Asia

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s re-election should provide continuity for the country’s trade push into Southeast Asia, analysts say, as Vietnam and Indonesia pursue preferential trade agreements with Mercosur, the South American bloc in which Brazil is the largest economy. But better access to Brazil and other Mercosur markets is far from assured, with trade experts pointing to difficult negotiations over tariffs and agricultural access, as well as political differences within...

Japan wants a more united and proactive Southeast Asia as it sees Asean as a bulwark against an intensifying great-power rivalry, analysts say, while uncertainty over Washington’s long-term Indo-Pacific strategy has deepened Tokyo’s concerns about the region’s future. Japanese Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi on Wednesday urged Southeast Asian nations to strengthen their collective response to emerging security threats, warning of a “rapidly deteriorating” security environment and shifts in the...

Smoke from this year’s Indonesian forest and peatland fires has inflicted an estimated 8 billion ringgit (US$1.97 billion) in welfare losses on Malaysia, contributing to an estimated 1,700 deaths and severely disrupting manufacturing, according to a report commissioned by the country’s leading industrial group. The study, “The 2026 Fire Season and Transboundary Haze in Malaysia”, was conducted for the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM), as reported by the Malay Mail. Drawing on...

A flurry of meat seizures across Thailand and Vietnam has raised fears of animal-borne diseases devastating regional livestock populations and unsafe food ending up on consumers’ plates. Driven by rising energy and logistics costs, unscrupulous suppliers have targeted restaurants and wet markets desperate to protect margins by sourcing cheap, unregulated cuts – even those past their expiry date or tainted with disease. On October 21, police in Vietnam’s southern province of Dong Nai dismantled a...

A South Korean special prosecutor on Thursday demanded the death penalty for ousted president Yoon Suk-yeol, ahead of an appeal court verdict on rebellion charges over his brief imposition of martial law in December 2024. The Seoul High Court has yet to set a date for a verdict on Yoon’s appeal of a life sentence handed down in February by the Seoul Central District Court. The court found that he illegally mobilised troops and police to seize the legislature, arrest political opponents and...

Indonesia’s communications minister has urged calm after a former Singaporean nominated member of parliament (NMP) suggested the city state could disrupt its neighbour’s internet access, arguing that any outage would cripple connectivity on both sides. Communication and Digital Affairs Minister Meutya Hafid said the government and public “need not be irritated” by comments from ex-NMP Calvin Cheng. In Singapore, NMPs are appointed to bring non-partisan perspectives to the legislature; they do...

Two friends claimed trial to a charge of animal cruelty at the Sessions Court in the Malaysian state of Penang for allegedly dragging a dog tied to a motorcycle last month. Lee Beng Hooi and Yeoh Keat Chye, both 62, pleaded not guilty to the charge read before judge Irwan Suainbon on Thursday. They were jointly charged with dragging a female black dog on an iron chain along the road using a motorcycle, causing the animal unnecessary pain and suffering. The offence allegedly occurred along a back...

North Korea fired “around a dozen” short-range ballistic missiles off its east coast on Thursday, Seoul’s defence ministry said, less than a week after South Korea proposed talks over a growing border row. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said its military detected “around a dozen short-range ballistic missiles fired from the Wonsan area of North Korea towards the East Sea”, the body of water also known as the Sea of Japan. “Our military has stepped up surveillance and vigilance against...

A South Korean court on Thursday rejected a lawsuit by dozens of Tesla owners ‌seeking full refunds for money paid for Full Self-Driving (FSD) driver-assistance software, ruling that the carmaker had not breached its contractual obligations. The Seoul Central District Court ruled against the 88 plaintiffs, finding that the FSD option did not promise fully autonomous driving without human intervention and that Tesla had already provided some of the functions included in the package. The court...

With Halloween approaching, Japanese municipalities are stepping up measures against disruptive celebrations in major entertainment districts as larger crowds are expected this year, with the event falling on a Saturday. Halloween is not a traditional festivity in Japan, but has evolved into a major urban event in recent years, particularly in Tokyo’s Shibuya district, where revellers in costumes gather for street celebrations. The festivities have increasingly become associated with public...

