Asia

Travelling through South America earlier this year, I was repeatedly reminded of China’s growing importance. At Ezeiza International Airport in Buenos Aires, I spotted the logo of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. ICBC acquired an 80 per cent stake in Standard Bank Argentina in 2012, establishing a significant presence. In Buenos Aires, my friend Diego García, a publisher, offered a useful perspective: Argentina does not have to choose between China and the United States. It should...

A massive data breach that affected several airlines across Asia has underscored the need for industries in the region to revisit their reliance on third-party suppliers, analysts have said, warning that more critical infrastructure may soon be affected. Last week, a wave of airlines reported that customer information was accessed in a data security breach involving Spanish software provider Amadeus. Several of these breaches involved information found in booking details, including flight data,...

A growing push among Indonesian lawmakers to investigate Vice-President Gibran Rakabuming Raka’s academic credentials is raising questions about the influence of his father, former leader Joko Widodo, as signs of a rift within the country’s ruling elite grow. The challenge comes from within President Prabowo Subianto’s own coalition, underscoring how the political alliance that helped propel him to power in 2024 may be unravelling, analysts have said. It also follows the arrest of a prominent...

Japan’s government on Friday compiled a package of emergency measures to address a spate of recent personal data breaches caused by unauthorised access, amid growing public concerns over cybersecurity. Among the measures are promoting the use of artificial intelligence to identify vulnerabilities in computer systems and creating several teams of highly skilled experts. The package was announced at a meeting of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and relevant ministers on Friday. Takaichi instructed...

Malaysia’s hope for a shift in US trade policy is unlikely to be realised for some time, experts warn, as the new Democratic-led Congress will face strong opposition from US President Donald Trump in its attempt to reverse some of his tariff measures. Trump’s Republicans suffered their worst rout in recent times in the US midterm elections on Tuesday, losing control of both Congress and the Senate by wide margins as voters made clear their anger at Trump over surging living costs caused by the...

Indonesia’s climate ambitions are being undermined by devastating wildfires that contradict its emissions-cutting strategy, casting a shadow over Jakarta’s push for a greener economy ahead of the 31st UN Climate Change Conference (Cop31). However, Environment Minister Jumhur Hidayat has doubled down, arguing that his country’s climate goals should not come at the expense of national development and that emissions reduction efforts must be fair. On Wednesday, he outlined six priority areas for...

A former Miss Thailand and well-known social activist was arrested on Friday alongside her husband, accused of siphoning off money from her charity to buy luxury homes as police examine an estimated 1 billion baht (US$30 million) in donations. Panadda “Boom” Wongphudee, 50, was detained at her Bangkok home early on Friday morning after the Criminal Court issued arrest warrants accusing the couple of public fraud and money laundering. Her husband, fitness influencer and businessman Atip...

The Democratic Party’s sweep of both houses of the US Congress could stabilise Washington’s commitment to the Philippines, bringing relief to allies rattled by President Donald Trump’s Iran war and his shifting foreign policy. Analysts expect bipartisan support for Manila to endure, with Democratic oversight set to rein in Trump’s unpredictability. But they warn that Washington could still turn inward to deal with domestic challenges, diverting attention from the Indo-Pacific. The rebuke of...

An EU funding crunch is threatening to stifle the bloc’s ambitions to expand its influence in Southeast Asia, as Brussels grapples with a budget deadlock that could slow infrastructure investments across the fast-growing region. The funding squeeze could hinder the green transition and regional connectivity goals of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, even as Brussels seeks greater strategic autonomy amid competition with Beijing’s economic clout. Analysts expect the European Union to...

Malaysia’s disgraced former prime minister Najib Razak moved closer to house arrest after Umno on Friday paid a 50 million ringgit (US$12.3 million) fine required under the terms of his royal pardon. The clemency granted by King Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar in September allows Najib to serve the remainder of his sentence under house arrest until August 2028, after more than four years behind bars for corruption linked to the 1MDB sovereign wealth fund. Despite the payment, Najib has not been...

