China's defense ministry said Thursday that the country has no military bases overseas, despite speculation that its armed forces seek to eventually establish facilities abroad.

"Currently, China has constructed no military base overseas," ministry spokesman Geng Yansheng told reporters at a monthly briefing.

Two girls found hanging earlier this year in northern India committed suicide and were not gang-raped and murdered as previously thought, federal investigators said Thursday.

The cousins, aged 12 and 14, were found hanging from a tree in an impoverished village in Uttar Pradesh state in May, reigniting international outrage over crimes against women in India.

India on Wednesday marked six years since militants stormed Mumbai in three days of horror that left 166 people dead, as survivors said they would never be "beaten back by terror".

Families of victims and politicians laid flowers and wreaths at sites around the city to remember those slain in 2008 when Islamist gunmen stalked luxury hotels, a popular cafe, a train station and a Jewish center.

Police in Kathmandu Wednesday arrested a group of protesters demonstrating near the venue of a regional summit to demand that authorities drop a treason case against a prominent Nepalese activist.

Authorities last month charged Chandra Kant Raut, a former scientist with a doctorate from Britain's Cambridge University, with treason over his calls for a separate homeland for Nepal's marginalised Madhesi community who live in the southern plains. 

Sri Lanka's main opposition presidential candidate expressed hope Wednesday of forming a unity government and ushering in constitutional reforms if he defeats the incumbent Mahinda Rajapakse in January's election.

Maithripala Sirisena, who was sacked as health minister after defecting from Rajapakse's party last week, said he would welcome former cabinet colleagues into a coalition if he triumphs in the January 8 contest.

A Bangladesh court on Wednesday sentenced to death two Islamic militants for gunning down a police informant eight years ago, a prosecutor said.

A fast-track court handed down the sentences after earlier convicting the pair, both in their 20s and members of banned militant outfit Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), said prosecutor Taslima Yesmin.

Health campaigners Wednesday welcomed India's plans to raise the age for tobacco purchases to 25 and ban unpackaged cigarettes, hailing them as a major step towards stopping nearly one million tobacco-related deaths a year.

Health Minister J. P. Nadda told parliament on Tuesday he was drawing up legislation to raise the minimum legal age for buying tobacco products, currently 18, and to force vendors only to sell full packets of cigarettes.

The estranged wife of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi sought details about her security cover Monday, voicing concerns about her safety as her family demanded that she be treated as the country's "first lady."

The premier, who swept to power in May as head of the right-wing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, and Jashodaben were wed in an arranged marriage as teenagers.

India's new premier heads to his first South Asia summit this week seeking stronger regional integration in the face of growing Chinese influence, but experts see little hope of progress while tensions with Pakistan persist.

The region's first summit in three years follows some of the worst cross-border violence in Kashmir in a decade, and comes as NATO-led troops prepare to pull out of Afghanistan, intensifying the India-Pakistan rivalry as the countries vie for influence there.

U.S. President Barack Obama telephoned Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to discuss the "evolving situation" in the region, the Pakistani foreign ministry said.

"Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif expressed satisfaction at the direction of Pakistan-U.S. relations which were on an upward trajectory" and "President Obama noted Pakistan-U.S. relations were strong and robust" during their conversation Friday evening the ministry said in a statement.