Asia

Indonesian authorities arrested 72 people suspected of starting some of the forest and peatland fires as huge blazes in central and west Indonesia triggered choking haze. Indonesia has been battling fires driven by an intensifying El Nino pattern and a prolonged dry season, generating dense smoke that crossed into Malaysia, according to Indonesia’s National Disaster Management Agency, or BNPB. Fires are a regular problem in Indonesia that strain relations with neighbouring countries. Plantation...

Singapore will increase its spending on pro-family measures focusing on easing childcare costs, with Prime Minister Lawrence Wong calling them “one of the best investments” on Sunday, as the city state aims to reverse its declining fertility rate. The policy shifts announced by Wong at the annual National Day Rally, Singapore’s biggest political speech of the year, are some of the most significant in years, revolving around boosting support for families to have children. He also spoke about...

Singapore will no longer restrict the number of cinema screenings for dialect films, relaxing a decades-long policy in a significant move that analysts say was driven by recent discourse over the Chinese blockbuster Dear You. Prime Minister Lawrence Wong said on Sunday the relaxation came with the prerequisite that a Mandarin-dubbed version would be available. Restrictions for pay television content in dialect will also be eased, with details to be announced at a later date. “Even as we promote...

Dressed as his favourite superhero, Indonesian teenager Rudiyansah walks along a charred landscape, helping douse wildfires that have razed large parts of Borneo island. The Southeast Asian country has been battling infernos that have left a thick, blanketing smog over parts of the island that Indonesia shares with Malaysia and Brunei. Rudiyansah’s red and blue Superman costume stood out against the stark, scorched landscape surrounding the town of Palangkaraya, where he has joined a local...

At a recent Apec digital technology and AI forum in Chengdu, ministers across the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum issued a statement in support of open-source artificial intelligence models – a rare point of agreement in a debate often framed as a zero-sum US-China contest. It pointed towards an AI order that cuts against the assumption of a contest with a single winner, an assumption that still shapes Washington’s alarm over every Chinese AI breakthrough. Across Asia, governments are...

It was a ⁠vision to give South Korea a stock market that reflected its true economic ⁠dynamism, by shedding regulatory taboos and encouraging bolder bets – instead, it created an investor trauma that could take years to shake. The ⁠30 per cent decline in the Kospi benchmark since its June 19 peak has hurt President Lee Jae Myung’s government politically and turned the spotlight on an economic system that drove retail investors into poorly understood leveraged products. It has also raised...

Cambodia is preparing to restart joint military exercises with the United States next year, in a move analysts described as a pragmatic reset of defence ties strained since 2017 – though not a pivot away from China. Senior officials from both countries discussed restarting the Angkor Sentinel drills last weekend, alongside expanded training and military reforms, Cambodian media reported. Washington has also signalled interest in further visits to Ream, a strategically located Cambodian naval...

Coal-dependent Indonesia is reviving decades-old plans to build nuclear power plants that were put on hold following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, as it seeks to meet its decarbonisation targets. Some members of the public and experts, however, have voiced concerns about the risks of a nuclear disaster in the quake-prone country, despite one of the leading candidate sites being an uninhabited island considered not to be in an active seismic zone. The government began discussing...

Bangkok’s best street food has always existed on a kind of mental map for Thai food writer Choltanutkun Tun-atiruj. It is built from habit, cravings and neighbourhood rhythms: the office crowds, the schools, the university nearby and the vendors selling everything from moo ping (grilled pork skewers) and sticky rice to pad thai and kuay teow reua – a bowl of rice noodles in dark broth flavoured with cow or pig’s blood, then topped with meat and spices. “I can’t tell you my favourite because I...

Malaysian politics runs on grudges and few illustrate that better than the one nursed by Rafizi Ramli. A year after losing the deputy presidency of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s People’s Justice Party (PKR), he has built a vehicle for the disaffected, aimed squarely at the coalition of which he was once part. Parti Bersama Malaysia – or Bersama, meaning “together” – is barely three months old under its new leadership, yet it has already rattled Malaysia’s governing alliance. Taken over in May...

⁠India’s coastguard ⁠and navy continued search-and-rescue operations off the eastern coast on Sunday after a Panama-flagged cargo vessel carrying 24 crew sank, with two Chinese nationals rescued, a ‌senior official said. The two rescued Chinese seafarers said the vessel developed a list on Friday and sank within eight minutes, forcing crew to abandon ship, Shyam Jagannathan, director general of India’s Maritime Administration, said. Jagannathan said the chances ⁠of finding survivors generally...

Indonesia is deploying an additional 1,500 soldiers to Borneo, an official said on Saturday, to help tackle wildfires that have burned through swathes of the island and created thick smog choking some areas. Fires between January and July burned over 200,000 hectares of land – an area three times the size of the capital Jakarta, the government said this week, as dry conditions driven by a powerful El Nino weather pattern take hold. President Prabowo Subianto, on a visit to Borneo on Saturday to...

A Myanmar military air strike on a monastery where civilians were gathered for a meditation retreat marking Buddhist Lent killed 14 people, two rebel fighters who witnessed the aftermath said. Myanmar has been consumed by civil war since the military staged a 2021 coup ousting the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi and detaining the Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Over the past five years, more than 100,000 people are estimated to have been killed across all sides as the military battles an...

