In an oddball attempt at sports diplomacy with North Korea, a group of about 20 mixed martial artists from around the world, including former NFL player Bob "The Beast" Sapp, traveled to Pyongyang last week to engage in arm-wrestling and tug-of-war competitions with local children.

The trip, organized by pro-wrestler-turned-politician Kanji "Antonio" Inoki, was the first big sports event in North Korea featuring well-known foreigners since Dennis Rodman and a team of other former NBA players held a basketball game in January for leader Kim Jung Un's birthday.

China announced the birth of extremely rare panda triplets in another success for the country's artificial breeding program.

Raising edible insects such as crickets and palm weevils is boosting incomes for poor farming families in northeastern Thailand. The country leads the world in what has become a multimillion dollar industry with more than 20,000 registered farms.

In Tokyo, workers sprayed insecticide in a downtown park after health authorities reported the first locally transmitted case of dengue fever, a mosquito-borne illness, in the country in more than 60 years.

Indian and Japanese students played at an international school in Tokyo ahead of a visit to Japan by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and more than a dozen steel, energy and tech tycoons eager for Japanese investment in projects back home.