Asia

Singapore’s latest package of tax breaks and visa incentives for fund managers could enhance its appeal as a leading asset management hub, as competition with Hong Kong intensifies for global capital and high-value financial talent, analysts have said. While the measures would help maintain Singapore’s competitiveness, they are unlikely to create a significant or lasting advantage over Hong Kong, according to Ramkishen Rajan, an economist and Yong Pung How Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of...

Australian police charged a man with foreign interference on Friday for allegedly seeking to pass intelligence about Ukrainian military activities to Russia. The 27-year-old Russian-Australian citizen underwent “military-style” training in Russia and later joined the Ukrainian armed forces, Australian federal police commissioner Krissy Barrett told a news conference. Police allege he travelled to Russia for the training in October 2024, before returning to Australia, where he “maintained...

Transboundary haze has again disrupted daily life on Malaysian Borneo, forcing nearly 600 schools in Sarawak to shut on Friday as air pollution in parts of the state reached “very unhealthy” levels. The closures affecting almost 200,000 pupils were the latest disruptions caused by Southeast Asia’s persistent haze problem, which flares during dry spells when forest and peatland fires – often linked to land clearing for agriculture and plantations – send harmful smoke across national borders. The...

Japan is preparing to spend more than ever on defence as analysts say Tokyo is being forced to respond to a convergence of regional threats, fast-changing military technology and growing uncertainty over the reliability of the US security umbrella. The defence ministry is preparing to request a record budget of 8.9 trillion yen (US$56.1 billion) for the 2027 financial year, with major outlays planned for drones, AI-enabled command systems, long-range missiles and support for Japan’s domestic...

Nissin Foods, the company that invented instant noodles, appears to have created an entirely new category with a hit product: cup noodles made with cold water. Initial supplies of the handy meal – available in Spicy Kimchi and Chicken Salt Lemon flavours – sold out a week after hitting store shelves on July 20, according to Nissin. While the Tokyo-based company did not disclose sales figures, it had anticipated supplies to last one to two months. Nissin, which has almost half of Japan’s...

Carolus Winfridus was asleep when an earthquake struck off Indonesia’s island of Flores, as he was awoken by intense rumbling and saw his wardrobe doors flying open. He and his family quickly scrambled for a way out of their house in the town of Maumere, Sikka Regency, one of nine regencies hit by Saturday’s devastating 7.7-magnitude quake that killed almost 80 people and displaced nearly 100,000. Survivors and officials describe how blocked roads, power cuts and relentless aftershocks have...

The decision by Japanese retailer Aeon to sell its MaxValu minimart chain in Thailand is the latest example of the tight grip domestic conglomerates hold over Thai consumers, retail experts say. Yet the move also hints at the shifting economic fortunes of neighbouring Vietnam, where major Asian retailers including Aeon are competing aggressively for market share among a rapidly expanding middle class. On September 30, MaxValu, a store beloved by many Thais for its affordability and varied fresh...

Online scam syndicates that rely on trafficked workers, guarded compounds and vast call-centre-style operations could soon become more threatening by exploiting agentic AI to run some fraud operations autonomously, a cybercrime expert has warned. Unlike earlier uses of artificial intelligence to write scripts, translate messages or produce deepfakes, agentic AI systems can carry out multi-step tasks with limited human prompting, raising the prospect of scams that are faster, cheaper, more...

Japanese influencer Gamix, who went viral for sobbing after Japan’s defeat at the 2026 Fifa World Cup, has sparked controversy after making a gesture widely considered racist towards East Asians while parodying Ateez member San’s viral “BAD” challenge. Gamix uploaded a video to his social media account on Thursday in which he recreated the choreography from Ateez’s “BAD”, a viral trend that has recently gained traction online. During the video, which displayed a photo of San at the bottom of the...

Malaysia’s Islamist opposition leader Abdul Hadi Awang has sparked outrage and ridicule with unproven claims linking religion to dishonesty, suggesting that Muslims are less corrupt than non-Muslims. Hadi’s remarks, which drew demands for evidence, came amid a series of attacks by his Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) on the Democratic Action Party (DAP), a predominantly ethnic Chinese party in Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s ruling coalition. “Not all Muslims are free from corruption but in...

