Asia

The spectacle of US President Donald Trump thanking China for staying “neutral” with regard to the US-Israeli war against Iran would have been unthinkable a year ago. Yet at the Group of Seven summit in Evian-les-Bains, France, on June 17, he credited Beijing – alongside Moscow – with preventing a full-blown catastrophe. His observation that China “could have sent in an oil ship with six destroyers alongside of it, on each side” but chose restraint, captured the essence of Beijing’s strategic...

Three fully laden India-linked supertankers have re-emerged in the Gulf of Oman, adding to increased reports of traffic moving both ways across the northern and southern routes of the Strait of Hormuz, while conflicting narratives over the status of transits persist. The Desh Vibhor, Desh Vaibhav and Sanmar Herald were observed in the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea on Sunday, after having been last seen signalling their attempt to cross the Strait of Hormuz late on Friday, according to...

The South Korean government and defence players are making last-ditch efforts to win Canada’s next-generation submarine project worth up to 60 trillion won (US$39.14 billion), as Ottawa is expected to select a preferred bidder by the end of this month. Under the Canadian Patrol Submarine Project, the Royal Canadian Navy’s ageing fleet of four Victoria-class submarines will be replaced with 12 new 3,000-tonne diesel-electric vessels. The comprehensive contract includes long-term maintenance,...

Within a week of its release, Netflix’s new Korean drama Teach You a Lesson, directed by Hong Jong-chan, topped the platform’s global non-English rankings for the week of June 1 to 7. Adapted from the popular webtoon Get Schooled (2020), the 10-episode series about a government-backed vigilante unit trying to fix the wrongs in schools has quickly become a highly rated breakout hit. Described in a Forbes article as “one of the most addictive feel-good dramas of the year”, the series has exploded...

Theatre chain Golden Village (GV) and film distributor Clover Films have added eight more screenings of Dear You in its original Teochew language in Singapore. The additional screenings will take place from June 25 to 29 at GVmax at GV VivoCity. Tickets will go on sale at 3pm on June 22 via GV’s box office counters and online channels. The move comes after all eight of the Chinese film’s previously announced Teochew-language screenings, held from June 18 to 21, sold out. Directed and co-written...

Danny Loong did not fully grieve his father’s death until he became a parent himself. For two decades after his father’s passing, Loong remembered him mostly as a provider and disciplinarian: a man who pushed hard, cared quietly and offered little by way of tenderness. “He would ask me, ‘How come you’re not this, or that? How come you’re not studying hard enough?’ So when he passed away, I missed him, but I somehow couldn’t really grieve for him,” said Loong, 54. “It was only after I had my own...

She was among five girls in Japan believed to have beaten a boy so severely that he required hospital treatment. Yet her most pressing concern was how much money the group should demand from him. To find an answer, she turned to artificial intelligence. The alleged assault took place in January in Hachioji, a city in western Greater Tokyo. For experts, the case has exposed a disturbing pattern: Japanese adolescents instinctively turning to AI to guide their actions, including criminal ones,...

Orchard Towers, a building in Singapore once notorious enough to earn the nickname “Four Floors of Whores”, has found an unlikely new tenant. On weekends, the site of former nightclubs, illegal massage parlours and at least one murder is now flooded with church-goers. Cornerstone Community Church officially opened weekly services at the Orchard Road landmark in January after buying six units on the fourth floor – formerly a nightclub – for S$54.5 million (US$42.3 million) in 2025. Experts say...

Russia has freed 24 Filipinos who have been detained for months without charges in a Siberian city, after Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr raised concerns about them in a meeting with President Vladimir Putin, Philippine officials said on Saturday. The 24 arrived in Manila aboard two flights early on Sunday, and the first batch was welcomed by Philippine Foreign Secretary Theresa Lazaro, who accompanied Marcos in his talks with Putin on Wednesday in the Russian city of Kazan, the...

Led by Japan, East Asia seems to be setting off along a road to nowhere – beyond tension and maybe eventual conflict. This may seem a harsh indictment yet consecutive Japanese leaders have shown a lack of vision on the constructive role their country could play in achieving regional peace and economic integration. The latest manifestation of this is Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s proposal this past week to G7 leaders in France to coordinate the stockpiling of critical minerals,...

