Indian police say they have arrested the suspected leader of an illegal human kidney trading gang in one of the country's leading private hospitals.

The World Health Organization has congratulated Thailand as the first country in the Asia-Pacific region to eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphilis. 

It is also the first with a "large HIV epidemic" to eradicate mother-to-child transmission of the diseases. In 2014, an estimated 450,000 people were living with HIV in Thailand. 

Plenty of Chinese lawyers have been harassed, detained, even jailed in China but the photograph of one with his clothes reportedly torn off him by police has drawn plenty of attention in China.

Police in China's north-western region of Xinjiang are asking some residents to provide DNA samples and other biological data when applying for travel documents.

Around 330 million people in India are affected by drought, according to the government.

Troops have been called in after a second, more powerful earthquake hit southern Japan, killing 32 people, toppling large buildings and causing a massive landslide just over a day after an earlier deadly tremor.

The authorities in Taiwan have accused Kenya of using guns and tear gas to force 37 Taiwanese on to a plane bound for mainland China.

Emergency services received more than 150 reports of people trapped in lifts across Hong Kong, as storms battered much of southeast China.

The electricity company, CLP Power, told the South China Morning Post that there was a split second voltage dip in the network during the storm.

An explosion and blaze sparked by fireworks have killed at least 100 people at a Hindu temple in the Indian state of Kerala, police say.

The fireworks, which were to be used to celebrate a local new year festival, exploded about 03:30 (22:15 GMT Saturday).

At least 50 people have been killed and over 100 others injured in a suicide blast outside a public park in Pakistan's eastern city of Lahore, health ministry officials said.

"The blast was massive and has caused a lot of damage and fatalities," Jam Sajjad Hussain, spokesman for the emergency service "Rescue 112" told Al Jazeera on Sunday.

Most of the injured are women and children, Hussain confirmed.

A 35-year-old Indian man killed 14 members of his own family, including seven children and his parents, before killing himself, police say.

Reports suggest Hasnin Warekar laced his family's food with sedatives before slitting their throats.

Polls have closed in Myanmar's general election - the first openly contested national election in 25 years after decades of military rule.

Voting was brisk, with many people emerging smiling from polling stations.

Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) is expected to win the most parliamentary seats, although she is barred from the presidency.

The military-backed Union Solidarity Development Party (USDP) has been in power since 2011.

A council appointed by Thailand's military rulers has rejected a controversial new constitution drafted after last year's coup.

A new committee must now be appointed to write another draft, further setting back elections.

The draft has been widely criticised, in particular a clause which enables a 23-member panel to take over government during a "national crisis".

The army ousted the elected government last year after months of unrest.

A second foreign suspect has been arrested in connection with the deadly bombing at a Bangkok shrine in August, the Thai prime minister has revealed.The male suspect was arrested in Sa Kaeo province, east of Bangkok on the border with Cambodia, Prayuth Chan-ocha told reporters.

Thailand's police chief has announced that he will give an $83,000 (£53,793) public reward to his own men after they apprehended a suspect in the deadly bombing at Bangkok's Erwan Shrine.Somyot Pumpanmuang said the officers deserved it as there had been no public tip-off to help them.The 17 August blast, which the government called the worst such attack in Thailand, killed 20 people.