Asia

Australia said on Friday it had sanctioned two North Korean individuals and companies over the use of “fraudulent” IT workers and cybercrime to earn cash for the isolated nuclear-armed state. The two men are alleged to be key operators in Pyongyang’s cybercriminal activities overseas, estimated by analysts to bring in billions for the country’s weapons programme. “The North Korean entities and individuals sanctioned today facilitate North Korea’s use of fraudulent IT workers to raise revenue for...

The son of Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi said she sounded “fairly healthy” after speaking to the detained ex-democratic leader on Thursday for the first time in more than five years. Suu Kyi, 81, is under house arrest in the capital, Naypyidaw, according to Myanmar authorities, where she has been sequestered since being unseated in a 2021 military coup. “She was sounding fairly healthy,” Kim Aris, who lives in the UK, said after the telephone conversation. It was the first time he had spoken to his...

The United Nations’ climate loss and damage fund moved to provide US$20 million in aid sought by flood-stricken Nepal – the first time it has set aside money for any country – in a key test of the body’s credibility. In an extraordinary meeting on Thursday, the fund’s board agreed to earmark the modest sum for the Himalayan country, which was hit in August by tsunami-like floods triggered by a climate-induced ice and rock avalanche that killed more than 1,400 people and left over 5,000...

A wind energy partnership between Vietnam and Denmark has fuelled expectations of the Southeast Asian country boosting its competitiveness in renewable electricity to serve overseas and domestic markets. Vietnam is well placed to grow its renewable electricity sector by tapping its large pool of engineering talent and abundant wind resources with help from Denmark, a global leader in wind energy, according to analysts. On Tuesday, the two countries signed a comprehensive strategic partnership...

With one eye on her baby in a stroller, Minae Kamata operates an arcade machine in a Tokyo suburb, manipulating a claw to grab not a stuffed toy but a pack of toilet paper. As inflation weighs on Japanese households, huge arcades on the outskirts of major cities are installing claw machines filled with eggs, rice, laundry detergent and other necessities. The “shop-and-play destinations” merge essential buying with entertainment so that families do not feel a choice between bringing home the...

A joint communique ups the diplomatic rhetoric but offers no solutions.

Typically, South Korea has used loudspeakers to respond to North Korean provocations. Now Pyongyang has vowed to turn them on – and the prospects for de-escalation are dim.

China is building a dense network of relationships across all pillars of influence while the United States continues to weaken the institutions it traditionally used to compete.

Organisations in Singapore have been urged to immediately fix two critical security flaws in a widely used programming language amid reports of widespread attempts by hackers to exploit the vulnerabilities. The flaws in PHP, which powers many websites and online services, could allow attackers to take control of web servers, steal data or disrupt services without needing login credentials, Singapore’s Commissioner of Cybersecurity Gwenda Fong said on Thursday. “The threat is immediate,” Fong,...

Any Sino-American conflict would place enormous pressure on fuel supplies. U.S. fuel dependence turns Manila’s energy fragility into a strategic vulnerability.

Clear ground rules could not only help resolve the North Korean POW standoff but prevent the next case.

From Hong Kong to Bangkok, Paris, Taiwan, and North America, LGBTQ communities are encountering censorship, surveillance, and coercive pressure linked to China. 

Indonesia’s government has resisted mounting calls to declare widespread forest and land fires a national disaster, insisting it can handle the crisis alone as residents report worsening health impacts and disaster experts warn that a broader, coordinated response is needed. Critics suggest the reluctance may stem from concerns that a national declaration could force Jakarta to redirect funds from other political priorities, while exposing the administration to greater scrutiny over its disaster...

India’s planned acquisition of four large amphibious warships would strengthen its ability to support naval logistics and humanitarian missions across the Indian Ocean, with security experts saying their value depends on how the navy could effectively utilise them during a crisis. The Indian Navy has invited bids for four landing platform docks (LPDs), each with a displacement of more than 30,000 tonnes. Indian Navy Vice Chief Vice Admiral Ajay Kochhar said at a media briefing on Monday that a...

In the wake of Indonesia’s worst stock-market rout since the 1998 Asian financial crisis, President Prabowo Subianto’s administration has turned to appeals to economic nationalism to shore up confidence, urging citizens to rally behind the country’s battered stock market. The government has promised reforms in response to warnings from global index provider MSCI that Indonesia could be downgraded from emerging-market to stand-alone-market status. But analysts say its patriotic appeals will do...