Malaysia’s Sarawak will hold a state election on December 12 as the incumbent government seeks a fresh mandate to press demands over autonomy and control of the territory’s natural resources. The filing of nominations will begin on November 28 and early voting will be on December 8, Election Commission chairman Ramlan Harun told reporters on Friday. The 14-day election campaign involving more than 2.05 million eligible voters choosing 82 members will end on December 11, the commission said in a...

Japan’s growing strategic partnership with Vietnam is putting Tokyo’s commitment to a rules-based regional order under scrutiny, as Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi faces calls to press Hanoi over its failure to honour labour rights commitments. The issue is expected to surface during Vietnamese President To Lam’s four-day visit to Tokyo from Sunday, raising questions about how far Japan is prepared to defend the principles underpinning a major Pacific trade agreement when its economic and security...

Japanese and South Korean shares plunged on Friday after US shares tumbled overnight on worries that midterm election results could slow or derail the artificial intelligence data centre investment boom. Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index fell 5.1 per cent to 56,930 points in early trade. Seoul’s Kospi index dived 8.5 per cent to 4,923, triggering a circuit breaker which suspended trading for 20 minutes. Investors had initially cheered Tuesday’s Democratic drubbing of US President Donald Trump’s...

A road project with coordinates pointing to Nigeria. A government building apparently located in the Sahara Desert. Another road mapped to a sea near Brunei. These are among the unlikely locations listed for infrastructure projects in the Philippines’ proposed 2027 national budget, according to independent watchdogs that have discovered the discrepancies, highlighting problems with government transparency and accountability. Their scrutiny of Manila’s proposed 7.2 trillion pesos (US$114 billion)...

When Huang Baoying was growing up, her older brother helped look after her, their parents recalled. Huang Bocan would tutor his younger sister at night and help her with her studies, their mother said. To his parents, he was a responsible son whom they trusted to help care for Baoying while they worked long hours. Years later, he would be sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering her. “We never imagined that things could become so serious,” their father said after Bocan, 34, was sentenced on...

A month-long police campaign in Japan to track down hundreds of suspects sought over the nation’s most notorious crimes, some dating back decades, underscores what analysts describe as the surprising ease with which individuals can vanish, even in the country’s highly bureaucratic society. The nationwide drive, officially designated the “Month for Strengthening Investigations into Wanted Suspects”, began on November 1. Through official websites and social media appeals, authorities are urging...

South Korea’s government has announced it will revise a youth counselling manual that categorised homosexuality as a form of juvenile delinquency, after facing a backlash sparked by local media reports earlier this week. Homosexuality was grouped alongside sexual violence, theft and drug abuse under “delinquency-related issues” in the manual, the Korea JoongAng Daily reported. Published by the Korea Youth Counselling and Welfare Institute – a body affiliated with the Ministry of Gender Equality...

Singapore is seeking to flip the script by turning its land and manpower constraints into reasons to embrace AI instead of fearing it, even as the technology carries the spectre of job losses and cyberthreats in the wrong hands, a senior official has said. Minister for Digital Development and Information Josephine Teo argued that pragmatism would give her resource-scarce country an edge without becoming overly reliant on any single power or AI provider. At the Family Business Summit in Hong Kong...

An Indonesian police inquiry into the wiretapping of President Prabowo Subianto’s phone was a matter for law enforcement, the country’s police chief said on Thursday, as the scandal exposed the deepening cracks between Prabowo and his former backer and predecessor, Joko Widodo. “We assure you that this is ‌purely law enforcement and has nothing to do with rivalries or anything else,” police chief Suyudi Ario Seto told reporters without elaborating, adding that the arrests must serve as a lesson...

Singapore’s Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) on Thursday rejected a report that a power outage at Woodlands Checkpoint caused traffic congestion along the causeway and on several roads in Johor Bahru on Wednesday. In its account of Wednesday’s events, ICA said a build-up of Singapore-bound traffic occurred amid planned electrical maintenance works, while two vehicle breakdowns on the Malaysian side of the causeway subsequently contributed to traffic tailing back into...

