Asia

Asian workers and families already facing years-long waits for US visas could be pushed deeper into uncertainty by a global pause on immigrant visa appointments, as President Donald Trump’s administration tightens legal immigration through new screening and higher costs, experts warn. The US State Department on Tuesday said it had launched a global training initiative for consular officers at all US embassies and consulates, and that immigrant visa appointments would be adjusted to accommodate...

Forty years ago, the Stockholm Document turned the political promise of the 1975 Helsinki Final Act into a more practical system of confidence-building. Amid the Cold War, Europe’s East and West did not disarm, abandon deterrence or begin to trust one another. Instead, they agreed that military competition could be made safer through prior notification, observation, information exchange and verification. The lesson was modest but durable: adversaries do not need trust to reduce uncertainty. That...

For years, South Asian students – particularly from India – treated an overseas undergraduate degree as the default springboard to an international career. That assumption is now changing. Students across the region are still drawn to prestigious Western institutions, but tightening visa restrictions, rising costs and uncertain post-graduation job markets in countries like the United States are prompting families to rethink their options. Experts say more are choosing to complete their first...

Few have spent as much time in the waters surrounding Singapore’s southwestern islands as fisherman Hamzah Mohamad, 71. The former resident of Pulau Sudong has been fishing, primarily by setting up bubu – wire fish traps in Malay – in the rocky coral reefs surrounding Sudong, Bukom and Semakau for more than half a century. He knows the underwater reefs by heart, what the wind changes mean for visibility and which fish species are in season. But the seascape he has long known may be set for...

Facing a far larger Chinese military presence at sea, the Philippines is looking to drones not as a substitute for warships and aircraft but as a relatively low-cost way to make its forces harder to find, suppress and outmanoeuvre, analysts have said. The administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr has focused on expanding the military’s drone fleet as part of its external defence strategy. Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jnr told lawmakers on Tuesday that Manila also needed to secure...

A massive flash flood swept away villages in Nepal on Wednesday, killing at least 95 people and damaging roads, bridges and power projects in areas near Tibet, authorities said. At least 341 foreign travellers were missing from the region, including more ⁠than 100 Indians, three US citizens and 12 British nationals, Nepal’s tourism ministry said. Dozens of local people were also missing. Rescue teams in Nepal had recovered 95 bodies so far, police said. Local media reported 65 people were being...

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam’s commercial ⁠hub, is proposing ⁠to gradually restrict ⁠petrol- and diesel-powered vehicles from its downtown area from mid-2027, as part of a planned low-emission zone (LEZ), according to state-run Thanh Nien newspaper. Under the proposal, the ‌city would pilot the LEZ from July 2027 in its core downtown area and the new Thu Thiem urban area, covering roughly 930 hectares (2,300 acres), Thanh Nien reported, citing city authorities. From early 2029, the LEZ will expand...

Indonesia and Malaysia have agreed to share the skies amid a haze crisis that has closed nearly 600 Malaysian schools and erased much of the Kuala Lumpur skyline from view. The Petronas Twin Towers, usually visible for miles around, have been swallowed by a grey shroud as wildfires that continue to rage across Indonesia’s Sumatra and Kalimantan on the island of Borneo. Authorities from both countries are coordinating operations along their shared Bornean border, with Malaysia’s environment...

Australian police said on Wednesday they were on the hunt for thieves who made off with hundreds of thousands of oysters. The molluscs have an estimated total value of A$350,000 (US$250,000) and were lifted from an oyster farm near the town of Taree, north of Sydney, New South Wales police said. Over 300 bags, containing 400,000 oysters, were stolen. Police are urging the public to come forward with any information they might have about the theft, which they said happened “earlier this year” but...

At least 14 infants were killed ‌in a fire at a state-run hospital in Pakistan’s capital of Islamabad on Wednesday, the prime minister said, with local media blaming the tragedy on a fault in the air conditioning system. The blaze started around 7am at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, on the third floor of the hospital’s ⁠mother and child health ward, said broadcaster Geo TV, which put the death toll ‌at 15. Islamabad chief commissioner Sohail Ashraf said on social media that rescue...

