Asia

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...

Vice-President Sara Duterte-Carpio, the daughter of former leader Rodrigo Duterte, has long looked like the politician to beat in the Philippines’ 2028 presidential race, with one of the country’s most powerful political brands behind her, a loyal base in Mindanao and early polls showing her ahead of potential rivals. But two prominent pollsters say her lead is not impregnable. According to Dr Ranjit Rye, founding president of OCTA Research, and Ronnie Holmes, president of Pulse Asia Research...

Oslo’s ban on a missile system for Malaysian warships may lead to further bottlenecks in the country’s crucial naval modernisation project due to a scramble for a replacement and hamper its capability to counter vessels encroaching on its exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea, according to analysts. The Malaysian navy has spent more than a decade waiting for its new littoral combat ships (LCS), a flagship upgrade meant to enhance its presence in the contested waters. A dispute over...

A Philippine senator and son of a ⁠former president could ⁠soon face arrest after an ⁠anti-corruption body charged him on Thursday with receiving illicit payouts in an infrastructure scandal that has slowed economic growth and hammered consumer and investor confidence. The Office of the Ombudsman said Senator Jose “Jinggoy” ‌Estrada has been indicted for plunder and violating anti-corruption laws after he earned “kickbacks” amounting to 573 million pesos (US$9.3 million) from a scheme that...

South Korean religious groups, universities and public institutions are offering free or affordable accommodation options for BTS fans who have become targets of price gouging ahead of the supergroup’s June concerts in Busan, but supply remains limited, leaving many to stick with their existing plans. Busan is hosting BTS’ June 12 and 13 concerts as part of its “Arirang” world tour. As June 13 is also the K-pop group’s 13th debut anniversary and the first in many years after their historic...

Senators seeking to lock impeached Philippine Vice-President Sara Duterte out of politics for good may face an uphill battle with one of her staunchest supporters calling the movement against her family “insane and wicked”. Senator Imee Marcos, the older sister of President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr, said it was a “tragedy” that her own family had been given a second chance and “instead of grabbing it and leveraging it into great development and prosperity for the Filipino people, we’ve just wasted...

Vietnam’s globetrotting leader To Lam began his first trip to Thailand with trade and security talks dominating the agenda, as well as a symbolic visit to the former home of Ho Chi Minh, the founder of modern Vietnam who once lived in the northeast of the kingdom. To Lam, the president and general secretary of Vietnam’s Communist Party, is seen by many as the country’s most powerful leader since the era of Ho Chi Minh. The former secret policeman has been zipping across global capitals as he...

A partnership between Japan Airlines and a space start-up marks the first step for the carrier to explore diversification beyond Earth-bound aviation, potentially boosting Japan’s ambition to expand its footprint on the moon. The airline is teaming up with ispace to transport items of “precious cultural heritage and human activities” via a lander craft to the moon and protect them from the effects of climate change, natural disasters and conflict on Earth. “In the rapidly changing world, there...

Chinese energy companies are poised to play an important role in Southeast Asia’s ambitious green transition plans, which will see countries across the region integrate their power grids, according to a senior Singaporean official. The strategy could eventually lead to a cross-regional network running all the way from Singapore to southern China via nations including Malaysia and Thailand, according to Puah Kok Keong, chief executive of the Energy Market Authority of Singapore – the city state’s...

For more than a decade, Jeffrey Ongoco has watched much of his daughter’s childhood unfold through a screen. The 46-year-old, who works as a document controller for a construction company in Doha, left the Philippines in 2007 for a job in Saudi Arabia before moving to Qatar in 2010. He and his wife work in Doha to support their 16-year-old daughter, who has lived in the Philippines since infancy, cared for by relatives in Bataan province, about 130km (80 miles) northwest of Manila. It was a...

Months of disruption through the Strait of Hormuz have prompted a rethink of global supply chains, with South Korea now following China in pushing to commercialise the Arctic shipping route to Europe. South Korea aimed to open a regular route through the waters by 2030, following a trial voyage set to debut later this year, according to a broader maritime development plan released on Tuesday by Seoul’s Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries. “To prepare for the Arctic shipping era approaching after...

China’s military said on Wednesday that it had used measures including electronic interference to drive away a Dutch warship near the disputed Paracel Islands, and in a rare move accused the Dutch navy of triggering “miscalculation”. The People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Southern Theatre Command, which oversees the South China Sea, said in a post on its official WeChat account on Wednesday evening that the Dutch frigate De Ruyter had “illegally intruded into China’s Xisha Islands” and that its...

A Cambodian court sentenced six Chinese men, reportedly from a scam-linked crime ring, to life in prison on Wednesday for the murder of a South Korean student last year. The torture and killing of the college student in Cambodia sparked a public outcry in South Korea, which dispatched a task force to the Southeast Asian nation in an effort to jointly tackle transnational cyberscam networks. The multibillion-dollar scam industry ballooned in Cambodia in recent years, with thousands of foreign...

A buffalo in Bangladesh nicknamed “Donald Trump” for its flowing blond hair has been spared from sacrifice after shooting to fame, and will instead be cared for at the national zoo. Muslim-majority Bangladesh, a South Asian nation of 170 million people, celebrates Eid al-Adha, the “feast of the sacrifice”, on Thursday. The 700kg (1,500-pound) bull, a rare albino buffalo with a flowing helmet of light hair resembling the signature look of the US president, was due to be slaughtered to mark the...

Former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte will face a crimes against humanity trial at the International Criminal Court from November 30, the presiding judge said on Wednesday. Duterte faces three counts of crimes against humanity, with prosecutors alleging his involvement in at least 76 murders between 2013 and 2018 during his so-called “war on drugs”. The 81-year-old will be the first Asian former head of state to face trial at the ICC, which prosecutes individuals for the world’s worst...

A wave of AI-generated deepfakes and fake endorsements has pushed Indian celebrities, from cricket stars to Bollywood actors, towards the courts seeking stronger protection for their name, image, voice and likeness. Lawyers say the litigation has exposed a widening gap in Indian law, with courts increasingly recognising personality rights even though the country lacks a dedicated statute to enforce them. The campaign gained momentum last December, when Indian cricket legend Sunil Gavaskar...