LHASA, Tibet

Tibetan monks in a restive area of western China took to the streets calling for more religious freedom after they were banned from holding a traditional New Year's prayer ceremony last weekend. About 50 monks demonstrated outside the Sey Monastery in an ethnic Tibetan part of Sichuan province that was roiled by violent protests last year and where a monk set himself on fire last week. Next month also marks the 50th anniversary of the exile of the Dalai Lama.

HONG KONG

Nearly five million people worldwide have gone online to see the video of a middle-aged woman having an emotional meltdown after missing a flight out of Hong Kong. The video clip of the unidentified passenger screaming and throwing herself to the ground after arriving at the departure gate at Hong Kong International Airport too late to board a San Francisco-bound flight has clocked up new viewers at the rate of more than 600 000 a day on YouTube.

SINGAPORE

An alleged Islamic militant leader suspected of plotting to crash an airliner into Singapore's Changi airport remains at large one year after his escape from detention, the government said Friday. “The search for Mas Selamat Kastari is still ongoing and it will not stop until he is apprehended,” said a spokesman for the ministry of home affairs, in charge of internal security. The Singaporean Muslim escaped on Feb. 27, 2008 through a toilet window in a detention centre.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia

Malaysia's government has rescinded a Catholic newspaper's right to use the word "Allah" just weeks after it gazetted a law allowing the paper to do so. The editor of the Herald newspaper, Father Lawrence Andrew, said the weekly had been allowed to use the word as a translation for "God" in its Malay-language edition, as long as it printed "For Christians" on the cover. Home Minister Syed Hamid Albar told the New Straits Times newspaper a "mistake" had been made. The government has argued the word should be used only by Muslims.

HONG KONG

A Hong Kong actress pictured in racy photographs circulated on the Internet has lambasted Edison Chen, the star at the centre of the scandal. Cecilia Cheung was one of a group of well-known women identified in the hundreds of photos uploaded on the Internet 13 months ago from the personal laptop of singer and actor Edison Chen, after it was taken for repair. Chen 28, talked of how he was determined to protect the girls and said they had suffered enough. Cheung said Chen was “lying with his eyes wide open.”

NONTHABURI, Thailand

A man affectionately known as Grandfather by those who know him says he is pleased to have earned a law degree in Thailand. The Bangkok Post said Sa-nguan Sunthornwong, 88, graduated with a degree in law after 12 years of classes. But Sunthornwong was forced to miss the Jan. 23 graduation ceremony for his class. He had been unable to walk or speak, forcing him to be hospitalized for 39 days.

AMRITSAR, India

Sikh authorities are hailing a bill introduced in the California state assembly calling for mandatory education on the kirpan for law enforcement officers. It is the first bill of its kind in any state assembly in the U.S. where the Sikhs have been targets of racial violence. Kirpan is one of the five religious symbols that Sikhs wear after baptism.

JAKARTA, Indonesia

A series of religious edicts issued by Indonesia’s council of Muslim scholars has triggered controversy, exposing sharp divisions between conservatives and liberals in the world’s most populous Muslim nation. In January, the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) issued a fatwa, or religious edict, banning Muslims from practising yoga that includes Hindu rituals, such as chanting. It also ruled smoking in public and abstaining from electoral voting are sinful.

NEW DELHI, India

Municipal authorities in the Indian capital plan to amend a law to allow the residents to keep cattle at home as long as they obtain a licence. Under the new policy a resident could keep one “milking” animal, but would face strict penalties if the animal was allowed to stray, the Hindustan Times newspaper reported. Straying cattle have long been a menace in New Delhi.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia

Malaysia's government has rescinded a Catholic newspaper's right to use the word "Allah" just weeks after it gazetted a law allowing the paper to do so. The editor of the Herald newspaper, Father Lawrence Andrew, said the weekly had been allowed to use the word as a translation for "God" in its Malay-language edition, as long as it printed "For Christians" on the cover. Home Minister Syed Hamid Albar told the New Straits Times newspaper a "mistake" had been made. The government has argued the word should be used only by Muslims.

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam

Police have broken up an illegal marriage brokerage that matched Vietnamese women and South Korean men, after raiding a house where a marriage broker was parading 31 Vietnamese women for two South Korean men. The women were jammed into a tiny 20-square-metre house that served as an office for the illegal marriage agency. The key suspect had reportedly organized matches for at least 10 South Korean men since starting his business in 2008.