Asia

Singapore consumer spending in Malaysia’s Johor state is expected to increase by S$1.05 billion (US$815 million) annually following the opening of a cross-border rail link that will connect both sides in minutes, a new study by business associations has found. The study, released on Thursday by the Singapore Business Federation (SBF), the Restaurant Association of Singapore (RAS) and the Singapore Retailers Association (SRA), comes amid concerns from local establishments about cash outflows to...

Jensen Huang, chief executive of US artificial intelligence chipmaker Nvidia, held a “yakitori summit” with Japanese executives from semiconductor materials and components companies while visiting Tokyo – a move appeared aimed at strengthening cooperation with local businesses. According to the Nikkei, Huang headed to a yakitori restaurant near Kanda Station in Tokyo, an izakaya specialising in grilled pork skewers and sake, on Wednesday. Located near Tokyo Station, the area is a popular...

The Retirement Fund Incorporated’s (KWAP) US$47.7 million investment in Indonesian agritech start-up eFishery was the victim of an orchestrated fraud, Malaysia’s finance ministry has confirmed. In a parliamentary written reply dated July 15, the ministry explained that KWAP’s July 2023 investment followed a robust evaluation and governance process. This included internal assessments, independent due diligence and the verification of financial statements by certified international auditors. KWAP...

The UN warned on Thursday that more than 500 people were feared dead following reports of two large shipwrecks off Myanmar since late June. The UN’s International Organization for Migration and its refugee agency UNHCR voiced alarm in a joint statement at reports “that two boats carrying more than 500 people may have capsized off the coast of Myanmar in recent days”. Preliminary information indicated that the two vessels in question departed from war-torn Myanmar’s Rakhine state in late June,...

For generations, jeepneys – brightly painted minibuses that are among the Philippines’ cheapest and most widely used forms of public transport – have run on diesel, but recent fuel shocks are forcing thousands of small operators and drivers to weigh volatile prices against the debt needed to go electric. Diesel prices spiked by nearly 5 pesos this week as renewed tensions in the Gulf threatened to strain the country’s public transport sector, adding fresh urgency to the uneven shift towards...

Japan has voiced concern about the United States’ campaign against the International Criminal Court (ICC), exposing a diplomatic bind for Tokyo as it seeks to defend a tribunal it has long championed without provoking its most important security ally. Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara told a press conference in Tokyo on Tuesday that Japan “places great importance on the eradication and prevention of serious crimes, as well as the upholding of the rule of law”. He added that Japan, the...

On July 12, a coalition of 14 nations – the United States, Philippines, Australia, Canada, Britain, Japan, New Zealand, and seven European states including Germany, Italy and the Baltic nations – issued a statement marking the 10th anniversary of the South China Sea ruling at The Hague in 2016. The document recycled familiar arguments, urging compliance with the ruling and framing it as a cornerstone of the rules-based international order. But beneath it lies a fundamental disconnect from...

Police in Vietnam said on Wednesday they had arrested three executives of a publishing house that released a book on Ho Chi Minh, the revered founder of the country’s Communist Party. The author of Stories with Thanh - A New Account of Light, former telecoms executive Nguyen Thanh Nam, was arrested on anti-state charges in early July, along with an influencer who promoted the book on his social media channels. The book, which has been recalled by its publisher under pressure from authorities,...

Thai police said on Wednesday they had arrested the manager of a boxing camp for trafficking underage boys for sex, and were searching for a Norwegian also believed to have been involved. Police raided the day camp in Rayong province, southeast of Bangkok, on Tuesday and took 12 children into protection, the Central Investigation Bureau said in a statement. The 28-year-old manager has admitted charges of trafficking minors under the age of 18 for sexual exploitation and soliciting sexual...

South Korea’s failed bid for Canada’s next-generation submarine fleet has exposed a growing problem for one of Asia’s fastest-rising defence exporters: price, speed and technology may no longer be enough. Analysts said the loss of the Canadian Patrol Submarine Project (CPSP) to Germany’s ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems showed how Nato security ties and pressure on member states to favour allied industrial bases were increasingly outweighing commercial competitiveness in decisions over major...

