A manhunt was under way Sunday after 49 prisoners, including an infamous cult leader known as “Black Jesus” who is suspected of cannibalism, broke out of a jail in Papua New Guinea.

Myanmar's army took control of a ruined central city on Saturday, imposing a tense calm after several days of clashes between Buddhists and Muslims left piles of corpses in the streets and buildings ablaze in the worst sectarian bloodshed to hit the Southeast Asian nation this year.

A powerful tornado ripped through more than a dozen rural villages in eastern Bangladesh late Friday, killing at least 20 people and injuring more than 100, officials said.

The death toll from a vicious explosion of sectarian bloodshed in predominantly Buddhist Myanmar rose to at least 20 on Friday, as the president declared a state of emergency, thousands of minority Muslims fled, and overwhelmed riot police crisscrossed the ruined streets of a still-burning city seizing machetes and hammers from angry mobs.

Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt on Friday urged Myanmar's government to allow private businesses to develop the country's woeful telecommunications infrastructure, emphasizing the importance of competition and free speech.

Bangladesh President Zillur Rahman, a veteran ruling party politician named to the largely ceremonial post in 2009, died Wednesday in a Singapore hospital, an embassy official said. He was 84.

The United States on Monday accused Lao officials of obstructing its investigation into the fate of three Lao-Americans missing for more than two months in the Southeast Asian nation.

Myanmar President Thein Sein welcomed closer ties with Australia on Monday as he asked for continued support through his country's transition to “peace, democracy and prosperity,” a mission that he said “has no parallel in modern times.”

Ahmat Abdulahad can't help but laugh at the irony of his predicament.

Myanmar's parliament has agreed to review the country's 2008 constitution, state media said Saturday, in a tentative step towards amending a document that bars opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from the presidency.