Asia

Top officials at a Malaysian sovereign-wealth fund said they would resign en masse, signaling Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad’s resolve to shake up senior civil-service ranks following his election in May.

Preliminary voting results showed the party of former cricket star Imran Khan poised late Wednesday to come into power for the first time, upending the political landscape in the fragile democracy.

For nearly 24 hours, engineers from South Korea and Laos raced to save the Xe-Pian Xe-Nomnoy dam before it cracked on Monday night, unleashing waters that killed at least 19 people and prompting a rescue operation for thousands of stranded villagers.

A bombing outside a polling station in the city of Quetta in western Pakistan killed at least 30 people, according to officials, as voting began in a pivotal national election.

A hydroelectric dam project being built in Laos collapsed after days of torrential rains, leaving hundreds of people missing and several others dead.

China defended its $62 billion infrastructure-building program in Pakistan, saying the initiative isn’t causing a debt crisis in the South Asian country.

Pakistani voters go to the polls Wednesday in the country’s second straight democratic transition, with former cricket star Imran Khan poised to lead his party to its best-ever performance—perhaps even good enough to make him prime minister, according to pre-election polls.

Two years after the dismissal of corruption charges against her, former Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo returns as speaker of the House, where she can advance President Rodrigo Duterte’s agenda.

The Philippines moved closer to passing a law meant to end decades of conflict in the country’s south, though a bout of political infighting interrupted the ratification process.

Hackers stole the personal health records of Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and more than 1.5 million other people in an unprecedented data breach.

North Korea put planned reunions of families separated by the Korean War into question and denounced South Korea’s latest demands that it embrace full denuclearization, adding to signals that Pyongyang could be backtracking on agreements with Washington and Seoul.

Pakistan’s military is working behind the scenes to manipulate this month’s election to try to produce a government it can better control, politicians and human-rights groups said.

When the 12 boys of the Wild Boars soccer team in northern Thailand realized they were trapped in a flooded cave, they “lost their minds—out of control,” crying day and night, before the team’s coach was able to start getting the frantic boys to sit quietly and focus on breathing and sleep.

At least 132 people were killed at campaign events, as ex-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was arrested following a graft conviction he disputes.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in played down concerns that North Korea is reneging on its pledges to dismantle its nuclear-weapons program, in his first public response to Pyongyang’s statement last week that its will to denuclearize had been shaken.

Singapore police said they asked Hong Kong two years ago to arrest Jho Low, the alleged mastermind of the multibillion-dollar corruption scandal at Malaysian investment fund 1MDB, but were turned down. Mr. Low has denied wrongdoing.

China has sentenced a veteran pro-democracy campaigner to 13 years in prison on vaguely defined subversion charges, one day after releasing the widow of a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

A huge international effort involving more than 100 divers and rescue workers brought the boys out through the winding and partly submerged passageways of the cave in the north of the country.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in the Afghan capital, said the prospect for talks between the Kabul government and Taliban militants was brighter thanks to the Trump administration’s strategy.

Around $7 billion originating from Malaysian state investment fund 1MDB and its former unit flowed through the global financial system between 2009 and 2015, the Swiss attorney-general said.

A U.N. official called for an investigation into the 2016 defection of restaurant workers to the South, saying at least some of them appeared to have been deceived into leaving and hinting that Seoul officials were responsible. Their fate has become a source of tension between North and South Korea, threatening to strain a blossoming cross-border detente.

Rescue divers guided four more boys from a youth soccer team stranded along with their coach through the winding passages of the Tham Luang cave in northern Thailand.

A public feud between President Rodrigo Duterte and the Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines intensified as church leaders pushed back against criticism of priests.

A Myanmar judge charged two journalists who investigated a military massacre of the country’s Rohingya minority with violating state-secrecy laws, adding to concerns about press freedom.