Asia

Joseph McGrail-Bateup, an Australian professional air conditioner cleaner and honorary town crier, has been recognised as the world’s loudest person. Guinness World Records last week acknowledged the 58-year-old Canberra resident recorded the loudest ever shout by an individual. He yelled “now” at 122.4 decibels. That broke the previous record of 121.7 dB set by Northern Ireland teacher Annalisa Flanagan in 1994. She had yelled an ear-piercing “quiet”. That is in the noise range of a chainsaw, a...

Malaysia’s rare postponement of a meeting of its royal council has pushed a throne dispute in the state of Negeri Sembilan beyond palace walls, threatening to turn a customary succession row into an electoral liability for Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s uneasy governing alliance ahead of snap polls. The June 23–25 meeting of the Conference of Rulers – a council of Malaysia’s hereditary Malay rulers and state governors – was called off at the eleventh hour amid concerns that allowing Negeri...

Indonesia’s efforts to woo back Chinese investors may be gaining traction after Finance Minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa returned from Beijing with a multibillion-dollar funding commitment and political backing for the Southeast Asian country’s debut yuan-denominated sovereign bond. Whether the bilateral talks translate into lasting investor confidence in Indonesia’s economic fundamentals remains to be seen, as global companies continue to weigh Jakarta’s shifting rules, challenging budget outlook...

Australia has refused to release internal papers about a trust fund for a climate-vulnerable Pacific nation, telling Agence France-Presse (AFP) that the documents could inflict diplomatic “damage”. Gravely threatened by rising seas, low-lying island nation Tuvalu relies on a US$200 million trust fund to help foot the ballooning costs of climate change. The trust has been invested on Tuvalu’s behalf in funds exposed to coal mining, gas exploration and the world’s largest crude oil refinery, an...

US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer’s two-day visit to India this week could bring both sides closer to clinching a broad trade bargain after months of tariff wrangling, even as the South Asian nation’s protected farm sector remains a major sticking point. Analysts say the visit could centre on finalising tariff rates and giving the relationship a political reset after a year of strain over trade, Indian workers and the Strait of Hormuz. A statement from the Office of the US Trade...

The US has overtaken South Korea as the Philippines’ top source of foreign tourists this year, helped by diaspora travel and closer ties between the long-time allies, giving Manila a boost as it tries to close the gap with more popular destinations in Southeast Asia. Figures from the Philippines’ Department of Tourism (DOT) showed that between January and May, 531,859 visitors came from the US, while 501,789 were from South Korea – comprising 19.4 per cent and 18.3 per cent of the total tourism...

Hotel bookings in Singapore are surging ahead of K-pop boy band BTS’ highly anticipated concerts in December, with some reporting demand jumping by as much as 50 times. The spike mirrors a broader trend across Asia, where cities on BTS’ tour schedule have recorded significant increases in accommodation searches. Some booking platforms reported search volumes rising by up to 10 times in certain concert destinations like Kaohsiung in Taiwan. All tickets for the Singapore leg of BTS’ Arirang tour...

Malaysian lawmaker Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman has responded with a thinly veiled jab at Tunku Ismail Ibrahim after the Johor crown prince hinted at the former sports minister being the “most Hollywood” among populist politicians. Tunku Ismail told a podcast show over the weekend that he “liked people who carry out their duties and show full care and concern for the people”. “Before making any decisions, make an assessment first because we have many ‘Hollywood’ types among us. The most...

Japanese Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi’s pushback against China signals a calculated bid to fend off accusations of Tokyo’s “new militarism” by Beijing to ensure that the label does not stick and slow Japan’s security reforms. His comments in recent weeks on separate instances are aimed at shaping the perceptions of Tokyo’s state partners, according to analysts. Speaking in his first published interview with foreign media as defence chief on June 17, Koizumi questioned the accuracy of...

The breaking point for former Singaporean lawyer Dominic Low was when he had just got home past midnight and his boss asked him to respond to an international client. This meant he had to return to the office and work till 2am. He was into his second year of a corporate law career and decided that very night that the job was not for him. “Everyone was under so much pressure and just expected to deliver at the cost of their personal life and mental health,” Low, 35, said. Despite leaving the...