The latest floods to hit Metro Manila and parts of the Philippines’ main island of Luzon have turned a familiar seasonal disaster into a renewed test of political accountability for President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr, as anger over allegedly corrupt flood-control projects returns to the centre of public debate. Analysts said the deluge had sharpened scrutiny of the slow-moving investigation into allegedly substandard and non-existent flood-control works, exposing the gap between Marcos’...

As Singapore’s Prime Minister Lawrence Wong prepares to unveil plans to ease the strain on families during his National Day Rally speech on Sunday, a new survey points to a difficult question behind the city state’s record-low fertility rate: what if a substantial share of residents no longer want children at all? Nearly one in four Singaporeans aged 18 to 44 surveyed by YouGov in July said they had no children and did not intend to have them in the future. Zahir Latif and his fiancée are among...

Japan executed on Friday a man convicted of an arson attack on a pachinko parlour in 2009 that killed five people, with the prisoner as usual informed shortly before his execution. It was Japan’s first hanging since Takahiro Shiraishi, the “Twitter killer” who murdered and dismembered nine people, was put to death in June 2025. Sunao Takami, the man executed on Friday, doused a pachinko parlour – a popular game mixing pinball and a slot machine using small steel balls – near his home in Osaka...

Russia’s Pacific Fleet said on Thursday it has conducted a missile test off a group of Russian-held, Japanese-claimed islands amid an intensifying row over the disputed territory following President Vladimir Putin’s first-ever visit there last week. While it was unclear exactly when the test was carried out, the announcement comes after the Russian foreign ministry summoned Japanese Ambassador to Russia Akira Muto over Japan’s protest against Putin’s trip to the area. Putin visited Etorofu...

Japan has spent years casting the International Criminal Court as a pillar of the rules-based order. This week, its closest ally sanctioned the Japanese judge who leads it. The move has left Tokyo in an uncomfortable bind: defend Tomoko Akane, the Japanese president of The Hague-based court, and risk antagonising US leader Donald Trump, or temper its criticism and appear weak in the face of an attack on an institution central to Japan’s rule-of-law diplomacy. Washington’s sanctions, announced on...

At first glance, Kim Yo-jong’s latest message to Washington looked like a rebuff to US President Donald Trump’s insistence that he would meet her brother Kim Jong-un later this year. But analysts said the North Korean leader’s powerful sister stopped well short of shutting down Trump’s outreach, using a carefully worded statement to leave room for renewed summit diplomacy while making clear that Pyongyang intended to set the terms for any return to dialogue. In her statement, released by North...

A court on the Indonesian resort island of Bali sentenced a Swiss tourist on Thursday to one year in prison for insulting a sacred Balinese Hindu observance. Luzian Andrin Zgraggen, 26, was found guilty of violating Indonesia’s new criminal code by posting social media messages about the Day of Silence, when people are required to stay home and are urged to remain silent and meditate. The Denpasar District Court determined that he posted the messages even after staff at the villa where he was...

China has spent 80 years building formidable marine science capabilities. The harder test now is whether it can build rules for ocean data that its neighbours trust – and share. When China’s first department of oceanography was established in 1946, the country had only a modest capacity to study the seas around it. China now commands one of the world’s most extensive marine science enterprises, with research fleets, satellites, ocean-observation networks, deep-sea technology and advanced...

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s emphatic backing of Beijing’s position on Taiwan has won praise and diplomatic goodwill from mainland China, even as Kuala Lumpur may face greater friction over its courting of Taiwanese semiconductor investments. Analysts said the remarks did not change Malaysia’s long-standing one-China policy, but their unusually categorical tone went beyond the typical formulation and could reinforce perceptions of closer alignment with Beijing. The more tangible...

North Korea has fired several short-range ballistic missiles, Seoul’s military said on Thursday, hours after US President Donald Trump said he would meet Pyongyang’s Kim Jong-un this year. The latest launches from the nuclear-armed North come as South Korea and the United States hold a shorter edition of their annual Ulchi Freedom Shield military exercises, following an order from Trump to scale them back. Pyongyang has long condemned US-South Korea joint exercises as rehearsals for invasion,...

