Asia

Japan’s ⁠government and ruling coalition ⁠are considering nearly doubling defence ⁠spending over the next five years as part of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s push to strengthen the country’s military capabilities, according to two people familiar with the matter. If adopted, defence build-up spending for the five years ‌from April 2027 would be set at 70 trillion to 80 trillion yen (US$457 billion to US$508 billion), up about 1.8 times from the roughly 43 trillion yen allocated under the...

Singapore is pitching itself as a bridge between the European Union (EU) and Asean, as the two blocs continue their protracted discussions to seal a free trade agreement (FTA). However, Myanmar’s political uncertainty is a major hurdle towards an EU-Asean FTA, and Singapore will have to play a key role to break the deadlock when it assumes the chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations next year, according to an analyst. At a joint press conference with German Chancellor...

Rising from verdant ridge lines of southern Laos, 133 Chinese-built wind turbines help power Vietnam’s surging growth and represent part of a regional rush to diversify energy sources. “The view is beautiful. They’re bigger than trees,” 23-year-old Toukta Phonsala said inside her wooden stilt house in Dak Wai village, her baby bouncing on her lap. Hydroelectric dams have proliferated across Southeast Asia in recent years, but production drops off in the dry season and critics lament the...

Japan on Monday launched a new national agency focused on disaster management with the goal of making the country better prepared should there be a megaquake along the Pacific coast or in Tokyo, or an eruption of Mount Fuji. More than 350 workers at the National Disaster Management Agency will oversee preparedness, emergency response and reconstruction efforts. The agency is not being created in anticipation of any specific calamity, but rather is meant to fill a gap amid worries about whether...

As India seeks to expand its security cooperation with Southeast Asia by sharing its battle-tested counterterrorism expertise, defence analysts say its experience would only partly meet Asean’s needs given the differences in threat perception and domestic priorities. Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh made the offer at the Asean Defence Ministers’ Meeting-Plus (ADMM-Plus) in Cebu on Thursday. Citing Operation Sindoor as an example of India’s counterterrorism capabilities, he offered to share...

Thousands of Bangladeshi garment workers blocked a major highway and clashed with police on Monday, demanding a monthly minimum wage more than double their current pay, as protests spread across industrial hubs. The South Asian nation of 170 million people is the world’s second-biggest garment exporter behind China, manufacturing clothes for some of the largest international brands. Hundreds of workers in Gazipur, north of the capital Dhaka, blocked the Dhaka-Tangail highway, vandalising several...

A South Korean army staff sergeant died after ‌suffering external injuries at a frontline unit in Cheorwon near the North Korean border on Monday morning, Seoul’s Defence Ministry said. Military and civilian ⁠investigators were examining the exact cause and circumstances ‌of his death, the ministry said. A unit member found the twenty-something staff sergeant collapsed with a severe head injury inside a building at about 7.15am and reported it, according to the Chosun Biz. The death comes amid...

The Philippines’ military modernisation drive could offer South Korea an opportunity to transform its role as a major arms supplier into a deeper defence partnership, analysts have said. This prospect gained fresh momentum after Philippine Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jnr and his South Korean counterpart, Kang Shin-chul, agreed to deepen cooperation in military modernisation, defence technology and joint training on the sidelines of an Asean security summit in Cebu last week. Teodoro...

Malaysian police have launched an investigation into a fight at a shopping centre in Kuala Lumpur after a viral video showed a man slapping a woman who allegedly assaulted his two young children. While police have not officially identified the venue, social media users claim the incident took place at the Ombak KLCC shopping centre. The 35-second clip circulating on social media shows a heated argument between the pair after the man confronted the woman over her actions. The altercation turns...

A new police unit ⁠armed with military ⁠assault rifles has ⁠begun patrolling the streets of Sydney, in an Australian-first measure set up in response to the Bondi Beach attack last December. The Armed Response ‌Command (ARC) would deploy at major events, crowded public spaces, sporting venues and places of worship to conduct “high visibility” patrols, New South Wales state police said. The move comes after two men opened fire on ⁠a Jewish celebration at the famous beach, killing 15 people ‌in an...

