified intestinal epidemic on Thursday, potentially adding to strains on the isolated country's healthcare system which is battling an unprecedented Covid-19 wave.

Shanghai's lengthy Covid-19 lockdown pushed a quarter of US firms in the city to cut investment plans and nearly all to drop revenue forecasts, a business group said Wednesday.

A week-long strike by truck drivers in South Korea has disrupted shipments to China of a key cleaning agent used by makers of semiconductor chips, the Korean International Trade Association (KITA) said on Tuesday.