Asia

The world can learn diplomatic lessons from Asean, East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta has said in a strongly worded rebuke to existing global power structures. At the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on Saturday, Ramos-Horta, who leads the newest and 11th member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, argued that the bloc epitomised how dialogue could prevent conflict and yield dividends. He acknowledged that Asean was “not heaven on earth”, achieving consensus was “frustratingly slow”...

Sri Lanka’s Buddhist hierarchy suspended on Saturday a senior monk accused of sexually abusing an 11-year-old girl, in a high-profile case that has shocked the religiously conservative nation. In a rare disciplinary move, 71-year-old Pallegama Hemarathana was stripped of his responsibilities as the chief custodian of a highly venerated ficus grown from a sapling of a tree believed to have sheltered the Buddha. “The Council of Monks of the Malwatte Chapter decided today to suspend Ven....

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Saturday expressed her determination to achieve a “breakthrough” in resolving the long-standing issue of Japanese nationals abducted by North Korea, vowing to weigh all options, including summit talks. At a rally in Tokyo calling for the return of Japanese abductees, Takaichi urged North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to take a “courageous step” together for the benefit of the peoples of the two countries. “Whatever it takes, I will resolve the abduction issue by...

Five villagers trapped deep in a flooded cave in Laos have been freed, ending a 10-day underground ordeal that relied on expert cave rescuers racing against time to guide the group through flooded passages before fresh rains further complicated the mission. Hugs, cheers and tears met four of the group who emerged thin and muddied on Saturday afternoon to be quickly wrapped in foil blankets to regulate their body temperature after days in the damp, cold cave. Another man was freed overnight. But...

Seventeen countries have agreed to collaborate on defence strategies for critical marine infrastructure such as undersea cables, an effort that analysts warn may be undermined by the absence of superpower involvement. At the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on Saturday, defence ministers and representatives from these countries attended the launch of the Guiding Principles for Underwater Infrastructure Defence Exchanges (Guide), which aims to bring countries together to explore potential areas...

There is a good deal more to the rapid rise in bond yields around the world, not least in Asia, than meets the eye. It suggests a recognition by financial markets that governments are spending beyond their means, tax revenues and borrowing power. The implication is that either taxes need to rise or public spending needs to fall, or alternatively that financial markets, stock markets in particular, must shift their priorities away from glamour stocks in the tech and artificial intelligence (AI)...

America’s latest defence strategy worryingly downgraded the importance of the Indo-Pacific, a US senator warned on Saturday, even as the Pentagon chief delivered a speech reassuring allies of commitment at a defence forum in Singapore. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, a staunch critic of the US-Israeli war on Iran, told a media round table at the Shangri-La Dialogue that she was concerned the Trump administration was being distracted by conflict in other theatres that would dent commitment to the...

A professor at a private university in South Korea’s Daejeon has been disciplined and removed from all teaching duties after allegedly making sexually inappropriate remarks to students during class. According to the university on Friday, the school’s foundation recently finalised disciplinary measures against the professor, identified only by the surname B. The university said B has been barred from teaching classes, providing academic counselling and performing other student guidance duties....

Singapore’s Union of Security Employees (USE) said on Thursday that it “stands firmly behind” the security guards involved in a confrontation with a Hong Kong school principal in which he swore at them. The secondary school principal, Lee Cheuk‑hing, who was on a trip to Singapore with a group of students, was seen arguing with the guards over a parking matter at SAFRA Jurong, a recreational club, in a video widely circulated on social media. Lee has since tendered his resignation from San Wui...

Indonesia lost nearly US$1 trillion in resource wealth over a 34-year period due to deceptive trade practices, President Prabowo Subianto declared in parliament on May 20. That same day, a set of new export controls was unveiled. Foreign-exchange earnings would be locked in Indonesian banks for a prescribed time limit and producers of coal, palm oil and ferroalloys would be required to route sales through a new state-owned enterprise. But barely had the ink dried on the new rules when talk of...

