Asia

A reported US pullback in intelligence-sharing with South Korea has exposed a new trust gap between the allies after Unification Minister Chung Dong-young publicly mentioned a suspected North Korean uranium-enrichment site. Washington viewed Chung’s remark as disclosing sensitive information about Kusong – a site long discussed in outside analyses, but not previously identified publicly by a South Korean official in such terms – and responded by reducing the intelligence it shared with Seoul,...

Government forces in the central Philippines have killed at least 10 Maoist guerrillas in several gun battles, the military said on Monday, in a deadly flare-up of the decades-old insurgency. Troops were fighting “remnants” of the New People’s Army (NPA) rebel group on Sunday near the municipality of Toboso on Negros island, the regional military command said. The exact number of dead rebels was uncertain, with Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala in Manila saying as many as 19 might...

A cautious reset in India-China relations is taking root, according to analysts, with the two rivals increasingly walling off their border disputes from expanding cooperation on trade, security and multilateral diplomacy. The clearest marker yet came last week in New Delhi, where the two sides held their first-ever bilateral consultations focused exclusively on the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), the Eurasian security bloc that also includes Russia, Iran, Pakistan and four Central Asian...

Forest fires raging through Laos, Myanmar and Thailand have smothered large areas in dangerous smoke, leaving overstretched firefighters battling blazes and smog-choked communities looking to the skies for rain and their governments to fix a scourge that worsens each year. Dry season fires have brought a public health crisis to northern Thailand, including Chiang Mai, as well as much of Laos and eastern Myanmar, as parched bush provides tinderbox conditions for wildfires. Some fires are also due...

The United States is planning to build an “economic security zone” in the Philippines to counter China’s dominance in critical technologies. The 4,000-acre (1,619-hectare) hi-tech industrial hub will reportedly be the first of its kind in the world, operating under US common law despite being on Philippine soil. Washington says it will be the first “AI-native investment acceleration hub” developed under the US-led Pax Silica initiative, a framework aimed at mobilising allied economies around...

Malaysia’s busiest container port has started refusing Middle East-bound cargo unless shipping lines can guarantee prompt pickup, in one of the clearest signs yet that the Gulf crisis is working its way past oil and into the everyday trade that moves across Asia. Longer transit times, missed sailings and sharply higher insurance premiums are now rippling across the region’s logistics chain, with wine, spirits and other time-sensitive goods acting as an early indicator of disruption that analysts...

A tsunami warning was issued for parts of northeast and northern Japan on Monday after a magnitude-7.5 earthquake struck off the Sanriku Coast, sending residents to higher ground and boats out to sea as memories of the 2011 disaster resurfaced. Live television footage showed fishing boats and coastal vessels leaving ports along Japan’s northeast coast to avoid incoming waves, while broadcasters urged people in low-lying areas to evacuate immediately to safer ground. In Hokkaido, Makoto Watanabe,...

Regulators across Asia are stepping up scrutiny of cybersecurity risks in their financial systems, as concerns over Anthropic’s latest AI model Mythos spread. Singapore’s financial regulator is urging banks to plug holes, while South Korea’s government agencies have met to review and discuss how to respond to the risks. In Australia, authorities expect lenders to be vigilant to ensure clients are not put at risk by inadequate controls. The actions around the region reflect rising global concern...

For Southeast Asia, trust in Japan runs deepest where China presses hardest and breaks down where neutrality is a point of pride. Analysts say that dynamic, revealed in an annual survey released earlier this month, explains why Vietnam and the Philippines both see the East Asian nation as a trusted partner while Indonesia, a country that has long prized non-alignment, is uncomfortable with Tokyo’s deepening embrace of Washington. Trust in Tokyo is highest in the Philippines (77.3 per cent),...

Indonesia’s National Human Rights Commission strongly criticised the military ⁠on Monday as it ⁠investigated the killing of 12 civilians ⁠last week during an operation against rebels in Papua province. The military said it had no information about the deaths, but the state-run rights commission said over the weekend that 12 people including women and children had been ‌shot dead during an operation against separatists in central Papua on Tuesday. Dozens of others sustained serious injuries, it...