The Trump administration’s indictment of former Cuban president Raul Castro and sanctions on his successor, Miguel Diaz-Canel, suggest Washington now views regime change in Havana as a viable policy objective. This adds to Cuba’s mounting woes. The fall of Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro in January severed the subsidised oil lifeline that had long kept the island nation afloat, plunging Cuba into its worst socio-economic crisis since the 1990s. For most countries, this is a distant problem. For...

As Southeast Asia grapples with energy supply uncertainty, fallout from the Iran conflict and intensifying rivalry between the United States and China, Russia appears to be presenting itself as a viable “third power” option for the region, analysts say. Moscow’s pitch was on display at the Asean-Russia Commemorative Summit in Kazan on Thursday, where Russian leader Vladimir Putin met regional counterparts, and the two sides agreed to bolster political and economic ties, alongside several...

Celty arrives at a cosplay venue in Kuala Lumpur and does not look the part yet, dressed in jeans and a plain t-shirt. He finds a toilet, locks a cubicle door, transforms his looks and is ready to turn heads – dressed from head to toe in a helmet, boots, choker, corset and a glossy black latex catsuit. The Kuala Lumpur-based latex enthusiast has rehearsed the worst-case scenario in his head. If people were to stare at him or mock him for his outfit, he would leave the Anime Fest Plus event at...

Scientists have detected the H5 strain of bird flu in Australia for the first time, meaning the highly contagious variant has now spread to every continent. Australian Agriculture Minister Julie Collins told a press conference on Saturday that the disease had been found in a migratory sea bird, a brown skua, in remote Western Australia, and the result was confirmed by the national science agency. Samples from another sick bird, a giant petrel, had also shown as a suspected positive result, she...

The runway at Clark International Airport was built to launch American air power across Asia. Now, it is being repurposed to project German industrial ambition. Analysts say the multimillion-dollar deal to develop the former US military base in the Philippines illustrates how economic investment has become the new language of strategic power. The deal, struck last week during German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier’s milestone visit to Manila – the first by a German head of state since 1963 –...

South Korean e-commerce companies are increasingly turning to Chinese platforms to help sellers tap rising demand for Korean products, offering a lower-cost route into China and other overseas markets without building local operations. 11street, one of South Korea’s major online marketplaces, recently opened a storefront on JD Worldwide, JD.com’s cross-border e-commerce platform, where about 700 million consumers have made at least one purchase over the past year. The store carries products from...

In the mist-wrapped hills of northern Thailand, where cacao trees erupt from the rich, nutrient-dense soil, three little words are spreading fear through a community of farmers. “There is no way to know for certain,” Koranut Rattanayanyong told This Week in Asia. “But it could be a total wipeout.” The weather event Koranut is dreading? A “super” El Nino. Earlier this month, the climate phenomenon officially started to form over the Pacific, with a bloom of ocean heat running 2.5 degrees Celsius...

For much of the 20th century, many were accustomed to thinking of people as an ever-expanding resource. As the number of people grew, so did labour markets, consumer markets, scientific communities, production systems and armies. In 1950, the world’s population was about 2.5 billion. In 2026, it is reaching 8.3 billion. In just 75 years, the population has increased more than 3.3 times. In this sense, the current human population may turn out not to be a permanent norm, but a historical anomaly...

Authorities in Indonesia’s tourist island of Bali foiled an attempt to illegally trade 21 protected green sea turtles, police said on Friday. Bali police seized the live animals during a raid on the Pegametan coast of the island on June 10, after local residents reported suspected illegal turtle trading activity in the area, said Nanang Pri Hasmojo, head of law enforcement at the force. Police arrested a 67-year-old man identified only by his initials KS, who is suspected of storing the...

The son of Myanmar’s jailed pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has said his mother’s “spirit cannot be caged”, in a moving video greeting for her 81st birthday – a milestone she again marks while confined by the junta. Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s de facto leader until the 2021 coup removed her administration, was jailed for 33 years following that military takeover on charges including election fraud and corruption. International observers and her pro-democracy supporters say the allegations were...

