Asia

2 hours agoShareSaveAyaz MemonCricket writerShareSaveAs Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 unfolds, all eyes are on MS Dhoni who continues to command superstar status in Indian cricket despite retiring from international cricket in 2020.
Dhoni continues to be a key figure in the world’s richest cricket league.
Alongside him are veterans like Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, pace bowler Jasprit Bumrah, and emerging stars like Shubhman Gill, Yashaswi Jaiswal, and Rishabh Pant. They are among the players who led India to two ICC titles in the past nine months – the T20 World Cup in June and the Champions Trophy last month.
Yet, it is Dhoni who still commands unrivalled attention, with his leadership and presence in the league continuing to captivate fans.
The cricketer, who turns 44 in July, is playing his 18th straight IPL season, 16 of these representing Chennai Super Kings (CSK). He is the oldest player in the tournament this year, though not the oldest to have played in the IPL.
Australian..

3 hours agoShareSaveFarhat JavedBBC UrduReporting fromBalochistanShareSaveSaira Baloch was 15 when she stepped into a morgue for the first time.
All she heard in the dimly-lit room were sobs, whispered prayers and shuffling feet. The first body she saw was a man who appeared to have been tortured.
His eyes were missing, his teeth had been pulled out and there were burn marks on his chest.
“I couldn’t look at the other bodies. I walked out,” she recalled.
But she was relieved. It wasn’t her brother – a police officer who had been missing for nearly a year since he was arrested in 2018 in a counter-terrorism operation in Balochistan, one of Pakistan’s most restive regions.
Inside the morgue, others continued their desperate search, scanning rows of unclaimed corpses. Saira would soon adopt this grim routine, revisiting one morgue after another. They were all the same: tube lights flickering, the air thick with the stench of decay and antiseptic.
On every visit, she hoped she would not f..

8 hours agoShareSaveMaia DaviesBBC NewsShareSaveAt least two people died and hundreds evacuated their homes as wildfires raged in South Korea on Saturday.
Two firefighters were found dead in Sancheong County in the country’s south-east, news agency Yonhap reported, citing local officials.
Two others were reported missing as multiple fires blazed across the country, according to the Korea Forest Service.
A state of national disaster was declared at 18:00 local time (09:00 GMT), covering Ulsan city and North and South Gyeongsang provinces in the south-east.
More than 200 residents were ordered to leave their homes in eight villages because of the deadly fire in Sancheong County in South Gyeongsang province.
Acting President Choi Sang-mok had urged all efforts be put forward to extinguish the blaze by sunset, but strong winds hampered efforts at the scene around 250 kilometres (155 miles) southeast of Seoul.
Elsewhere, more than 400 residents were displaced because of a wildfire in Uiseon..

Lewis Hamilton takes his first win for Ferrari on only his second outing for the team with a dominant victory in the sprint race at the Chinese Grand Prix.

1 day agoShareSaveHatty NashBBC World ServiceShareSaveKalki Koechlin has acted in blockbuster Bollywood films, modelled for international beauty brands and appeared on the cover of Vogue India. But in a world that puts such a premium on looking young, she says at times she feels “ugly”.
“We live in a social [media] world that has distorted beauty,” the actor, writer and producer tells the award-winning BBC World Service podcast Dear Daughter. “It has tricked us into thinking beauty is a certain size, a certain colour or a certain shape.”
The half-hour programme features letters from parents to their children – in which they pass on the advice and life lessons which matter to them – and a conversation with the show’s host Namulanta Kombo.
Kalki’s letter is addressed to her five-year-old daughter. In it, she offers advice for navigating pressures around body image and describes the ways unrealistic beauty standards have affected her personally.
The actor, who lives in Goa in India with h..