The upgrading of a comprehensive strategic partnership between the Philippines and Japan underscores how the allies are future-proofing their ties amid growing uncertainty in the Indo-Pacific, analysts say. “This milestone reflects the strength, depth and breadth of our ties as we respond to the evolving challenges and opportunities of our time,” President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr said on Thursday at a joint press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi in Tokyo. The talks also...

A recent controversy surrounding a surau (prayer hall) in Malaysia appeared straightforward at first. A resident of Taman Seraya, Selangor state, raised concerns about the noise and congestion, particularly during prayer times. Police subsequently investigated the complaint as an attempt to incite provocation and disrupt social harmony. The surau management’s escalation of the complaint to alleged harassment – and the subsequent police report – reflects the persistent challenge of managing...

Recent moves by companies such as Gardenia and H&M to shift some operations from Singapore across the Causeway have put the spotlight on Malaysia’s growing appeal as a more affordable base for businesses facing high costs and a tight labour market in the city state. But while the trend may look like an easy win for its neighbour – bringing investment, jobs and spillover opportunities – analysts say the gains could come with trade-offs, as an influx of firms drives up competition for skilled...

The goodbye emails started arriving on a Monday. By Friday, Sheila’s inbox told the story of an organisation coming apart at the seams, one farewell at a time. Sheila* had spent nearly a decade helping run US-funded development projects in the Philippines. She had watched them grow, hire staff and take root in local communities. When Washington ordered a freeze on foreign aid in January 2025, she told herself it was just a pause – a bureaucratic blip pending a review by the new...

When Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr accepted the Asean gavel from Malaysian counterpart Anwar Ibrahim in Kuala Lumpur last October, the script was already written: a packed agenda, South China Sea diplomacy in the spotlight and a regional digital economy deal to clinch. Then the world changed. On February 28, US and Israeli forces struck Iran. The Strait of Hormuz, an artery of global shipping through which 98 per cent of the Philippines’ crude oil imports travel, became a war zone....

Vietnam’s leader To Lam on Friday struck a sombre tone at a summit when he warned of three foundational crises converging to cause global instabilities – those of international order, development models and strategic trust. He was delivering the keynote address at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Asia’s premier defence forum, in his first speech on Vietnam’s foreign policy to an international audience since being elected president in April. Speaking to defence ministers, military chiefs,...

A Philippine anti-corruption court ordered the arrest of a prominent senator on Friday over allegations he pocketed a kickback of millions of dollars in a flood-control project, in the latest crisis to entangle the Senate. Senator Jinggoy Estrada surrendered and posted bail before the Sandiganbayan court, allowing him to remain free while the case proceeds. The court barred Estrada from leaving the country while facing the first of two corruption-related charges in relation to the flood control...

Vietnam and the Philippines have overlapping claims in the South China Sea, but as Vietnamese President and Communist Party leader To Lam heads to Manila next week, analysts say the two neighbours are increasingly focused on what they can do together rather than what divides them. Lam’s two-day state visit on Sunday and Monday comes as both countries mark 50 years of diplomatic relations and a decade of strategic partnership, with Manila and Hanoi seeking to deepen cooperation on trade, food...

Asian technology firms are facing a “costly paradox” as they try to navigate an increasingly uneven global AI rule book, with divergent compliance requirements in the European Union and the United States threatening to blunt their competitive edge. Analysts say the challenge is acute for Asian companies. While the EU has a single, comprehensive and legally binding artificial intelligence framework based on the landmark EU AI Act, US technology-related laws are decentralised at the state...

There seems to be no end to the harm arising from US President Donald Trump’s madcap war on Iran. Go beyond the direct tragic impact across Iran itself, the collateral damage from Tehran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and its ad hoc assaults on US allies in the region: beyond the burgeoning impact of shortages of oil, gas, hydrogen, helium and sulphur, and the prospect of food shortages arising from the collapse in fertiliser supplies; beyond the hardships of tens of thousands of...

