Tricky challenges await Nepal's new leader Sushil Koirala has to share power with a rival party, pass a constitution and ease tensions with disgruntled Maoists. Deepak Adhikari Last updated: 07 Mar 2014 13:07 Kathmandu, Nepal - Nearly two months after general elections, Nepal's new constituent assembly elected Sushil Koirala as the new prime minister of the Himalayan nation in February, granting the veteran politician a more than two-thirds majority. The unprecedented support for the 75-year-old chairman of Nepal's largest and oldest surviving political party, Nepali Congress (NC), showed that lawmakers were keen on moving on from the political deadlock that had gnawed at the country.

18 March 2014 Last updated at 03:55 ET

Afghan suicide bombing at market leaves many dead

A suicide bomb attack in northern Afghanistan has killed at least 15 people including women and children, officials have told the BBC.

Another 27 were wounded in the attack in Maymana, the capital of Faryab province, provincial governor Mohammadullah Batash said.

The bomber is believed to have detonated his explosives near the entrance to a busy market.

The attack comes as Afghans prepare to hold presidential elections on 5 April.

Bangladesh opposition's Khaleda Zia faces corruption trial

Former Bangladesh Prime Minister Khaleda Zia and other leading opposition members are to go on trial next month on corruption charges.

Ms Zia and her associates deny embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars in charitable funds.

The court in Dhaka set 21 April as the start of the trial after rejecting her lawyers' pleas for more time.

The trial is likely to stoke tension in Bangladesh after Ms Zia's BNP boycotted disputed elections in January.

20 March 2014 Last updated at 13:27 ET

Tamil doctor 'was pressured to recant war reports by Sri Lanka'

By Saroj PathiranaBBC Sinhala Service

A doctor who worked in Sri Lanka's combat zone in the final days of the civil war has told the BBC he was forced by the government to recant his claims about casualty figures.

Sri Lanka's army defeated the Tamil Tiger separatist rebels in May 2009.

Dr T Varatharaja was one of five doctors who spoke regularly to the media during the war, giving far higher casualty figures than the government.

The doctors were arrested and later said the rebels had forced them to lie.

Primark to pay $10M more to victims of Bangladesh factory collapse

March 17, 2014 10:32PM ET

Many brands still declining to pay into $40M fund for victims of April 24 collapse that killed more than 1,100 people. 

British clothes retailer Primark announced Monday that it will pay an additional $10 million in compensation to victims of last year’s Bangladeshi clothing factory collapse that killed more than 1,100 people.

Afghan President Chooses Tajik Leader as New Deputy

By MATTHEW ROSENBERGMARCH 18, 2014

KABUL, Afghanistan — President Hamid Karzai nominated a former interior minister on Tuesday to serve as one of his two vice presidents for the final months of presidency, filling an office that was left vacant by the death of Vice President Muhammad Qasim Fahim last week.

In naming Yunus Qanooni, who served as interior minister in the interim government set up after the fall of the Taliban, Mr. Karzai preserved the political and ethnic balance at the top of his government. Mr. Qanooni, like his predecessor, is an ethnic Tajik who rose to prominence through the old Northern Alliance, a now defunct coalition of militias that resisted the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in the 1990s.

3 Activists Held in Sri Lanka, Raising Fears of Crackdown

By GARDINER HARRIS and DHARISHA BASTIANSMARCH 17, 2014

NEW DELHI — Fears of a broad crackdown against rights activists in Sri Lanka have been heightened after the Sri Lankan police recently arrested two prominent human rights advocates and a woman who has made a public campaign of finding her missing son.

The arrests took place just as the United Nations Human Rights Council considers starting an inquiry into possible war crimes committed by government forces and separatists during Sri Lanka’s 26-year civil war.