Nobel Prize-winning novelist V.S. Naipaul, who explored questions of place and identity for more than half a century, has died aged 85, his family announced on Sunday.

Bangladesh and Myanmar have launched a hotline at the Foreign Ministerial level to facilitate "ease of discussions" for the early repatriation of Rohingya refugees.

Indonesian authorities on Saturday raised the death toll in Lombok island earthquake to 387, while the number of injured and displaced went up to 13,688 and 387,067, respectively.

A UN human rights committee has heard there were credible reports that China is holding a million ethnic Uighurs in "counter-extremism centres".

A Japanese government helicopter has crashed in the mountains of Gunma. All nine crew members on board have been confirmed dead, police said on Saturday.

An plane has crashed after it was stolen by a ground employee from an airport in Washington state, authorities said.

North American Aerospace Defence Command scrambled fighter jets on Friday night to accompany the Horizon Airlines plane, which was steered away from Seattle and Tacoma by air traffic control, on its hour-long flight, ABC News reported.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday told US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that Russia categorically rejects new US sanctions over alleged Russian involvement in the Skripal case.

Lavrov reiterated Russia's position that Moscow played no role in the alleged nerve agent attack on ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal in the British city of Salisbury, Xinhua quoted the Foreign Ministry as saying.

Eight persons were killed on Friday afternoon at Resulaj Village in Albania, where a 24-year-old man opened fire at his relatives over a property dispute, police said.

According to the police, all the victims were members of two Zykaj families, living in the same village.