In a sprawling palace in western India, the “queen” or Maharani of Baroda welcomes guests with fragrant rose petals, presenting torchlit dances of Hindu myths. Dressed in glittering finery, Radhikaraje Gaekwad is a queen in name only, a modern businesswoman presiding over a world her ancestors once ruled. “The key has been that we have adapted,” the 48-year-old said in her vast Lakshmi Vilas Palace, describing how India’s former royals have found new roles, from cultural ambassadors to...

President Lee Jae Myung’s overseas trips have again drawn attention to South Korea’s shifting political standards, adding to a familiar cycle of disputes over presidential golf and the presidential plane whenever power passes between conservative and liberal administrations. The controversies centre on taxpayer money and the public’s attitudes towards presidential privilege, with governing parties defending certain activities as necessary for diplomacy or official duties and the opposition...

An analysis by Japan’s GMO Internet Group found that a North Korea-linked hacking group was likely behind the cyberattack on the company last month, sources close to the matter said, citing characteristics of the malware used and other traces left by the perpetrators. The company appears to have already reported the matter to the government and will now focus on determining the full circumstances. Kyodo News, working with security experts, also found that five IP addresses used to access a...

Video game companies have long been at the vanguard of artificial intelligence, using it in its more nascent form to dictate non-player character behaviour, simulate crowds and adjust game difficulty on the fly years before the advent of chatbots like ChatGPT. Today, the technology is increasingly being deployed to write code, create visual assets and even synthesise real-time voice-overs, supplanting humans who would have otherwise done the work. Yet studios do still pay people to animate their...

Tens of thousands of volunteers helped raise 108 Buddhist stupas in Bhutan on Sunday, marking the Himalayan kingdom’s ambitious plans for a “mindfulness” city aimed at driving economic growth. The 15-metre tall solid towers – sacred Buddhist monuments found across the Himalayas – stretch along 12 kilometres (7.5 miles) of riverbank near the Indian border, at the site of the future Gelephu Mindfulness City. More than 40,000 volunteers took part in building the structures as “a physical form of...

Thousands protested in Delhi on Sunday to demand the resignation of India’s election chief over a revision of voter lists, the latest in more than a month of ‌opposition demonstrations challenging Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Led by Congress party chief Rahul Gandhi, Sunday’s protesters say the controversial revision benefits Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. Analysts say the protests and growing support for the opposition form the worst crisis for Modi since he came to power in...

India’s new high-altitude combat tank was designed to go where its heavier armoured fighting vehicles cannot: the thin mountain air, narrow roads and small bridges along its disputed border with China. In its base configuration, the Zorawar weighs some 25 tonnes – light enough to be flown all the way to the Line of Actual Control – but a push to make it strong enough to withstand high-calibre autocannon fire could add an extra seven tonnes to that loadout. Reports of renewed stand-offs between...

Malaysian Transport Minister Anthony Loke Siew Fook has dismissed a recent claim on social media that students were forced to serve alcohol at an old boys’ association reunion and centenary dinner, calling the allegations a politically motivated attack against him. The DAP secretary general, who is also a former student of St Paul’s Institution, claimed the individual who allegedly uploaded the post had been looking for every possible opportunity to attack him. “In the social media post, the...

Long dubbed an “air-conditioned nation”, Singapore is experimenting with cooling alternatives from chilled beams to “passive displacement” to curb its thirst for energy-guzzling air conditioning. The city state has the highest per-capita air conditioner ownership rate in Southeast Asia, with about 99 per cent of private residences equipped with cooling units. Singapore’s local building sector accounts for one-fifth of its emissions, while cooling itself accounts for 40 to 60 per cent of a...

For Singaporean flight attendant Chloe Tan Zi Ling, 35, the problem with paper straws is their impracticality. “It softens before we can finish the drink, so we have to gulp it down without a straw,” she said, adding that reusable metal alternatives left an unpleasant taste in her mouth. Her frustration reflects a wider debate over Asia’s shift away from plastic straws, with a recently released South Korean study finding that conventional plastic straws performed better than paper and other...