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has threatened to deport any Israelis found at a self-styled “start-up society” in Johor, after online claims about the tech commune triggered a national security investigation. “We will not allow it,” Anwar told reporters on Wednesday. “If there are Israeli nationals, since we do not recognise Israel, they will be deported immediately.” The Network School, a co-living compound founded by former Coinbase executive Balaji Srinivasan in Forest City, came...

Two tankers carrying Iranian oil are signalling Pakistan as their destination – an unusual move that may be an indication they are seeking a safe place to wait as the US blockade takes effect. The Rani and the Amil, which are carrying a combined 1 million barrels of crude, switched their destination signals to Karachi on Tuesday, ship-tracking data show. The two vessels were already outside the Persian Gulf when Washington reimposed its naval blockade of Iranian shipping. It is unlikely the...

Malaysia’s unity government is holding firm in Putrajaya, but its uneasy alliance is fraying at the state level after Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s Pakatan Harapan (PH) moved into opposition in Melaka, even as it reels from a rout by federal partner Barisan Nasional (BN) in Johor. The split followed a constitutional amendment allowing Melaka’s government to appoint up to seven unelected assembly members with voting rights. PH’s five lawmakers opposed the bill, which passed 23-5 on Tuesday. Four...

The Philippines has begun holding active school shooter drills after a rare act of violence in Tacloban City last month during which two teenage students opened fire, killing three schoolmates and injuring 20 others. On Wednesday, at one educational campus in Manila, hundreds of students and teachers practised barricading classrooms with desks and chairs and staying silent as an armed actor wearing a black hoodie scoured the halls and rooms. “We acknowledge the increasing number of violent...

The feud between Samsung Electronics’ device-making and chipmaking divisions is deepening, as employees in the smartphone and home appliance businesses are expressing anger over a nearly 100-fold compensation gap between them and employees in the chipmaking division. Samsung Electronics Company Union (SECU), which is mostly made up of employees in the appliance-making Device Experience (DX) division, will hold a rally under a “same company, same rights” slogan at the company’s plant in Suwon,...

New Zealand’s interest in joining a newly signed defence pact between Australia and Fiji may mark the start of a broader hard security alliance covering the South Pacific, but analysts warn smaller states’ concerns are likely to go unaddressed. The Ocean of Peace Alliance, signed by Australia and Fiji on July 6, binds Canberra and Suva to come to each other’s defence if attacked. Days later, New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon welcomed the pact and signalled Wellington’s interest in...

A plan to cut the cost of domestic flights for foreign visitors to Nepal could end up making them more expensive for citizens, according to airline operators that warn against scrapping one of the country’s most contentious tourism pricing policies. Under Nepal’s two-tier airfare system, foreign passengers must pay in US dollars for domestic flights, with prices usually two to three times higher than for Nepalis and sometimes even more, depending on the route and season. In April, Minister for...

Phu Nhuan Jewellery, Vietnam’s largest listed jeweller, is facing a crisis of confidence after police detained the former head of its gem certification subsidiary over his alleged links to a transnational diamond-smuggling ring. Shares in PNJ, as the company is known, have plummeted more than 25 per cent since news of the investigation broke in early July. Police accuse Dang Ngoc Thao, the former director of wholly owned unit PNJ Laboratory, of involvement in a criminal network that allegedly...

A pilot of the major Japanese airline All Nippon Airways was sentenced to 20 months in prison on Tuesday for abusing his power to grope a female flight attendant after work. The Tokyo District Court ruled that Ryota Mise, 44, acted in a “mean and persistent manner” towards the victim when he took advantage of his position as a captain and touched her genitals at various locations in Takamatsu, Kagawa prefecture, in October 2023. The defendant had pleaded not guilty, with the defence arguing that...

Malaysia’s navy is preparing to take delivery of a warship fully equipped for anti-submarine, anti-air and electronic warfare – everything, that is, except a way to sink an enemy ship. After nearly a decade of delays, financial scandal and shipyard mismanagement the Royal Malaysian Navy’s first littoral combat ship is finally due in December. But it will arrive missing any anti-ship missiles. Norway’s decision to revoke the export licence for the planned Naval Strike Missile system has left...