Asia-Pacific economies are likely to suffer a slowdown in growth this year, as rising costs linked to the US-Israel war on Iran combine with lingering trade uncertainty to threaten global trade flows, according to forecasts by top international organisations. The predictions come despite China showing resilience in the first quarter by posting better-than-expected growth of 5 per cent and finance minister Lan Foan last week stressing that the world’s second-largest economy would remain an engine...

Residents in low-lying areas of New Zealand’s ⁠capital city Wellington ⁠were urged to evacuate on ⁠Monday, as heavy rain continued to drench the city, which experienced flash flooding overnight. A state of emergency was declared for the region on Monday afternoon, while weather forecaster MetService upgraded its heavy rain warning to red, the highest level, which indicates a threat to life from dangerous river conditions, significant flooding and slips. Mayor Andrew Little told state-owned Radio...

A US move to freeze the Lunar Gateway orbiting space station could render Japan’s new technologies redundant – but its space agency is expected to be diplomatic in its response. The Lunar Gateway project was initially planned as an installation that would orbit the moon as part of the United States’ Artemis programme, which recently made headlines for a record-breaking journey that went deeper into space than anyone had ever flown before. Artemis’ aim is to return astronauts to the moon’s...

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has been putting her own spin on omotenashi, the Japanese concept of hospitality, to build personal rapport with foreign leaders as her diplomatic skills are put to the test about six months into office. Takaichi, Japan’s first female prime minister, who was not widely known for her diplomatic experience before taking office, has been adding an element of entertainment to summit talks and relying on personal gifts to win over her counterparts. Most...

In the early 2010s, a small Australian company tried to build a fleet of satellites before lenders, concerned about its chief executive officer’s flamboyant behaviour, pulled hundreds of millions of dollars of financing. The firm collapsed in 2015. More than a decade later, Singapore real estate tycoon Ching Chiat Kwong, who says he put US$100 million of his own money into NewSat, has not forgotten. The Supreme Court of Victoria begins hearing a case on Monday brought by the liquidators of the...

Bolstering strategic partnerships and economic ties will be high on the agenda during South Korean President Lee Jae Myung’s six-day trip to India and Vietnam, as Seoul seeks to expand cooperation with the Global South amid turmoil in the Middle East. Lee, who arrived in New Delhi on Sunday, is scheduled to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi, business leaders and Korean expatriates before concluding the India leg of his visit on Tuesday. National security adviser Wi Sung-rak said South Korea...

Across Asia, a revolution in how people move was already gathering speed. War in Iran just hit the accelerator. Prashant Tiwari was among the first people at his company to go electric when he swapped his petrol car for a Hyundai Kona five years ago. Now, his colleagues at Fusemachines Nepal – an AI firm in Kathmandu – are calling him a prophet. “They say you don’t have any problem,” the 36-year-old product manager said. “I think it is foolish to buy a petrol-run car now, and everyone generally...

North Korea launched multiple short-range ballistic missiles towards the sea on Sunday, its neighbours said, days after the UN’s nuclear watchdog warned that North Korea was making “very serious” advances in efforts to build nuclear weapons. The missiles fired from the North’s Sinpo area flew about 140 kilometres (87 miles) each towards the country’s eastern waters, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said. It said South Korea maintains a readiness to repel any provocations by North Korea and is...

Since America launched its “major combat operation” against Iran, several Nato allies have distanced themselves from Washington. Now America also risks losing ground in strategically important Southeast Asia to China. Could it face an erosion of influence similar to that suffered by Russia in Central Asia as a result of its “special military operation” in Ukraine? Soon after US President Donald Trump launched massive air and missile strikes on Iran on February 28, it became clear Washington...

Thousands ⁠of people have been displaced after a fire destroyed around 1,000 homes in a coastal village in Malaysia’s Sabah state on Borneo island ‌on Sunday, the fire department said. Authorities were notified of the fire in Sandakan district at around 1.32am, the district’s fire and rescue chief Jimmy Lagung said in a statement. “Strong winds and ⁠the close proximity of the houses caused the fire to ‌spread rapidly, while low tide conditions also made it difficult to obtain an open ‌water...