For over three decades, Dolores Balladares Pelaez has lived and worked in Hong Kong without once returning to the Philippines for Undas, the annual two-day observance honouring the dead. This year, she is arranging prayers from afar for her late father and four siblings, but will once again miss the gathering back home. On Thursday morning, the 56-year-old domestic helper called her mother and niece in Laguna province to discuss hiring a prayer leader to visit the family home. Her sisters-in-law...

A little-known South Korean music act has climbed the charts with a viral hit that has caught listeners off guard – not just for its sudden popularity, but because its vocals were generated entirely by artificial intelligence. Meomuru’s single, “Have You Become the Adult You Dreamed Of?”, climbed to No 2 on Melon’s Top 100 – South Korea’s flagship streaming chart – earlier this week. The track’s popularity has turned Meomuru into one of the country’s most-talked-about acts. The song was created...

Southeast Asia’s electric vehicle boom risks leaving the region’s smaller companies behind, as Chinese automotive giants bypass local part-makers in favour of imported components and locked-in supplier networks. Local manufacturers across Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia are facing a double squeeze: demand is weakening for parts used in petrol and diesel cars, collectively known as internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, while steep barriers to entry also keep them out of EV supply...

The theft of billions of dollars from Binance within a matter of minutes, the biggest cryptocurrency heist in history, was orchestrated by North Korean hackers, the FBI said on Saturday. The Federal Bureau of Investigation said in a statement that this week’s attack was tied to “malicious cyber activity” by an entity known as TraderTraitor, the same actors behind a US$1.5 billion Bybit hack last year. The FBI asked cryptocurrency exchanges, blockchain analytics companies and others to block...

Nearly 200 nations have struck hard-fought agreements at a UN biodiversity summit, but the outcome was accompanied by disappointment over missed opportunities to address humanity’s destructive toll on nature. Delegates cheered on Friday as crucial texts were approved in overtime but the celebrations were tempered by acrimonious debates and regret over limited progress on some of the most contentious issues. The Cop17 summit in Armenia sought to revive a landmark commitment to halt and reverse...

In the Land of the Rising Sun, Bangladesh looks forward to a new dawn. The hope that comes with Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s visit to Japan goes beyond the deals signed or the financial support expected. It shows a country that has emerged from authoritarian rule and wants to turn its new political voice into bigger economic chances and freedom of choice. For a government chosen by the people, foreign policy must answer one question: how does it make life better for the people who gave it...

Malaysia’s Melaka state began its election campaign on Saturday after 79 candidates were cleared to contest a poll testing whether Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s governing partners can turn an opportunistic alliance with his Islamist opponents into a platform for national power. The coastal state south of Kuala Lumpur heads to the polls on November 14, handing the United Malays National Organisation (Umno) and the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) another opening to deepen cooperation after...

The United States, South Korea and Japan reaffirmed their commitment to the “complete denuclearisation” of North Korea on Saturday, as Pyongyang continues to reject disarmament ahead of possible talks with Washington. Speculation is mounting over a potential meeting between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at next month’s Apec summit in China, with Trump making repeated overtures to Pyongyang for nuclear talks. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, South Korean Foreign...

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attended an exhibition devoted to drones and called for rapidly expanding the country’s drone technology, state media reported on Friday, as his military escalates threats against South Korea and the United States. Acquiring advanced drones is a top priority for Kim, who now wants to strengthen conventional and nuclear capabilities to counter what he calls US-led security threats. It is unclear how far North Korea’s drone programme has progressed. Experts say...

A village that sent hundreds of men to one of imperial Japan’s most notorious wartime units is being demolished to make way for a runway at Tokyo’s Narita International Airport. Unit 731 carried out lethal experiments on captives, many of them Chinese, to develop biological weapons during the second world war. Around 300 of its roughly 3,000 personnel came from Kamo, a neighbourhood in Shibayama town, Chiba prefecture, east of the capital. Its founder and commander, Lieutenant General Shiro...