Schools in Beijing are closed and outdoor construction halted as the Chinese capital's first ever pollution "red alert"red alert" came into effect.

China announces $60bn (£40bn) of assistance and loans for Africa to help with the development of the continent.

Schools in the Chinese capital Beijing are ordered to keep children indoors amid extremely high levels of air pollution.

Discarded end-of-life electronic and electrical devices, or e-waste, are the fastest growing waste stream in the world.

India will urge rich nations to deliver "climate justice" for developing countries at a major environmental conference in Paris later this month, the environment minister of the country says in an interview with AFP.

Chinese police kill 28 members of a "terrorist group" in the mainly Muslim Xinjiang region, in the bloodiest such operation in months and as Beijing denounces Western "double standards" in the wake of the Paris attacks.

A new gene that makes bacteria highly resistant to a last-resort class of antibiotics has been found in people and pigs in China - including in samples of bacteria with epidemic potential, researchers said on Wednesday.

Japan's economy slid back into recession in July-September as uncertainty over the overseas outlook hurt business investment.

A landslide engulfs homes in China kills at least 16 people, with 21 still missing, as heavy rains brought misery across a swathe of the country.

E-commerce giant Alibaba has broken its own record for sales on China's Singles Day, the world's biggest online shopping event.

Chinese state media and netizens decries high pollution levels in the northeast city of Shenyang, which activists say could be the "worst ever" air quality seen in the country.

Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou will meet his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Singapore this weekend, the two sides said, in what will be the first meeting between leaders from the rivals since the end of a civil war in 1949.

The US says it plans to return to contested areas of the South China Sea, with a top security official saying there will be "more demonstrations" of freedom of navigation in the region.

China raised the central rate for its yuan currency by the largest amount in a decade on Monday, officials and reports said.

Chinese state media have welcomed the news China is reforming its decades-old one-child policy, with one editorial saying it "echoes the people's will".

A professor in China invents a taxing new way of preventing students from turning up late for his classes.

China decides to end its decades-long one-child policy.

The world’s biggest steel industry in China is in grave crisis.

The deputy director of the US National Security Agency (NSA), Richard Ledgett, warns of the increasing danger of destructive cyber attacks by states.

A US Navy ship has sailed close to artificial islands built by China in the disputed waters of the South China Sea, US defence officials have said.