All bars in India should be converted into yoga centres in order to have a better society and healthy living, said Yoga phenom Baba Ramdev, while laying the foundation stone of a yoga centre being built at a former nightclub. The property once housed Deepa Bar and Restaurant which was patronized by Bollywood stars, cricketers, politicians, businessmen, bureaucrats, foreign tourists, the police and underworld operatives during its heydays. Spread over a 8,500 square feet, the property is estimated to be worth $9.5 million.

Thailand’s government is denying a U.S. magazine’s claim that the country’s revered monarch, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, is the wealthiest royal sovereign in the world. Describing the report as "inaccurate and inconsistent," the foreign ministry said Forbes magazine had wrongly attributed assets to the King that were not part of his personal fortune. Forbes’ list of the 15 wealthiest monarchs placed 80-year-old King Bhumibol at the top with an estimated personal fortune of $35 billion. Bhumibol, is the longest-serving head of state with 62 years on the throne.

North Korea, facing its worst food shortage in nearly a decade, has come up with a culinary innovation aimed at delaying the feeling of hunger – noodles made from soybean. Soybean has never been consumed as a staple food in North Korea It is used for side dishes such as fermented bean curd and bean sprouts. "When you consume ordinary noodles (made from wheat or corn), you may soon feel your stomach empty. But this soybean noodle delays such a feeling of hunger," the local government paper said on its website. A recent survey found up to half the people in North Korea were having to forage for foods

The Vietnamese government said that four journalists had been stripped of their accreditation because they wrote and edited false information on an anti-corruption case and had defended colleagues arrested for their coverage of the case. The journalists "directly wrote articles... edited and approved, without checking sources, news and articles with seriously untrue information concerning the PMU18 case," said a statement on the government’s official website. Public outrage was sparked in 2005 when the media unveiled a corruption case in the transport ministry’s PMU18 infrastructure unit, where officials allegedly embezzled funds and used money to bet on football.

A crocodile killed and devoured a 25-year-old man in Bangladesh who waded into a pond next to a shrine hoping to be blessed by the animal. Hundreds of people visit the shrine every day to offer hens and goats to the five crocodiles living in the pond. Part of the ritual also involves bathing in the water. "He went into the pond hoping to be blessed when a crocodile attacked him and dragged him into the deep part of the pond," police said. "This is a very unusual incident. Normally, the crocodiles are very friendly and do not harm people."

At least a dozen shoppers, many of them retirees, were injured in a rush to buy cheap cooking oil and eggs at a supermarket in the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing, according to a local newspaper. Four were taken to the hospital, including a 58-year-old woman who broke several bones. The oldest was an 81-year-old woman, the Yangtze Evening News reported. A stampede at a store in Chongqing last year killed three and injured dozens. The Chinese government responded by ordering supermarkets to control special promotions.

A 79-year-old woman slashed two women with a fruit knife near a crowded Tokyo railway station because she wanted police help after running away from a shelter for homeless people, police said. The victims, in their 20s, were only slightly injured in the attack in a crowded shopping and entertainment district of the city. The elderly woman was arrested at the scene. "I ran away from a shelter earlier this week and I don’t have money. I thought if I caused an incident, the police would take care of me," the woman was quoted as saying.

A new population of rare leopard has been found living in thick forests on the Indonesian half of Borneo island. Camera traps in Sebangau National Park in Central Kalimantan province have snapped pictures of two adult male Bornean clouded leopards in an area once decimated by logging. The discovery holds out new hope for the little-understood species, which numbers less than 10,000 and is the top predator on Borneo island. The forests on Indonesia’s half of Borneo are home to some of the world’s most diverse wildlife.