A Malaysian bar is offering bottled cocktails named after well-known Covid-19 vaccines, with the alcoholic doses recommended to be served on the rocks. While pandemic-themed humour might not be to everyone's taste, the drinks - named Pfizermeister, Sinosour and ExtraGineca - and marketed as “lockdown boredom busters”, are proving popular.

A full moon hangs above the Tokyo skyline as Japan marks moon-viewing festival 'Tsukimi' on Tuesday. Japan celebrates Tsukimi on the fifteenth day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar every year, which falls between mid-September and early October.

Haruki Murakami fans can marvel at a vast collection of the Japanese author's novels, scrapbooks and vinyl at a cavernous new library unveiled Wednesday at his old university in Tokyo.

The skateboarding tricks that made Rayssa Leal the youngest Olympic medalist in Brazil's history push girls from early childhood to teenagers onto the country's slopes, where until recently they were the exception.

Yahya (not real name) who identifies as gay and a non-conforming person, left the relative safety of their Kabul home just three times in six weeks after the Taliban took control of the Afghan capital. Yahya says. "If anyone identifies us, our lives will be under threat. We're just inside our rooms, praying nothing bad happens to us."

Tokyo residents react after Japan's ruling party elected former foreign minister Fumio Kishida its new leader, setting him on course to become the next prime minister of the world's third-largest economy. Kishida, 64, will be confirmed as the new premier in a vote in parliament on October 4 and will then lead the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) into general elections that must happen by November. The 64-year-old won the ruling party's leadership vote, beating popular vaccine chief Taro Kono to finally clinch a job he has long targeted.

People in Beijing share their views after a decision announced by the International Olympic Committee that next year's Winter Olympics in the city will be held without fans from overseas. "I think this measure is for the safety concerns and is acceptable," says a pedestrian at Beijing Olympic Park.

The twin pandas born at Tokyo's Ueno zoo in June have been named Xiao Xiao for the male and Lei Lei for the female. There are an estimated 1,800 giant pandas left in the wild, mainly in bamboo forests in the mountains of China, according to environmental group WWF. Around 600 more live in zoos and breeding centres around the world.

Chinese and foreign figure skaters train ahead of the 2021 CS Asian Open Figure Skating Trophy, which will be held in Beijing this week as a test event for the 2022 Winter Olympics. All journalists and Winter Olympics staff are required to wear masks inside the stadium as Covid-19 prevention measures.

Human rights activists on Monday (October 19) urged governments and athletes world-wide to boycott the 2022 Winter Olympics in China as Athens prepared to hand over the Olympic flame to Beijing in a ceremony in the capital, saying that anything less would make the world complicit in what they called 'genocide' by Beijing. China's treatment of minorities has come under increased scrutiny in the run-up to the games, scheduled from Feb. 4-20. Activists protested at Ancient Olympia on Monday, where the flame lighting ceremony was held.

A cocktail bar owner in Bangkok hopes fruity mocktails seasoned with Kratom, a recently decriminalised tropical herb, will help keep his business afloat amid a seven-month ban on alcohol service in the Thai capital. The city, once a popular nightlife spot, is under a curfew and bars, pubs and restaurants are prohibited from selling alcoholic drinks as part of coronavirus restrictions.

Tens of thousands of people in northern China have been placed under strict lockdown as officials seek to keep a lid on a growing COVID outbreak ahead of the Beijing Winter Olympics.