Asia

Human-caused global warming thinned glaciers and thawed mountain permafrost, likely helping to destabilize the Himalayan slope that collapsed last month and unleashed catastrophic flooding across Nepal, according to a report released Thursday.

The number of people ages 100 or older in Japan surpassed a record 100,000 this year, the latest government figures show, underscoring the country’s rapidly aging and declining population.

China urged the United States to halt its military buildup in outer space after Washington acknowledged it has weapons deployed in orbit, while Chinese state media warned the move could fuel a global arms race.

Indonesian housewife Mimi Marlina rode a motorbike through thickening haze blanketing the city of Pontianak on Borneo island, making a foray to buy groceries and supplies as the Southeast Asian nation battles raging forest fires.

North Korea said Monday it conducted a joint live-fire drill involving missiles, artillery and drones that it claimed demonstrated “huge destructive power.”

After nine days trapped in a hydropower tunnel and a week of hospital care following his dramatic rescue, Sanjay Sah, a rare survivor of last month’s devastating glacier collapse in Nepal, finally returned to his village and family on Sunday.

Indonesian rescuers launched a search operation Sunday after a passenger ship carrying at least 240 people lost contact in the Java Sea while traveling from East Java to South Kalimantan on Borneo island, officials said.

Three pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong who organized annual vigils for victims of China’s 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown were sentenced Friday under a national security law that critics say has stifled dissent.

A Hong Kong court on Thursday convicted the publisher of The Wall Street Journal of deterring its reporter from taking up a trade union role, in a case that raised concerns about press freedom in the city.

The ferry MV June Aster had sailed from Manila and was near Coron in Palawan province when the fire started Wednesday.