Vietnam’s growing nuclear partnership with Russia could help Hanoi gain the expertise needed to fuel its ambitious nuclear programme amid doubts over Western sanctions against Moscow and financing challenges complicating the plans. The Vietnam Atomic Energy Institute (Vinatom) and a subsidiary of Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom, which is leading the development of the MBIR International Research Centre, announced on Tuesday that they had signed a memorandum of understanding to...

A young Malaysian Muslim who took part in Hindu rituals to pray for his ailing mother publicly repented on Thursday in a ceremony live-streamed by state religious authorities, a day after a sharia court ordered him to undergo three months of faith rehabilitation. The spectacle has raised questions about the enforcement of Islamic orthodoxy in Muslim-majority Malaysia, where state religious departments wield significant influence to police the personal conduct and religious beliefs of...

Thailand has banned a textbook about the country on national security grounds, with the tome’s exiled editor saying on Thursday it was outlawed over its content on the Thai monarchy. The royal family holds revered status in Thai society and is shielded from criticism by a strict defamation law that critics say is used to muzzle dissent. The book, a second edition of the Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Thailand published in English in August, was edited by Pavin Chachavalpongpun, a prominent...

Thai conservationists are sleuthing for clues to help save the country’s last herd of dugongs by testing the mammal’s poop for stress hormones, its microbiome and other health indicators to prevent the extinction of this beloved yet critically endangered sea creature. But first they have to find the faeces – a green fist-sized ball consisting of the seagrass the gentle dugongs graze on daily in the coastal shallows of the Andaman Sea. It is literally drop-in-the-ocean work for the teams using...

Philippine investigators are examining whether Thomas Markle Jnr, the half-brother of Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, was involved in alleged child sexual abuse offences as an investigation into their father widens, according to the country’s interior secretary on Thursday. Interior Secretary Juanito Victor Remulla said witnesses had alleged that underage girls were brought to the younger Markle’s home. Markle Jnr was being treated as a “person of interest”, not a suspect, Remulla told reporters...

The Philippines on Thursday voiced optimism that the Democratic Party’s resounding midterm election win would prompt the United States to adopt “a different approach” to President Donald Trump’s hardening immigration crackdown that has ensnared many Filipinos. Trump’s Republican Party was routed in Tuesday’s polls, with the Democrats taking control of both houses of the US Congress and gaining legislative power to check his policies. The drubbing has given hope to Jose Manuel Romualdez, Manila’s...

A man was sentenced to life imprisonment on Thursday for murder after being part of a group that abused his 19-year-old younger sister until she died. Huang Bocan, who joined his girlfriend and another man in starving the victim and chaining her to a toilet, was first charged in 2021 with common intention of committing murder by causing bodily injury to Huang Baoying. Huang, a 34-year-old Singaporean, was convicted on Thursday of committing murder by causing his younger sister’s death. The...

North Korea is bracing for a prolonged confrontation with the United States, analysts say, after sweeping Democratic gains in the US midterm elections diminished the likelihood of renewed diplomacy between Kim Jong-un and President Donald Trump. As Americans cast their ballots on Tuesday, Pyongyang test-fired a new surface-to-air missile system and carried out a strike drill with long-range strategic cruise missiles early on Wednesday, Korean time – its fourth weapons test in a week. The...

South Korea is investigating hundreds of financial institutions after more than 470,000 data records were leaked from 37 firms over the past month, according to the country’s financial regulator. The Financial Services Commission (FSC) revealed the scale of the breaches on Thursday as authorities vowed to strengthen cybersecurity measures following a string of similar cases affecting the financial sector and government agencies. The FSC detailed the incidents at a meeting with officials from...

Cost of living issues are set to dominate Saturday’s election in New Zealand, but the outcome may also determine whether Wellington maintains its cautious approach to US President Donald Trump or pursues a more independent foreign policy. With the major parties locked in a close contest ahead of the vote, analysts say the next government’s defence priorities and its approach to Washington are likely to hinge on the minor coalition partners. Robert Patman, a professor of international relations...