Malaysia’s religious authorities can ban teachings they consider deviant, send followers to rehabilitation classes and take group leaders to court. But they have not stopped banned or fringe Islamic movements from finding new followers online, according to officials, as some groups move abroad, rebrand or use social media to keep reaching Malaysians beyond the immediate reach of state enforcement. The concern has been raised most recently in Selangor, Malaysia’s richest and most populous state,...

Japan’s parliament on Friday passed an immigration control law revision to raise the maximum fee for residence status applications by foreigners and introduce an online pre-entry travel authorisation system for overseas arrivals. Once the fee changes are implemented later this financial year, the upper limit will be set at 100,000 yen (US$630) for visa renewals and 300,000 yen for permanent residency applications, marking a sharp increase from the existing threshold of 10,000 yen. The fees are...

The US indictment of Singapore-based shipping tycoon Teo Siong Seng in a price-fixing scandal has raised questions about Washington’s determination to pursue prominent figures from friendly countries, though legal experts say the case conforms to established American antitrust practice. Teo, the 71-year-old chief executive of Hong Kong company Singamas Container Holdings, has several prominent executive roles, including sitting as chair of the Singapore Business Federation and on the...

The Philippines is banking on its Asean chairmanship to elevate the country’s tourism through “warmth and authenticity”, despite facing accessibility hurdles and stiff competition from holiday heavyweights such as Thailand and Indonesia. Famous for its white-sand beaches, the archipelagic state drew just 2.1 million of the 48.5 million tourist arrivals recorded by countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in the first four months of this year. The Philippines received 5.9 million...

An ex-police officer who disguised himself as a woman to sexually prey on teenage boys in Singapore was sentenced on Friday to three years’ jail and four strokes of the cane. While dressed in a dress and headscarf, Sharizal Shafi’ee, 40, approached three boys, asking them to help adjust his bra. The first two declined. The third agreed, believing Sharizal was genuinely a woman in need of assistance, but was later molested by him. Sharizal was a police officer at the time of the offences but has...

As BTS concert tickets go on sale on June 3, Malaysian fans are already gearing up for what many describe as the ultimate online battlefield, one filled with scalpers, bots and eye-watering resale prices. For countless Armys, the official fandom of the global K-pop phenomenon, the excitement of finally seeing BTS return to Kuala Lumpur this December has quickly turned into anxiety over whether genuine fans will once again lose out to profiteers. BTS last performed in Malaysia in 2015. Diehard...

Japan is often seen as one of Asia’s most stable democracies, with a sophisticated media industry and constitutional protections for free expression, yet one of the world’s leading press freedom indexes has once again rated the country’s media environment as “problematic”. Analysts and journalists say the label points to a contradiction at the heart of Japan’s press system – reporters are rarely subject to the overt repression seen in authoritarian states, but political pressure, access...

South Korea’s economy faces uncertainties from rising inflation, a weakening won and uneven performance across sectors, even as it grows stronger than expected this year, according to analysts. The Bank of Korea on Thursday revised its economic growth outlook for this year to 2.6 per cent, up 0.6 percentage points from its forecast three months ago, citing robust exports driven by booming semiconductor demand and government supplementary spending aimed at offsetting the shocks from the Middle...

Recent articles in an Asia-focused international policy forum suggest that states such as Australia, Canada and South Korea can join up with other middle powers to secure the maritime order and restore the liberal international order. While well meaning and encouraging, the unfortunate truth is that these tasks are beyond the capacity of middle powers. The smartest ones won’t even try. Maritime security has transformed from a permissive environment dominated by uncontested naval supremacy into a...

For many years, India was a key training ground for many of Bangladesh’s senior officials, as well as a source of support and regional guidance. Now, some are being trained in Pakistan, a symbolic shift that has unsettled New Delhi and offered an early clue to how Dhaka’s new government wants to deal with its neighbours. A delegation of 12 senior Bangladeshi bureaucrats attended an executive training programme at the Civil Services Academy in Lahore from May 4 to May 21, a move analysts said...