Here are a few stories from around Asia you may have missed this week.
Prefectural office staff members react after the Japanese government issued an emergency warning for residents in the prefecture to take cover from the possible threat of a DPRK missile, at Okinawa Prefectural Office in Naha, Okinawa prefecture, Japan, November 21, 2023. /Reuters
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) said on Thursday it was suspending a 2018 deal with the Republic of Korea (ROK) designed to de-escalate tension along their shared border, the official Korean Central News Agency reported, citing a statement from the Defense Ministry.
The ministry made the announcement a day after the ROK suspended part of the inter-Korean deal in response to Pyongyang's launch of a reconnaissance satellite.
Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida attends a House of Representatives Budget Committee meeting in Tokyo on November 22, 2023. /Reuters
The approval rating for Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's cabinet has fallen below 30 percent for the first time since Kishida took office in October 2021, according to the latest NHK opinion poll.
The cabinet's approval rating stood at 29 percent, down 7 points from last month. The disapproval rate was 52 percent, a rise of 8 points. Among those who approve of the cabinet, 45 percent said it seems preferable to possible alternatives, while 26 percent said it is made up of political parties they support.
The first images emerged on Tuesday of 41 men trapped for more than a week in a highway tunnel in the Indian Himalayas, Uttarakhand, India, November 21, 2023. /Reuters
The first images emerged on Tuesday of 41 men who have been trapped in a highway tunnel in the Indian Himalayas, showing them standing in the confined space and communicating with rescue workers as drilling resumed to pull them to safety. The men have been stuck in the 4.5-kilometer tunnel in Uttarakhand state since it caved in on November 12 and are safe, authorities said, with access to light, oxygen, food, water and medicines.
Efforts are ongoing to rescue them, but fallen rocks have been an impediment. National Disaster Response Force Director General Atul Karwal told the press the trapped workers will be pulled out on wheeled stretchers one by one through a big pipe that is being drilled to reach them.
An ash column rises from Mount Ulawun, as seen from an aeroplane window, Papua New Guinea, November 21, 2023. /Reuters
On Monday, a volcanic eruption on a remote island of Papua New Guinea caused people to evacuate. The erupting volcano shot a cloud of ash into the sky as high as 50,000 feet, forcing the cancellation of some flights.
Teams had been sent to the Mount Ulawun area on New Britain island to coordinate an evacuation after it began erupting, state broadcaster NBC PNG reported. Flights from the island's Hoskins airport were cancelled. The volcano is 47 kilometers from the town of Bialla. The country's geological division later downgraded its alert level from Level 4 to 3. indicating it was subsiding.
Rohingya Muslims after landing on a beach in Sabang, Aceh province, Indonesia, November 22, 2023. /Reuters
More than 200 ethnic Rohingya were pictured huddled on the beaches of a remote Indonesian island on Wednesday after weeks adrift on a wooden boat. The latest arrivals were some of more than 1,000 members of the group who have landed on the shores of Aceh province in western Indonesia in the last week.
The recent influx is the biggest wave of Rohingya refugee arrivals to Indonesia since 2015, UNHCR Representative to Indonesia Ann Maymann told AFP. The late-night arrivals on Tuesday had spent 15 days at sea after leaving Bangladesh for Aceh.
(Cover: DPRK leader Kim Jong Un looks on as a rocket carrying the Malligyong-1 satellite is launched, in a location given as North Gyeongsang province, DPRK, November 21, 2023. /Reuters)