Lea Albritton’s mornings belong to the repair shop. Her afternoons belong to the camera. The 40-year-old from Leyte in the central Philippines has lived in the US state of Georgia since 2019 with her 62-year-old American husband, Timothy, running a recreational vehicle repair shop in the mornings. After lunch, she produces videos about Filipino food, migration advice for couples stuck in the fiancée visa queue and glimpses of domestic life for the 250,000 followers of her page, Pinay sa America...

As the artificial intelligence race moves beyond language models into the physical world, Asia’s manufacturing and supply chain strengths could give it an edge over the US, says Granite Asia’s Jixun Foo. The veteran venture capitalist said the current wave of AI development, sparked by breakthroughs in foundation models over the past two years, had entered a new phase where physical applications – from robotics to industrial automation – were becoming increasingly important, playing to Asia’s...

A single father has refused to accept any more donations from Malaysians following a viral video that appeared to show him having difficulty finding money to pay a mechanic after his motorcycle broke down in Kuala Lumpur. According to Sinar Harian, the man known as Dicky Yau was touched by the concern shown by social media users who had offered to extend financial help to him after seeing the situation he was in. “I would like to thank everyone who sent private messages to offer help. However, I...

The flags arrived before BINI did. They were already rippling across the Mojave Tent at Coachella in a sea of blue, red and white when the eight-member group took the stage on a recent Friday afternoon, carried by fans who had travelled across oceans and time zones for a moment that had never been seen before. The 45-minute set that followed made BINI the first P-pop act from the Philippines – and the first Southeast Asian girl group – to perform at one of the world’s most influential music...

Malaysian comedian Rizal van Geyzel keeps his three children – aged six, 14 and 15 – off social media. He calls it a “gateway drug” to fake news, pornography, stalkers and doom-scrolling. “Do I risk them resenting me? Sure, but these are the sacrifices of parents for their children’s mental health and physical safety,” the 43-year-old said. Across Southeast Asia, governments are increasingly siding with parents like him. Indonesia last month became the first country in the region to bar...

Singapore has earned top marks for digital resilience in the Asia-Pacific, but a new study reveals a disconnect at the heart of its corporate world: its executives ranked 10th out of 11 for leadership on the issue. The findings, published on Wednesday by Economist Impact and Australian telecoms company Telstra International, drew on responses from 1,420 senior executives across 11 Asia-Pacific markets, including Australia, mainland China, Hong Kong and Thailand. Singapore ranked first overall –...

Construction of a US$1 billion Chinese-invested hydropower station has begun in Cambodia to facilitate the Southeast Asian country’s use of renewable energy as the fallout from the Iran war constricts developing countries’ access to traditional fuel supplies. Work on the Upper Tatay pumped-storage hydropower project in the hilly southwestern province of Koh Kong started on April 10, Xinhua reported, describing it as a future “green power bank” for Cambodia’s national grid. It said the project...

For a Chinese enterprise venturing overseas, the first decision is often not which market to enter, but which city to launch from. And that choice increasingly narrows to Hong Kong or Singapore. Both offer deep capital markets, common law systems and Chinese-speaking talent. Both want to be the trusted first stop. But a gap has emerged – not in what the two cities offer on paper, but in how they treat the enterprises they both want. What does a “launch pad” deliver? It is where a Chinese...

Japan and Australia said on Saturday they have finalised contracts to jointly deliver the first three of 11 ships for the Australian navy based on the upgraded Japanese Mogami-class frigate, as the two countries deepen their defence cooperation amid China’s growing assertiveness. The deal, announced by Japanese Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi and his Australian counterpart Richard Marles in Melbourne, comes ahead of Japan’s planned easing of its rules on defence equipment exports, which place...

East Asia’s “economic miracle” in the post-World War II period was predicated upon a number of factors, such as the region’s export-led growth model, but critically it also depended on an assured supply of capital to finance business investment. One source of such finance was bank loans, the supply and direction of which can be officially influenced by various means rather than being chiefly market-determined. Even today, bank loans account for most of the business financing in Japan, the...