Beijing will ban smoking in restaurants, offices and on public transport from Monday, part of unprecedented new curbs welcomed by anti-tobacco advocates, though how they will be enforced remains to be seen.
South Korea struggled to contain an outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) on Monday as health authorities announced three more cases, bringing the number of infections to 18 in just over 10 days.
U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter discussed his call for an end to island-building in the South China Sea in talks on Monday with his Vietnamese counterpart, who said Vietnam had not expanded its islands but had done work to prevent wave erosion.
The corpses of 17 migrants were brought ashore in Sicily aboard an Italian naval vessel on Sunday along with 454 survivors as efforts intensified to rescue people fleeing war and poverty in Africa and the Middle East.