South Korea said on Wednesday it had scrambled fighter jets in response to Russian military aircraft entering its air defence zone, the second such incursion in weeks. The relationship between the countries has worsened since South Korea joined Western sanctions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and since Moscow built stronger ties with North Korea. Seoul’s defence ministry said multiple Russian aircraft had entered and then left its air defence identification zone over the East Sea, also...

Malaysian police are investigating a killing near Kuala Lumpur as murder after a man rammed by a car died following an armed brawl in broad daylight that was caught on camera – footage that has stirred fresh alarm over brazen street violence in the country. The fight, in which several men were filmed slashing at one another, broke out at around 2pm on Tuesday in the Taman Alam Megah neighbourhood of Shah Alam, police said. One local man has been arrested in connection with the case. Shah Alam...

“I want to survive.” That was uppermost in Senior Seaman Michael Coccon Johen’s mind while he was drifting in the South China Sea, hours after a free-fall parachute training exercise went wrong. Johen, 27, was one of six Malaysian navy special forces personnel who landed in the sea on August 12 after missing their designated landing site at Pulau Layang-Layang, off Sabah’s coast. It happened during the drill’s second jump at 4.30pm, when a sudden change in weather severely affected...

A roller coaster malfunction at a major theme park on the outskirts of Malaysia’s capital city injured 10 people on Saturday, the operator confirmed after coming under fire for what critics called a prolonged silence over the incident. Authorities said on Monday that the riders had suffered minor injuries after the ride abruptly stopped, leaving them stranded. The incident sparked a flurry of complaints across Malaysian social media, with numerous posts sharing videos purportedly showing the...

Singaporean online commentator Amos Yee Pang Sang on Wednesday received four fresh charges linked to posts he made about race and children. This brings his total number of charges to seven, including three for allegedly dodging national service. According to charge sheets, the 27-year-old allegedly promoted feelings of disharmony between racial and religious groups in Singapore in two blog posts in April. In the posts, he allegedly discussed racial discrimination, commented on crimes and...

North Korea has stepped up its verbal attacks on Japan, issuing more than a dozen denunciations through state media since early July and hardening its rhetoric in recent days by accusing Tokyo of whipping up a “neo-militarist frenzy” and preparing for a “war of aggression”. Analysts said the latest broadsides from Kim Jong-un’s regime reflected both renewed confidence in Pyongyang as ties with Moscow deepen, and a desire to frame Asia-Pacific geopolitics as a contest between rival blocs –...

Japan’s Environment Ministry says it plans to reuse soil collected in decontamination work near the disaster-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex at national government branch offices in Miyagi and Saitama prefectures. The government has already reused the soil at 12 sites in Tokyo since July last year, including the prime minister’s office and other buildings in the Kasumigaseki district. Excluding demonstration projects in Fukushima prefecture, the expansion to the cities of Sendai and...

Philippine military officials said on Tuesday that Filipino and US personnel had tried to access a closed Chinese-linked steel plant in Mindanao as part of planning for a future naval facility and joint military exercises, extending a dispute that had already drawn protests from Beijing over Manila’s handling of Chinese workers at the site. Sanjia Steel Corporation, which leases 22.6 hectares (56 acres) inside the government-run PHIVIDEC Industrial Estate in Tagoloan, Misamis Oriental province,...

Ooshies were not just fun to collect – the tiny plastic Disney figurines were powerful enough to move sales between Australia’s supermarket giants. Woolworths Group said on Wednesday that Australian food sales jumped 7.6 per cent in the first eight weeks of the 2027 financial year, with its Ooshies promotion contributing an estimated 1.5 to 2 percentage points of growth. That accelerated from 4.6 per cent sales growth in the 2026 financial year. Chief rival Coles Group felt the other side of the...

