The Nepal Medical Association(NMA) on Friday announced a nationwide boycott of all medical services, except for emergency and intensive care at private and government hospitals, medical colleges, and clinics across the country.

The strike will affect tens of thousands of sick people in Nepal, depriving them of medical treatment, according to local media reports.

The association took the step in solidarity with resident doctors pursuing MD/MS degrees in private colleges, who had been demanding allowances equal to those of government-owned colleges.

Several local media reported that the medical practitioners staged a demonstration on Thursday at Maitighar in Kathmandu, cordoning off the district administration offices.

Pakistan's Standing Committee on Interior has been informed that over 12,000 Afghan nationals were caught with fake Pakistani passports while travelling to Saudi Arabia in the past five years, raising serious concerns over tens of thousands more such cases of Afghan nationals being able to get fake Pakistani passports and using them to travel to different countries, including the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The revelation was done during a meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Interior, which was briefed about the ongoing repatriation process and ongoing campaign to nab illegal Afghan nationals, along with the law and order situation in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Balochistan.

"At least 12,000 people reached Saudi Arabia on fake Pakistani passports. Of them, 3,000 had photo-swapped passports, while 6,000 passports were issued by tampering with the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) data," informed Director General Passports, Mustafa Jamal Qazi.

South Korean stocks finished nearly 1 per cent higher on Friday, as investors assessed the outcome of the first round of tariff talks between Seoul and Washington. The local currency fell against the US dollar.

The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) gained 23.97 points, or 0.95 percent, to close at 2,546.3.

Trade volume was thin at 386.27 million shares worth 8.2 trillion won ($5.78 billion), with winners beating losers 645 to 238, reports news agency.

Institutions and foreign investors combined purchased a net 721.5 billion won worth of stocks, while individuals sold a net 773 billion won worth of shares.

During the first round of tariff talks held in Washington on Thursday, South Korea and the United States agreed to pursue a tariff deal before the pause on the implementation of reciprocal tariffs is lifted in early July.

A small police plane crashed near the shore of Thailand's resort town of Hua Hin on Friday morning, killing six people, the Thai police said.

The Thai national police said on its social media page that the aircraft of the police aviation division crashed into the sea off Cha-am District, Phetchaburi Province shortly after taking off from the nearby Hua Hin airport, with all six on board killed.

The police said the accident took place when the plane was conducting a test flight for parachute training. All six people on board were police officers. Five died at the scene and one died later at a hospital, news agency reported.

Video footage showed the plane nosedive into the sea. Initial investigations suggest that the engine malfunctioned shortly after takeoff. The police said the cause of the accident will be investigated.

South Korea and the United States concurred on joint efforts to craft a "package" agreement on new U.S. tariffs, and economic and industrial cooperation issues by early July, Seoul's finance minister said, as the allies held high-level trade talks in Washington, DC.

Finance Minister Choi Sang-mok told reporters that the two sides agreed to pursue the deal by July 8 -- when U.S. President Donald Trump's 90-day pause on "reciprocal" tariffs ends -- through talks focusing on four categories -- tariff- and non-tariff measures; economic security; investment cooperation; and currency policies, reports news agency.

Toward that end, Seoul's industry ministry and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) plan to start working-level talks next week, while USTR Jamieson Greer is set to visit South Korea for high-level talks on the margins of the ministerial Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation talks slated to kick off on May 15.

A high school student entered a school in western France's Nantes with a knife and stabbed at least four students, local media reported, citing the police.

One of the victims died from injuries, according to BFMTV on Thursday, citing multiple sources.

Teachers stopped the attacker before police arrived, BFMTV said, adding that the attacker, a second-year high school student, has been detained, news agency reported.

The youth -- whose identity has not been revealed but who had expressed an admiration for Adolf Hitler -- was overcome by teachers after staging attacks in several classrooms, witnesses said.

He was detained by police but hospitalised after a psychiatric examination.

Lee Jae-myung, former leader of South Korea's Democratic Party, kept a wide lead in approval ratings among presidential hopefuls for the June 3 election, a survey showed on Thursday.

According to the National Barometer Survey (NBS), Lee led the poll with 41 per cent, marking the first time the figure surpassed the 40 per cent mark in an NBS poll.

Former Daegu Mayor Hong Joon-pyo and former Labor Minister Kim Moon-soo of the conservative People Power Party (PPP) came next with 10 per cent, followed by former PPP leader Han Dong-hoon with 8 per cent.

In the same survey, 39 per cent of the respondents favoured the PPP holding on to power, while 50 per cent voted for a regime change.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent expects India to strike the first trade deal with Washington because the issues are simpler, making an agreement "much easier."

He said on Wednesday that trade talks were "very close" to reaching a deal.

India has "fewer non-tariff trade barriers, obviously, no currency manipulation, very, very little government subsidies, so that reaching a deal with the Indians is much easier," he told a group of journalists at a restricted meeting in Washington on the sidelines of the Spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

The trade issues with India were mostly about high tariffs, he said, according to reports by participants in the meeting.

The South Korean economy posted negative growth from three months earlier in the first quarter, the first on-quarter contraction in nine months, central bank data showed on Thursday, amid a domestic political crisis and uncertainties stemming from the Donald Trump administration's sweeping tariff scheme.

The country's real gross domestic product (GDP) -- a key measure of economic growth -- contracted 0.2 percent in the January-March period from a quarter earlier, according to the preliminary data from the Bank of Korea (BOK).

On a year-on-year basis, the economy contracted 0.1 percent in the first quarter of 2025, compared with 1.2 percent on-year expansion in the previous quarter, the data showed, reports news agency.

A total of 154 aftershocks have hit Myanmar since a devastating earthquake struck the country on March 28, according to the country's Department of Meteorology and Hydrology on Wednesday.

These tremors ranged in magnitude from 2.8 to 7.5, according to the department,news agency reported.

As of Tuesday, the earthquake has claimed 3,759 lives and injured 5,107 others, with 114 people still reported missing nationwide, official data showed.

On April 17, India, under Operation Brahma, had sent an additional consignment of relief material that was handed over by Indian Ambassador to Myanmar Abhay Thakur to Mandalay Chief Minister Myo Aung in the presence of diaspora leaders of Mandalay and Sagaing.