2 days agoShareSaveSoutik BiswasIndia correspondent•@soutikBBCShareSaveBowlers will be allowed to use saliva to shine the cricket ball in the upcoming Indian Premier League (IPL), reversing the ban imposed during the Covid pandemic five years ago, reports say.
Indian cricket’s governing body’s decision came after a majority of the tournament’s franchise captains supported the move during a meeting on Thursday, ESPNcricinfo said.
A temporary saliva ban was introduced in May 2020 on medical advice during the pandemic, with use of sweat still permitted. The International Cricket Council (ICC) made the ban permanent in September 2022.
Players use saliva and sweat to polish one side of the ball in order to make it swing in the air.
The use of saliva was banned to reduce potential transmission of the Covid infection.
Saliva helps fast bowlers maintain the ball’s shine, creating an imbalance that aids swing, a key element in cricket’s bowling mechanics for more than a century.
It also helps b..

2 days agoShareSaveGavin ButlerBBC NewsShareSaveA South Korean court has ruled against chart-topping K-pop group NewJeans which had sought to cut ties with its record label Ador.
The court said the band, which had renamed themselves NJZ and began organising their own appearances, must not conduct any independent activities – from making music to signing advertising deals.
Earlier last year, NewJeans said that they were leaving Ador, after accusing them of mistreatment. Ador subsequently sued to have NewJeans’ contracts upheld and, after accusing the group of trying to sign independent deals without its approval, filed an injunction against them in January.
The group has said that they will challenge Friday’s decision.
The court’s ruling casts some uncertainty around the release of the group’s new song, slated for Sunday.
It also means they will now face difficulty re-debuting under their new name, NJZ, without facing severe financial penalties for breach of contract.
NewJeans and Ado..

2 days agoShareSaveSoutik BiswasIndia correspondent•@soutikBBCShareSaveIt all started with one question.
A query last week from an X (formerly Twitter) account called Toka was enough to propel Elon Musk’s built in-chatbot called Grok 3 into a viral storm across India’s digital landscape.
And no, it wasn’t some complex math equation or a philosophical debate.
Instead, it was a simple ask: “List my 10 best mutuals on X.” Mutuals are people who follow and engage with each other’s posts.
When Grok took a moment to respond, Toka, clearly frustrated, let loose some colourful language.
The chatbot shot back. It dropped a list of 10 mutuals but threw in some misogynistic insults in Hindi too.
Later, Grok shrugged it off, saying, “I was just having fun, but lost control.” The response grabbed two million views and other X users quickly followed suit, provoking the chatbot.
And just like that, the floodgates opened. Indians bombarded Grok with everything – cricket gossip, political rants,..

3 days agoShareSaveKelly NgBBC NewsReporting fromSingaporeSilvano HajidBBC IndonesianReporting fromJakartaShareSaveIndonesia’s parliament has passed controversial changes to legislation that will allow its military a bigger role in government.
Critics warn that the move could return Indonesia to the dark days of Suharto’s military dictatorship, which lasted 32 years until he was forced out of office in 1998.
The revisions backed by President Prabowo Subianto – a former special forces commander and Suharto’s son-in-law – allow military officers to take up positions in government without first retiring or resigning from the armed forces.
Hundreds of pro-democracy activists have camped outside parliament since Wednesday evening to protest at the changes.
“The essence of democracy is that the military should not engage in politics. The military should only manage barracks and national defence,” said Wilson, an activist with the Indonesian Association of Families of the Disappeared (KontraS..

3 days agoShareSaveKoh EweBBC NewsShareSaveFour Canadians were executed in China on drug-related charges earlier this year, Canadian authorities have confirmed.
All of them were dual citizens and their identities have been withheld, Canada’s foreign minister Mélanie Joly said.
A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Canada urged Ottawa to “stop making irresponsible remarks”, as pundits feared a further downturn in relations between the countries after years of strain.
China’s foreign ministry said on Thursday that it had acted “in accordance with the law”, while the embassy said there was “solid and sufficient” evidence for their crimes.
Beijing had “fully guaranteed the rights and interests of the Canadian nationals concerned”, the embassy said, urging Canada to respect “China’s judicial sovereignty”.
China does not recognise dual citizenship and takes a tough stance on drug crimes. However, it’s rare for the death penalty to be carried out on foreigners.
Joly said she had be..