North Korea fired a sixth short-range missile into the Sea of Japan on Monday, defying warnings from U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon and South Korea after a flurry of similar tests at the weekend.

In an ideal world, how would the recent shooting by the Philippine Coast Guard of a Taiwanese fishing boat, which resulted in the killing of one of the fishermen, have been handled?

On May 3, South Korea delivered US$13 million in cash to North Korea and withdrew the last batch of seven South Koreans from the industrial complex in the North Korean border town of Kaesong. The money was for back pay and severance pay to 53,000 North Koreans that had been withdrawn from the South Korean factories in the industrial complex at the height of inter-Korean tensions the previous month.

Myanmar's victims of sectarian strife were spared the full force of Cyclone Mahasen, but many are now returning to flimsy tents in flood-prone camps with the monsoon just weeks away.

A large majority of Japanese people disagree with a high-profile politician who said women forced to provide sex during World War II were a military necessity, polls issued Monday said.

Rescuers recovered five more bodies from a collapsed underground room at a giant U.S.-owned gold and copper mine in Indonesia, bringing the confirmed death toll to 14, police said Monday. Fourteen other workers were still missing and feared dead.

Australia seized a record 23 metric tons of illicit drugs in 2011-2012 with arrests at a 10-year high, data showed Monday, as officials warned the country had become a key target for traffickers.

The most senior Catholic in the Australian state of Victoria on Monday admitted the church had been too slow to act on pedophile priests, but insisted things had changed.

An elderly New Zealand anti-royalist was fined Monday over a plan to hurl manure at Britain's Prince Charles and his wife Camilla during their visit to Auckland last year, reports said.

Indonesia's president on Monday named the country's investment chief as the new finance minister, putting him in charge of Southeast Asia's top economy at a time of major challenges.