We have selected seven stories from the SCMP’s coverage of Asia over the past week that resonated with our readers and shed light on topical issues. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. Malaysian tourists in China scorned for calling locals ‘smelly’ A group of Malaysian tourists is facing intense backlash for filming strangers and mocking locals in China as “smelly”, sparking debate on travel etiquette and national image. 2. Indonesia market sell-off...

A luxury superyacht seized from fugitive financier Benjamin Mauerberger is due for auction at a starting price of US$18 million on Tuesday, as authorities seek to claw back money from powerful money laundering networks across Thailand. Mauerberger and his wife, Cattaliya Beevor, are wanted by Thai police on fraud and money laundering charges, linked to what prosecutors allege was a bogus investment scheme stretching back to 2016. The highly connected South African businessman is also believed to...

Victims of violent acts and threats by loan sharks have been urged to come forward under a nationwide initiative led by the Malaysian Chinese Association’s Public Services and Complaints Department. MCA chief Michael Chong said the party’s youth and women’s wings have also been roped in to collect data and provide aid to loan shark victims. “Throwing paint at homes is now considered lenient, as we are seeing loan sharks throwing petrol bombs. They are getting rampant with no regard for the law...

A Malaysian donor whose organs and tissues went to five patients has drawn tributes online after a local hospital corridor send-off was shared widely on social media. Normah Sabar, remembered by Malaysia’s national mapping agency as the country’s first female surveyor, died at Hospital Sungai Buloh in Selangor on Saturday. She was 72. The next day, hospital staff and medical teams held a walk of honour, a ceremonial procession in which health workers line hospital corridors to pay tribute to an...

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un criticised Japan as turning into a “war state”, in a speech during a three-day meeting held through Monday, according to official news media. “Japan, a defeated country in Asia, has openly turned itself into a war state by taking the present disturbing circumstances as an opportunity to get rid of all shackles restricting its moves to become a military power,” he said, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Tuesday. “This is inviting a strong backlash...

A passenger on a Singapore Airlines flight molested an air stewardess, with his friends laughing in response. When the woman went to report the incident to her supervisor, the culprit followed her into the galley, stood extremely close to her and cornered her. The flight captain reported the incident and a police report was lodged, leading to the man’s arrest when he arrived at Changi Airport. Akash Tiwari, a 35-year-old Indian national, was sentenced to six months’ jail on Monday. He was also...

South Korea’s AI-driven semiconductor boom has sent exports, corporate profits and stock prices to record highs, but a senior policymaker has warned that the windfall could fuel property speculation and deepen inequality if its gains remain narrowly concentrated. “Looking solely at the numbers, it is something to cheer about. However, strangely, a corner of my heart feels heavy,” Kim Yong-beom, chief of the Presidential Policy Office and one of South Korea’s most senior economic policymakers,...

The US strike on an oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman earlier this month did more than kill three Indian sailors and severely undercut US-India relations. It has also cast further doubt on the unity of the Quad, an informal bloc made up of the United States, Japan, Australia and India, and the group’s ambitious agenda aimed at loosening China’s dominant grip on critical minerals. Despite the persistent US-India fissures that could slow down the Quad’s momentum, however, a counter-unifying force may...

A rare shooting at a public high school in the central Philippines that left three students dead and seven injured has gripped the country amid concerns over campus safety and the mental well-being of young people. Two Grade 9 students, aged 14 and 15, were arrested over the incident at the San Jose National High School in Tacloban City, Leyte province. The weapons involved were a .38 revolver and a 9mm pistol – the latter of which was traced to a police officer who was one of the suspects’...

In a layered signal to Indo-Pacific nations and America’s domestic audience, the Trump administration last week said the US Indo-Pacific Command would revert to its long-used name, the US Pacific Command. The Honolulu-headquartered command was renamed in 2018 during Donald Trump’s first presidency. The administrative order by the Department of Defence was justified to honour the legacy of America’s oldest and largest unified combatant command, established in 1947. In the run-up to the 250th...