Connectivity can be an ambiguous term. Different states use it in different ways at different times. In Southeast Asia, as in other regions where regional diplomacy exists in the backdrop of ever-stronger great power disputes, connectivity lies in the conflux of economics, trade necessities and the unyielding pressure of geopolitics. In few countries is this more evident than in Cambodia, where investment in transport logistics has been a political and diplomatic fixture for at least two...

Singapore’s Home Affairs and Law Minister K. Shanmugam and Manpower Minister Tan See Leng said on Tuesday they would donate to charity the damages awarded to them in their defamation suit against Bloomberg. In separate social media posts published on Tuesday night, hours after the High Court delivered its judgment, the ministers reiterated that the lawsuit was about protecting their integrity and reputations, as well as the standing of their ministerial offices. Earlier on Tuesday, the High...

Thousands of Indonesian free meals kitchens complained on Tuesday they had ⁠been left in the lurch ⁠by the government’s move to scale ⁠down President Prabowo Subianto’s flagship free meals programme to save money. Jakarta is considering a potential budget cut of more than US$2 billion with reductions in the number of beneficiaries and kitchen operators. There are currently nearly 28,000 kitchens ‌and the National Nutrition Agency (NNA) plans to temporarily halt the addition of 13,000 new...

An American marine biologist was shot and killed by three men who barged into his house in the central Philippines over the weekend and efforts were underway to apprehend the suspects, police said on Tuesday. Police said Kent Carpenter, 73, was with his Filipino companion in a house in the coastal town of Sibulan in Negros Oriental province on Sunday night when three men, whose faces were covered, forced their way in. One drew a gun and shot Carpenter in the head, killing him instantly, police...

Indonesia’s Ministry of Religious Affairs is drafting educational material aimed at discouraging what officials call the spread of “LGBT culture”, after a presidential regulation listed the issue among the country’s non-military security threats. Officials said the content, which was still under discussion, could be included in religious education in regular and Islamic schools, as well as Friday prayer sermons, family development programmes and other religious events. The government has said...

India summoned Iran’s senior diplomat in New Delhi on Tuesday to protest against attacks on two commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz that killed an Indian seafarer and wounded several others. The Indian foreign ministry said it had summoned the deputy chief of mission of the Iranian embassy in the capital to register “a strong protest” against the attacks reported early on Tuesday. The two vessels had a total of 46 crew members, including 30 Indians, one of whom has “tragically lost his...

Asia’s economies are once again staring down the barrel of the Strait of Hormuz as the latest breakdown of the US-Iran ceasefire and Washington’s decision to impose a blockade-cum-toll threaten to keep energy costs elevated and shipping flows under strain. But economists and shipping analysts say the region is better placed to absorb the blow this time round. Oil prices jumped to a one-month high of US$84.78 a barrel on Tuesday morning as renewed fighting between Iran and the US over control of...

Singapore President Tharman Shanmugaratnam’s first state visit to Malaysia this week comes amid strengthening ties between the neighbours and a greater willingness on both sides to let go of historical “baggage”, analysts say. Observers add that the new generation of Southeast Asian leaders also possesses a heightened awareness of mutual needs in an increasingly fragmented world order. Tharman, who was elected president in 2023 after stepping down as senior minister, is on a state visit to Kuala...

The High Court in Singapore has awarded two cabinet ministers S$230,000 (US$177,860) each in damages following a defamation trial involving financial news outlet Bloomberg and one of its reporters over the officials’ property transactions. In January last year, K. Shanmugam, the coordinating minister for national security, and Tan See Leng, the manpower chief, filed separate suits against Bloomberg and its reporter Low De Wei over a story titled “Singapore mansion deals are increasingly shrouded...

Rosmah Mansor has slapped Malaysian comedian Harith Iskander with a defamation lawsuit over a stand-up comedy routine that allegedly mocked and insulted her. Rosmah, the wife of former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak, filed the writ of summons at the High Court on June 9. According to her statement of claim, the alleged defamation occurred during Harith’s performance, titled “Harith Iskander: The Outspoken Comedy Tour”, at the Swiss-Garden Hotel in Melaka on January 17. Rosmah claimed that...