Four workers died on Thursday after being hit by an express train at a station in Tochigi Prefecture, north of Tokyo, police said. The four men, in their 50s and 60s, were on the tracks removing weeds when the accident took place at around 10.45am local time at Shin-Kanuma Station on the Tobu Nikko Line, according to the police and the train operator. None of the crew or passengers was injured. A total of seven workers were engaged in weeding work, including the four who lost their lives. The...

A deadly school attack in the southern Philippines is drawing scrutiny as part of an apparent regional pattern of youth violence that echoes the staging, symbolism and online spectacle of mass shootings overseas. Authorities are investigating whether the incident in Zamboanga, in which a student reportedly broadcast parts of the attack online, was influenced by exposure to digital media, while analysts said the case underscored the risk of “memetic violence” – in which past atrocities are...

Mainland Chinese tourist arrivals in Japan fell for an eighth consecutive month in July, as group tours slumped and visa costs rose amid deteriorating ties between Beijing and Tokyo. Mainland China has traditionally been a major source of visitors for Japan, but tourist arrivals plunged 56.1 per cent year on year in July, extending a downward trend that began in December 2025, according to data released by the Japan National Tourism Organisation (JNTO) on Wednesday. Overall foreign arrivals to...

Malaysians have launched a humorous appeal to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to fix their potholes, sparking a meme fest praising his responsiveness and highlighting local government inaction. The campaign began after a social media user posted a video of a battered road he frequently uses that caused him to crash, urging Mamdani to help make the thoroughfare passable. “Mamdani, please help me. There used to be a pothole over there and because of the pothole I was involved in a road...

South Korea’s push to regain wartime control of its military has been thrown into doubt after the United States abruptly cut short a major joint exercise, scrapping plans for a simulated counteroffensive into North Korean territory and encirclement of Pyongyang. Defence analysts warn scaling back the Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS) exercise could weaken the allies’ deterrence posture at a sensitive moment, even as Seoul seeks greater self-reliance in managing security on the Korean peninsula. US...

South Korea will flag off ⁠on Saturday a container ship bound for Europe via the Arctic, testing whether a route opened by melting sea ice can be commercially viable, but risking friction with Western allies, as the voyage requires Russian cooperation. If successful, the trip would be South Korea’s first such commercial voyage to Europe via the Arctic, placing it with China and Russia among the few countries whose shipping firms have tested or run cargo services along the route. Sailing ‌north...

South Korea’s security strategy has rested for more than seven decades on a single pillar: its alliance with the United States. That pillar has absorbed one blow after another during Donald Trump’s second term as US president. This week brought a fresh signal that has strained the relationship. In a social media post, Trump criticised joint US-South Korea military exercises, calling them “costly” and saying they send an “inappropriate and hostile” message to a North Korea he described as...

US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he planned to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un later this year, despite Pyongyang denying that the two leaders were in direct communication. “Yeah, I will be,” Trump told reporters when asked whether he expected to meet Kim before the end of 2026. Trump, speaking during a tour of a new helipad under construction at the White House, provided no details about where or when a meeting might take place. The Wall Street Journal has reported that...

North ⁠Korea’s Kim Yo-jong, sister of leader Kim Jong-un, on Wednesday denied Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s claim that Pyongyang planned to send up to 50,000 more troops to Russia to fight for ‌its ally. Kim Yo-jong, a top official in North Korea’s ruling party, said in a statement published by state media KCNA that Zelensky’s estimate was “groundless” and “a self-staged incident”. Zelensky made his claim in a post on social media this month, and he called on South Korea to provide...

Bangladesh’s request for additional diesel from India has turned a growing power crisis into a potential opening for the two neighbours to repair ties strained in part by the continuous self-exile of ex-prime minister Sheikh Hasina in New Delhi and Dhaka’s repeated requests for her extradition. India confirmed on Friday that it was examining Dhaka’s request for extra fuel as Bangladesh ordered shops, malls and markets to close by 8pm to conserve power, with hospitals, pharmacies and restaurants...