A woman who appeared in videos allegedly showing a group of Malaysian tourists mocking locals in China as “smelly” has apologised after days of criticism from social media users in Malaysia and China. Nur Asyiqin Mohd Dalil came under scrutiny after the clips went viral, with users criticising the remarks as insulting to locals in China and saying they reflected poorly on Malaysians abroad. In a statement posted on her TikTok page, @ekyn.wong, on Saturday, she said she took full responsibility...

Three elephants whose transfer from Malaysia to Japan earlier this year sparked public anger over their alleged mistreatment are now at the centre of a corruption investigation over claims that Putrajaya did not receive the money linked to the move. The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) said on Monday it had opened a formal investigation into the movement of the elephants – Dara, Amoi and Kelat – from Zoo Taiping in the northern state of Perak to Tennoji Zoo in Osaka. MACC said it was...

A long-delayed bill meant to curb political dynasties in the Philippines – where powerful families dominate elected offices from Congress to local government – has moved closer to becoming law, but critics say the measure could end up protecting the clans it claims to restrain. The House of Representatives approved the measure in early June, a rare advance for an anti-dynasty law, nearly four decades after the 1987 constitution directed Congress to define and prohibit political...

At first glance, the images looked like those of a happy family in Singapore. There were photos of the couple during their school days and on dates, the woman pregnant and the man holding their supposed newborn with a caption that read: “My boys”. Except the family did not exist – the images were all AI-generated. The man in the photos did not even know about them until a friend alerted him in December last year, The Straits Times reported on Sunday. In real life, he was not married or in a...

A cursory look at the ranking of the world’s largest shopping centres shows the scale of the decline in the US retail property market. The US has only one, the Mall of America near Minneapolis, Minnesota, among the top 20. This is not surprising given that virtually no shopping centres were built in the last two decades. A succession of shocks – which included the disruptive impact of e-commerce, the financial woes of department stores that served as anchor tenants for most malls and the damage...

Bangladesh’s new leader has urged Malaysia to reopen its labour market to more Bangladeshi workers, even as migrant rights groups warned that both governments must first address years of recruitment abuse, debt and stranded-worker cases. Prime Minister Tarique Rahman made the request to Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim during talks in Putrajaya on Monday, his first foreign visit since taking office, while seeking to broaden bilateral ties. Tarique said he had asked Anwar to consider...

A court has sentenced a former South Korean justice minister to 25 years in prison for his role in ex-president Yoon Suk-yeol’s brief and disastrous declaration of martial law in 2024. Park Sung-jae was found guilty of involvement in “insurrection”, the Yonhap news agency reported from the Seoul Central District Court on Monday. Yoon’s December 2024 martial law declaration lasted only about six hours as lawmakers raced to the assembly building and voted it down in an emergency session. He has...

Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong’s trip to Russia as part of an Asean delegation to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin was a pragmatic move that showed the city state could uphold its sanctions against Moscow while keeping diplomatic channels open, analysts said. They said the approach reflected Singapore’s need to balance its principled stance on the Ukraine war with its responsibilities as next year’s chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the region’s search for...

A recent meeting between the leaders of Myanmar and China has given the military junta an opening to persuade Asean to allow it to return to the bloc’s summits. Analysts also say, however, that Myanmar’s regime could feel emboldened to escalate action against resistance forces, revving up its “military approach” to deal with the country’s civil war. Last Tuesday, Chinese President Xi Jinping met his Myanmar counterpart Min Aung Hlaing in Beijing, providing vital political endorsement to the...

At least three teenagers were killed and seven others wounded on Monday in a rare school shooting in the central Philippines, police said. Two alleged shooters, aged 15 and 14, had fired “randomly” inside the school, police information officer Evalyn Diaz said of the incident, which took place at around 9am at San Jose National High School in Leyte province’s Tacloban City. One of the suspects was arrested immediately after the shooting, while the other later surrendered, authorities said....