We’ve never had it so good. The S&P 500 and Nikkei 225 have hit record highs this month. SpaceX had its spectacular initial public offering, the largest in history. The company raised an eye-popping US$75 billion and saw a sharp rise in its share price to a mind-blowing valuation of US$2.5 trillion in two days. The US-Iran deal on reopening the Strait of Hormuz caused petrol prices to drop back to below US$4 per gallon. Global stock markets are creating seemingly unstoppable wealth for...

A Vietnamese national deported to South Sudan by Donald Trump’s administration under its controversial third-country deportation programme was repatriated to Vietnam on Friday after spending more than a year in detention. South Sudan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced the repatriation of 44-year-old Tuan Phan at a press briefing on Friday. “We are grateful that while in our custody Mr Phan was very disciplined, joyful, and importantly, he remained healthy,” spokesman Agok Anyar said. Phan...

Arsenio Butil Jnr fell to his knees and began to pray when last week’s deadly 7.8-magnitude earthquake began shaking his home on the coast of the southern Philippines. When he opened his eyes, he saw a once-familiar shoreline changing in real time, with swathes of previously submerged coral suddenly pushing above the waterline. The June 8 quake, driven by a shifting of the nearby Cotabato Trench, toppled buildings, triggered landslides and killed at least 76 people on the southern island of...

Australia has supplied the Philippine coastguard with a new batch of aerial and underwater drones that could significantly enhance Manila’s capability to monitor activities in the disputed South China Sea. The systems would help the coastguard gather evidence and enhance deterrence across the contested waters, including areas within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone, where Manila has faced repeated confrontations with Chinese vessels, according to analysts. Based on images released by the...

A social media post by London Mayor Sadiq Khan calling his city and Singapore global powerhouses has ignited scrutiny of both places, with critics arguing that they are worlds apart. Khan, who was in Singapore this week, posted a picture of himself standing in front of the Marina Bay skyline on Sunday with the caption: “This is what it looks like when two global powerhouses unite. Delighted to be here to bang the drum for London and supercharge the strong ties between our countries.” Social...

A fire that broke out at a primary school in Tokyo on Friday, injuring eight pupils and two teachers before being extinguished, authorities said. The fire was reported around 11am, according to the local fire department. It started in a room next to the music room on the top floor of Takinogawa Dai-san Elementary School in the Kita area of the Japanese capital. It was extinguished at around 1.45pm, with 75 fire engines and dozens of firefighters at the scene. Most of the injured suffered from...

Filipinos are losing faith in the news faster than audiences almost anywhere else in the world, as analysts attribute the decline to years of sustained attacks on the Philippine media industry and the growing reach of influence operations on social media. Only 28 per cent of Filipinos said they trusted news most of the time, down from 38 per cent in 2025, according to the latest Reuters Institute Digital News Report – the steepest decline among respondents across 48 markets. The figure placed...

Ghost nets and plastic pollution plague Indonesia’s Anambas Islands, harming marine life and exposing the gap between regional pledges and enforcement. This environmental crisis is further worsened by rapidly surging growth-driven consumption, campaigners say. Devina Mariskova, head of Yayasan Anambas, said the nets are often thrown from vessels off the coasts of surrounding countries, largely placing the burden of collecting them on the small island chain’s coastal communities and...

Malaysian police arrested 58 people and seized more than half a million ringgit (US$124,000) in illicit proceeds in a World Cup gambling sweep as authorities in Southeast Asia crack down on illegal football betting during the tournament. Malaysia, where unlicensed betting is a criminal offence, has been bracing for a rise in illegal sports wagers, with the quadrennial spectacle attracting punters to betting sites and apps. Bukit Aman Criminal Investigation Department director M. Kumar said...

Foreign trawlers slip into waters off the Malaysian state of Terengganu under cover of darkness, local fishermen say, working near Pulau Redang and Pulau Bidong before leaving by dawn to avoid detection. The incursions have become a recurring problem for fishermen along the eastern coast of Peninsular Malaysia, where the South China Sea separates Malaysia from Vietnam by just hundreds of kilometres. Alias Yahya, who sits on the board of the Terengganu fishermen’s group Penentu, said members had...