Sri Lanka's police and military troops forcibly removed anti-government protesters camped outside the presidential office in Colombo in a pre-dawn raid on Friday on the order of the country's new President.

• Video: Ups and downs of Shinzo Abe

Protesters celebrated in Sri Lanka's commercial capital late into the night Thursday after President Gotabaya Rajapaksa tendered his resignation following a week of escalating demonstrations over the country's crippling economic crisis.

More than 50 US and Japanese warplanes flew over waters near Japan this week as the two allies put on a show of force amid rising tensions in the region with China and Russia.

• Sri Lanka's crisis rages on. Here's what we know

• What's next for Sri Lanka? • Video: See protesters enjoy luxuries in presidential palace

When Akie Matsuzaki married Shinzo Abe, then a rising political aide, in 1987, she followed a path well trodden by Japanese wives and gave up her job at the country's largest advertising agency.

Japan's ruling coalition swept to victory on Sunday in an upper house election that took on heightened significance following the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

An aquarium employee waves a mackerel near a penguin -- but there's no reaction. When she moves the fish closer to its beak, the penguin turns away haughtily. An otter sniffs the fish, then runs away.

Choi Jung-hun smiled as I read out the latest official Covid-19 figures from North Korean state media: fewer than 5 million cases of "fever" and just 73 fatalities -- a fraction of the death toll of every other country in the world.

As employees return to the office in South Korea, so does gapjil -- the country's longstanding problem of toxic workplace culture.

North Korea has criticized an agreement between the United States, South Korea and Japan to strengthen military cooperation -- claiming it is part of a US plan to create a military alliance like NATO in the region.

North Korea on Friday claimed its Covid-19 outbreak began when two residents touched "unusual things" near the South Korean border, according to state media.

Doctors and bankers were among hundreds of Sri Lankans who marched on Wednesday to demand the government resolve a severe fuel shortage at the heart of the Indian Ocean island's worst economic crisis in decades or step down.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate and journalist Maria Ressa said Tuesday the Philippine government has ordered her news organization Rappler to shut down.

Sri Lanka will shut schools and only allow fuel supplies to services deemed essential like health, trains and buses for two weeks starting Tuesday, a minister said, in a desperate attempt to deal with a severe shortage.

Sri Lanka is struggling to secure fresh fuel supplies, a top government minister said on Sunday, as the crisis-hit country of 22 million people is down to just 15,000 tons of petrol and diesel to keep essential services running in the coming days.