Thai authorities have vowed to seize more than US$1 billion in assets from a group accused of laundering proceeds from Southeast Asia-based scam syndicates. A criminal court issued arrest warrants on Tuesday for the alleged ringleader, South African Benjamin Mauerberger, his Thai wife Cattaliya Beevor, Cambodian businessman Yim Leak and four others, police said. Media reports have previously linked Mauerberger, also known as Ben Smith, to transnational scam operations in Cambodia, part of a...

South Korean memory chip giant SK Hynix kept almost 80 per cent of its total sales as operating profit last quarter, a margin almost unheard of in manufacturing, as the country’s chipmakers reap the rewards of the global artificial intelligence boom. Operating profit, defined as earnings from the company’s core business before interest and taxes, soared 632 per cent in the three months to September from a year earlier to 83.33 trillion won (US$62.76 billion) on revenue of 104.62 trillion won, SK...

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday proposed a new US-Asean defence framework to guide cooperation over what he called “critically important years” ahead, but offered few details on what it would entail. The proposal faces questions over whether members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations will embrace a bloc-wide initiative, with analysts suggesting they would prefer bilateral arrangements that preserve their flexibility as they navigate ties with Washington and...

In a rare move, Singapore on Wednesday summoned top executives from 10 locally registered companies potentially linked to haze-causing fires in Indonesia to a meeting with three ministers. The executives all agreed to cooperate fully in an investigation by the city state into the regional environmental crisis that has caused air quality to dip to “very unhealthy” levels earlier this month. Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong, Senior Minister K. Shanmugam and Minister for Sustainability and the...

Hundreds of people permanently living aboard a touring cruise ship were forced to disembark in Cambodia this week after the vessel’s operator said fuel price increases from the Iran war had made operations prohibitively expensive. The Villa Vie Odyssey had been cruising the world for at least ‌755 days as one of only a handful of ships that offered passengers the opportunity to rent or buy long-term or even permanent residences on board. On Tuesday, the ship’s owner, Villa Vie Residences,...

Rising ketamine abuse and a series of major drug seizures in Indonesia have fuelled calls for tighter controls on the substance, but a proposed reclassification has raised concerns that tougher penalties could further strain the country’s overcrowded prisons. Last week, Indonesian police and customs officials intercepted the Mongolian-flagged vessel MT Global 168 in the Malacca Strait, seizing 1.16 tonnes of ketamine hydrochloride packed in 58 sacks. National police chief Suyudi Ario Seto said...

The Philippines is in talks with Saudi Arabia, Russia and the United States to store oil in the fuel-import-dependent nation, in a bid to hedge against fuel price spikes driven by the Iran war. The Southeast Asian nation, which imports nearly all ‌its energy needs, also planned to increase diesel and gas-fired power output to make up for an estimated 60 per cent decline in hydropower and 20 per cent fall in solar output in the first half of 2027 due to the El Nino weather phenomenon, Energy...

Japan’s push to expand industrial and port cooperation with Bangladesh could transform the South Asian country into a regional trade gateway, analysts say, connecting markets in Southeast Asia and the wider Indo-Pacific while diversifying Dhaka’s economic ties. The plan was announced during Bangladeshi Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s official visit to Japan this week. Rahman welcomed Tokyo’s pledge of US$6 billion in investment over the next five years, which could help revive an economy hit by...

China said it would seek India’s help to “maintain peace and stability in the border areas” after new stand-offs in a long-disputed region threatened to undermine improved relations. “We hope that India will work with China in the same direction by jointly implementing the common understandings between the two sides,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said at a daily media briefing on Monday. China “strictly abides by the relevant agreements”, he said. Guo also said that China...

Australia’s national broadcaster ABC called on the far-right One Nation party on Wednesday to stop using children’s TV character Bluey in its political cartoons. Bluey is the popular star of an Australian cartoon series featuring canines navigating childhood and parenting in the suburbs. Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party has come under fire for a 2024 political cartoon depicting Bluey driving a car over an Australian politician. That cartoon in particular has come into the spotlight since a man...

Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim is up against it in next month’s Melaka state poll, as his ruling Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition risks yet another electoral wipeout at the hands of its federal partner Umno. The two are competing head-to-head in nearly all of the 28 state assembly seats up for grabs on November 14, in a contest widely seen as favouring an incumbent state administration led by the United Malays National Organisation’s Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition. Whether BN holds onto...

Malaysia will still lose tens of billions of ringgit to the 1MDB scandal even after further overseas asset recoveries, its second finance minister said on Wednesday, as disgraced former prime minister Najib Razak prepares to move to house arrest. Najib has been imprisoned since 2022 following his conviction for corruption and money laundering tied to SRC International, a former subsidiary of 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB). The sovereign wealth fund was co-founded by Najib in 2009 during his...

Malaysian customs said on Wednesday ⁠that it ⁠had seized about 49.5 ⁠million ringgit (US$12 million) worth of advanced artificial intelligence chips this month, as authorities close in on a syndicate suspected of smuggling high-performance semiconductors through the country’s main airport. Malaysia imposed export controls last year on the movement of advanced AI chips of US origin, following pressure from the United States to stem their flow into China. On October 15, authorities found 30 server...

A Singaporean behavioural therapist who was repeatedly hit in the face by a four-year-old boy with special needs grabbed his hand and dragged him off his chair and onto the floor. Tricia Lee Hsien, 29, was fined S$5,000 (US$3,900) by a court on Wednesday. She pleaded guilty to one charge of voluntarily causing hurt to a minor. The prosecution sought only a fine, saying this was an “exceptional case” as the harm caused was low and the woman’s culpability was low in this isolated act of...

Yosafat Menteng travelled from Kalimantan on Indonesia’s Borneo island with five fellow students to join Wednesday’s protest in Jakarta against the government’s handling of forest fires that have blanketed parts of Indonesia and neighbouring countries in toxic haze. Back home in Palangka Raya, one of the worst-affected cities by the haze, he heads the students’ council at the University of Palangkaraya’s Faculty of Social and Political Sciences. “We in Kalimantan strongly urge the government to...

India has emerged as a major exporter of ammunition and other weapons to Europe since the outbreak of the Ukraine-Russia war, but analysts caution that New Delhi has yet to secure a lasting foothold in Europe’s defence market. Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh cited a Bloomberg report last Friday stating that India had become the third-largest arms exporter to Europe under the “ReArm Europe” initiative – also known as Readiness 2030 – largely because of ammunition demand. Bloomberg, citing...

A total of 2,097 Malaysian police officers and personnel have been arrested for drug-related offences, robbery and corruption between 2021 and August this year, according to Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail. Of the total, 1,551 were arrested for drug offences, 64 for robbery and 482 by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC). Saifuddin Nasution said in a written parliamentary reply to Kepong MP Lim Lip Eng on Tuesday that the drug-related arrests were made under the Dangerous...

Japan is bracing for a more unpredictable ally in Washington, as the US midterm elections threaten to deepen political gridlock and complicate Tokyo’s long-term security calculations, analysts say. Observers warn that post-election political battles, ranging from a possible repeat of impeachment proceedings to the mounting legal battles ensnaring the administration of US President Donald Trump, risk diverting the White House’s attention from foreign policy and its long-standing commitments to...

Parents in Japan are taking an increasingly active role in their children’s lives – helping them find marriage partners, navigate job hunting and secure housing – as the line between parental support and personal decision-making continues to blur. In a practice known as “proxy matchmaking”, parents attend social events armed with photos and profiles of their children, hoping to find suitable marriage partners through conversations with other parents. The Association of Parents of Marriage...

Ferocious winds and torrential rain lashed India’s southeastern coast as Cyclone Arnab made landfall on Wednesday, forcing nearly 100,000 people to evacuate their homes in two states, authorities said. Arnab hit Andhra Pradesh as a “very severe cyclonic storm”, with winds of 125-135km/h (78-84 mph) and gusts reaching 150km/h, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said. A storm surge of 1.5 to 2.5 ‌metres (5-8 feet) above normal tide is very ⁠likely to ⁠inundate low-lying areas of the state...