As wildfires rage across Sumatra and Kalimantan, frustrated Indonesians are turning to performance art to call for greater government action and draw global attention to the destruction of both the country’s rainforests and rich cultural heritage. In South Sumatra, local art collective Jaga Api recently launched a project titled Tarian Kehancuran Budaya (the Dance of Cultural Destruction), using traditional performance to convey the human and environmental toll of the fires, as reported by The...

A man has been charged with threatening an Australian lawmaker’s staff with nunchucks, police said on Thursday, days after another legislator was critically injured when a man repeatedly hit her with a car. The incidents are heightening concerns about female politicians’ safety and raising concerns about security in a country where lawmakers are highly accessible to the public. Police say that a 56-year-old man entered Western Australian state government minister Hannah Beazley’s electorate...

Australia and East Timor signed a defence deal on Thursday to boost cyber and maritime security as Canberra seeks to curb China’s influence among its island neighbours. Australia is East Timor’s largest defence and security partner and the agreement will significantly increase defence exercises, Defence Minister Richard Marles told reporters. “This is a time to double down on friendship, to double down on family,” he said in East Timor’s capital Dili. Australia will provide A$62 million (US$44...

Authorities have directed satellite TV channels to refrain from broadcasting or providing live coverage of "unpleasant incidents," meaning shootings, blasts and terrorist attacks.

Haq Do Tehreek, the movement that once brought the world’s attention to Gwadar’s longstanding grievances, is a pale shadow of its former self.

Runners in Malaysia are swapping their usual routes through parks and city streets for laps around shopping malls, commandeering air-conditioned corridors to keep up their training as a stubborn blanket of haze makes exercising outdoors increasingly hazardous. The switch comes as smoke from forest and peatland fires continues to foul the air across parts of Southeast Asia, with Malaysia’s capital Kuala Lumpur and its surrounding districts among the hardest-hit areas. By 9am on Thursday, 15 of...

Malaysia’s highway authority is working to resolve technical disruptions affecting its TuJu navigation application following a sharp increase in users. In a statement on Thursday, the Lembaga Lebuhraya Malaysia (LLM) said the matter was being resolved together with the application provider Prosignal Consortium. LLM said the surge in users came after Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim suggested that the public consider using a locally developed navigation application instead of Waze. “We apologise for...

The two Koreas appear to be coming closer to an armed clash along their poorly marked military dividing line after a series of increasingly hostile warnings from the North, observers say. Back-to-back statements on Wednesday and Thursday by Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, appear aimed at building a case for blaming Seoul for any future exchange of fire, they say. “The two sides appear to be edging closer to accidental armed clashes,” said Oh Gyeong-seob, a...

Malaysian police have arrested a 16-year-old student after he live-streamed an attack on a teacher with an axe at a private school in Kuching, the capital of Sarawak state. CCTV footage shows the teenager entering a classroom at around 7.50am on Wednesday, hitting the female teacher with an axe before leaving. He re-enters through a second door and swings the axe at students as they flee the room. As the teacher tries to intervene, he attempts to hack at her again but is subdued by two male...

Last month, Manila accused Beijing of obstructing a similar mission to resupply troops stationed aboard a grounded warship on the shoal.

South Korean publishers are calling for stronger copyright protections and compensation as bulk book purchase requests suspected of being linked to artificial intelligence training raise concerns over intellectual property theft. Publishing groups are investigating suspicious orders and seeking a coordinated response. However, authors and publishers face a fundamental obstacle: they often cannot know for sure whether their books are being used to train AI systems. Kyobo Book Centre, a bookstore...

Southeast Asian nations are seeking to make it easier for businesses and consumers to operate across borders in the digital economy, but achieving the goal will depend on whether governments can align their domestic laws under a proposed pact, according to analysts. Targeted to be signed during the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Manila in November, the Asean Digital Economy Framework Agreement (DEFA) is aimed at improving compatibility between rules and systems governing...

Indonesia’s president railed against “countries that like to insult” his nation over wildfires that have razed vast areas, spewing toxic haze into neighbouring countries. The Southeast Asian giant has for months struggled to contain fires that Nusantara Atlas, an independent monitor analysing satellite data, said had consumed more than 1.9 million hectares (4.7 million acres) in the nine months to September. The haze has sent air pollution levels surging to dangerous levels not only at home, but...

Four months into her impeachment trial in the Senate, the political winds are starting to turn against Duterte.

Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has marked one year in office still riding relatively high in public opinion polls – a heady position that few political analysts anticipated despite geopolitical tensions and persistent inflation. A poll by the conservative-leaning Yomiuri newspaper published on Monday indicated that Takaichi’s cabinet retains the support of 57 per cent of the Japanese public, down two percentage points from the previous survey on September 18 and significantly lower than...