Australia’s capital will join a gun buy-back ⁠as part of ⁠a response to a ⁠shooting spree that killed 15 at a Jewish festival in Sydney, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Saturday. Albanese’s centre-left government enacted laws in January for the gun buy-back, tighter checks for gun ‌licences and a crackdown on hate in the wake of the December 14 gun attack at a Bondi Beach Hanukkah celebration in Sydney, the capital of New South Wales. The state, Australia’s most populous, became the...

Why is the idea of a planned economy anathema to so many people despite China’s success? And why do so many retain faith in market economies given the economic chaos much of the Western world is descending into? These questions have acquired a particular piquancy as Hong Kong embraces long-term planning for the first time, attracting criticism from some that it is falling into Chinese-style error. Having been in Asia for 50 years – in Singapore, which I consider a planned economy, and Hong Kong...

Less than two years before the Philippines chooses its next president, Ferdinand Marcos Jnr still has no candidate to carry his banner. Sara Duterte-Carpio, his estranged vice-president and fiercest political rival, has already declared her intention to run and remains the early front runner, despite an impeachment trial that could bar her from politics. Marcos said on August 14 that he would “certainly endorse a candidate” in 2028 but added: “Who that is I cannot tell you because even I don’t...

Near the heavily fortified frontier dividing the Korean peninsula, the abandoned Woljeong-ri station is being recast as a symbol of South Korea’s hopes to reconcile with the North. But plans to reconnect South Korea’s northernmost station to the rail network come at an awkward moment, as Pyongyang ignores Seoul’s overtures while the South’s old ally Washington pursues its own talks with Pyongyang. A turbulent few days have raised doubts about the role of South Korea in any diplomatic push,...

Climate change and conflict are conspiring to open up the Arctic to Asian commercial shipping, with China, South Korea and India all eyeing the icy short cut to Europe. Last Saturday, Chinese shipping company Sea Legend launched the first scheduled weekly container service across the top of the world, marking the realisation of Beijing’s long-held ambition to build a “Polar Silk Road”. It will not sail alone for long, however. This Sunday, South Korea’s PanStar Group plans to send its own pilot...

A US ⁠judge has struck down a Trump administration ⁠policy suspending the issuance of immigrant visas to applicants from 75 countries, saying that the policy exceeded Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s statutory authority. US District Judge Jeannette Vargas in Manhattan said on Friday ⁠that the policy that the ‌State Department announced in January was “patently unlawful” and ran afoul of federal immigration law, which explicitly stripped the secretary of state of authority over consular officers’...

Japan’s Crown Prince Fumihito and his wife Crown Princess Kiko attended a ceremony on Friday marking 90 years of Japanese immigration to Paraguay, with the prince praising in a speech the contributions made by the immigrants and their descendants to the South American country. In an address at the event near the Paraguayan capital Asuncion, the crown prince, the younger brother of Emperor Naruhito, touched on how the immigrants overcame hardships and have taken root in Paraguay. Around 650...

Dengue infections in Malaysia have surged 56.2 per cent this year, with 58,079 cases and 55 deaths recorded so far, even as take-up of the dengue vaccine remains low. Dr Shanmuganathan TV Ganeson, president of the Federation of Private Medical Practitioners’ Associations, Malaysia, said cost was one factor behind the low vaccine uptake. A two-dose regime could cost between 420 and 500 ringgit (US$104 to US$124), depending on the facility, and was generally cheaper in general practitioner...

Three months after leaving an inland port far up the Congo River, a consignment of timber arrived in Vietnam this summer concealing a secret it would take customs officials three weeks to uncover: nearly 1.2 tonnes of elephant ivory, smuggled halfway across the world. Tracking data reviewed by This Week in Asia shows the shipment travelled some 9,000 nautical miles (16,700km) – with stops in Sri Lanka and Singapore – before reaching Quy Nhon, a port on Vietnam’s central coast. Custom officers...

The roar from thousands of People’s Justice Party (PKR) delegates gathered at a grand convention centre in Melaka last weekend exuded all the confidence expected of a party leading Malaysia’s government. The past three years have been the culmination of more than two decades of struggle for PKR, with it finally achieving its long-held goal of installing leader Anwar Ibrahim as prime minister and wielding the power to push through reforms. Yet beneath the confident facade lurks a ruling party now...

Southeast Asian leaders have long insisted they will not be forced to pick sides in the great-power rivalry between the US and China. But their posture is about to be further tested. This time, the battleground is AI. While Washington wants the region locked into Pax Silica – its bid to build a China-free artificial intelligence supply chain – Beijing wants its neighbours to join China’s own World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organisation (Waico). Sources told the South China Morning Post...

A man was sentenced to nine years and 10 months’ jail, and eight strokes of the cane on Friday for abusing multiple young boys who were under his care. The man beat his youngest victim – a six-year-old boy – with a hanger more than 600 times, forced him to hold a push-up position for hours, and made him sleep in the toilet and drink his own urine. The boy suffered severe injuries as a result, including to his ribs, lungs and kidneys, and was hospitalised for 46 days. The 31-year-old Singaporean...

India’s long-delayed plan to build six advanced conventional submarines with Germany has moved closer to final approval, a deal analysts say could test the depth of New Delhi’s “Make in India” defence ambitions while helping it respond to growing undersea pressure from Pakistan and China. The US$7.3 billion deal would involve building submarines for the Indian navy with Germany’s ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS), primarily at Mumbai’s Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Ltd, India’s premier public...

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...