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi remains in a strong position despite a poll showing falling support for her administration, ahead of an expected cabinet reshuffle to bolster her coalition government. A new cabinet could help the government win over voters, reward ruling Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers and win the support of junior coalition partner Ishin no Kai, analysts have said. Takaichi is expected to embark on such a move in mid- or late September, according to reports by Kyodo...

The Mecca security pact between Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan stipulates that an armed attack against one shall count as an attack against all three. Yet the real message is directed at the United States: if being an American ally offers no immunity against attack, there is little point in waiting for Washington to honour its security guarantees. That there has been no official White House statement casts some doubt on whether Donald Trump is really “very happy to see that Saudi Arabia,...

Singapore’s plan to merge several islands off its southwest coast into a new hub for industry, defence and “new power generation infrastructure” has stirred speculation over whether the site could one day host a nuclear power plant. The city state is studying advanced nuclear technologies, including small modular reactors (SMRs), as part of its long-term planning for a net-zero power system, but the government has not decided whether to deploy nuclear energy, let alone where any future plant...

Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has urged the country’s filmmakers to think more freely, even as recent censorship battles show how tightly the state still controls what can reach the screen. Anwar said an industry forced to repeatedly seek official approval for individual scenes could not become more creative or competitive, calling for fewer restrictions on filmmakers at a time when Malaysian productions were outperforming Hollywood titles at home. But his remarks came less than six...

A man who hid behind some plants to film a couple having extramarital sex at a rooftop garden in Singapore later used the video to threaten the woman while asking for sex and cash. When the police began investigating, the offender asked the woman to drop the case, even approaching her sister at a supermarket. Despite this ongoing investigation, the man targeted another couple having sex in a parked car and took a photograph of them before confronting them. On Tuesday, Mohammad Sharulnaim Miswan,...

The Philippines has cut its official poverty rate to below 10 per cent for the first time, a milestone officials hailed as proof that millions of Filipinos are climbing the economic ladder. Yet for families like Vhan Castro’s, there is a big difference between being officially counted as middle class and actually feeling financially secure. The 34-year-old earns an average of 40,000 pesos (US$650) a month for his family of four through a patchwork of side hustles – from renting out a van for...

South Korea is preparing to overhaul the rules governing technical qualification exams after five candidates were caught using AI-powered smart glasses to cheat in just over two months. The five cases, reported between May and June, were disclosed in data submitted to the Human Resources Development Service of Korea by opposition politician Kim So-hee, according to a report by The Korea Herald on Monday. In two of the cases – in Gwangju and Daegu – the candidates were caught because examiners...

A coalition may call itself a commitment. It still has to say what that commitment is. The Trump administration is reportedly preparing to send a letter to dozens of countries, pressing them to choose sides in the US-China artificial intelligence race. Those that join Beijing’s proposed AI cooperation framework would be excluded from the US-led AI coalition. “To be part of everything is to be part of nothing,” the draft says. An American official summarised the message more bluntly: countries...

The Philippines plans to expand its unmanned ⁠capabilities, including through development ⁠and acquisition of drones as part ⁠of efforts to modernise its military, its defence chief said on Tuesday. US defence ally the Philippines also planned to acquire additional guided-missile corvettes and other major defence assets to strengthen its external defence capabilities, Defence Secretary Gilberto ‌Teodoro told a budget hearing in the lower house of Congress. The Philippines has shifted its...

South Korean carmaker Hyundai Motor and the union representing its workers have reached a tentative deal on wages and bonuses, both sides said on Tuesday after a rare full-day strike. Around 40,000 employees of a roughly 73,000-strong domestic workforce at the country’s largest carmaker walked off the job on Friday, according to union figures, in the first such action for a decade. The union said on Monday that it had returned to talks with the company and had postponed shorter strikes planned...

We have selected seven stories from the SCMP’s coverage of Asia over the past week that resonated with our readers and shed light on topical issues. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. Islamic university sacks professor who claimed Malays could fly A Malaysian Islamic university has formally distanced itself from an academic whose viral claims about ancient Malay civilisation – including that Malays could fly and taught the Chinese “flying kung fu” –...