Asia

New Zealand and India announced on Saturday the creation of a strategic partnership encompassing defence and security, during a landmark visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon feted his guest with an indigenous Maori welcome and a guard of honour, seeking to expand relations after signing a free-trade pact in April that he has touted as an economic boon. Modi’s visit, at the tail end of a July 6-11 tour that has also taken him to Indonesia and Australia, came in...

The brave new world of artificial intelligence (AI) is going to be a mixed and divisive blessing for governments – not least those of key Asian countries – as well as for financial markets. The AI revolution points to higher economic growth for economies linked to the tech supply chain, with others being left behind. It also signals the potential for financial crises. Balancing these risks will be tricky. The relative optimism, displayed in a recent report from the International Monetary Fund...

Pan Sok still remembers his relative screaming as a tiger dragged him away one night, deep inside the Cambodian rainforest where they were tapping trees for resin. So he is “not happy” about a plan to reintroduce the big cats, a decade after they were declared extinct in Cambodia. “I saw the tiger take him with my own eyes,” he said, describing the attack that took place over 30 years ago. “He was screaming but we couldn’t help him.” Cambodia’s last confirmed tiger sighting was in camera trap...

Footage of the punishment quickly went viral: an unmarried couple each receiving 21 lashes of the cane in Indonesia’s Aceh province after being accused of kissing in a car and live-streaming it on TikTok. As each blow landed on their backs, the unnamed man, 22, and woman, 25, visibly grimaced. The woman later burst into tears, wailing in pain as the public punishment continued. The caning was carried out on July 2 in Banda Aceh, the provincial capital. Aceh is the only Indonesian province to...

For a man sanctioned by Beijing, barred from visiting China and accused of damaging bilateral ties, Gilberto Teodoro Jnr sounded remarkably composed. Composed, that is, until the conversation turned to the South China Sea – the very subject that landed him in hot water in the first place. In an interview this week, the Philippines’ defence chief said that Manila would keep only limited military communication channels open with Beijing, while ruling out broader engagement unless China changed its...

Polling stations across Malaysia’s Johor state closed at 6pm on Saturday, with the voter turnout nearing the expected 70 per cent of a more than 2.7 million electorate. All eyes are now on the results – set to determine the stability of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s coalition government. Johor has become a battleground between federal partners – Pakatan Harapan (PH), led by Anwar, and Barisan Nasional (BN) – who insist their pact in Putrajaya can withstand the clash at state level. Both...

There is a bogus version of Singapore’s prime minister that exists only to steal money. It connected to a Zoom call, thanked a stranger for his time and helped relieve him of US$3.8 million – with the real Lawrence Wong, for a time, none the wiser about what had happened. The victim had received a WhatsApp message purporting to be from the secretary to the cabinet, inviting him to a private meeting. What followed was not some doctored photo or a 15-second clip designed to fool a distracted...

The new list of Chinese Military Companies includes some of China’s best-known private firms: Tencent, DJI, Unitree, and Alibaba.

The future of maritime security in the Indian Ocean will be defined not by control of sea lanes alone, but by the ability to monitor, interpret, and act in real time. 

Amid power shifts in the Indo-Pacific, there is greater realization in both countries of each other’s value as a stable, reliable partner.

Israel's reliance on longstanding partnerships with the United States and a handful of European countries is no longer sufficient. But can it build durable relationships in Asia?

Political exclusion, economic uncertainty, security concerns, and diplomatic imbalance mark Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s fledgling regime.

Hanoi is ramping up semiconductor investment, but will it succeed in boosting domestic capabilities? 

Rather than helping North Korea build military satellites, what if Moscow simply shares the intelligence collected by its existing satellite network?

Under Tokayev, Kazakhstan is reshaping its official understanding of statehood, extending the country's historical narrative centuries beyond independence

The contemporary Australia-India relationship is built on an increasingly interconnected web of institutional cooperation.

After a rendition of My Way and a saxophone accompaniment that felt closer to crooning uncles at a wedding party than high-stakes diplomacy, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and his Thai counterpart Anutin Charnvirakul announced the serious business of squashing a damaging trade row and bringing greater security to the porous border between the nations. The pair, long-standing friends, also share a love for public spectacle, with Anutin playing the classic song popularised by Frank Sinatra...

Tibet stands at the forefront of China’s wind, solar, and hydropower. But the Tibetan people have no say over how their resources are used.

India’s struggle to replenish its depleted fighter fleet has led one of the world’s largest defence spenders to seek spare parts from decommissioned aircraft. New Delhi recently secured nine retired British-built Jaguar ground-attack jets, which will not enter service with the Indian Air Force (IAF) but will be dismantled to help sustain its six operational Jaguar strike squadrons of about 120 aircraft. Analysts said the acquisition was a practical stopgap but also exposed a deeper weakness in...

Voters in Malaysia’s southern state of Johor will cast their ballots on Saturday in a high-stakes election that is expected to bring Barisan Nasional (BN) back to power, exposing deeper cracks in Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s administration. BN is part of Anwar’s unity government but will go head to head against federal partner Pakatan Harapan (PH) in a state long regarded as a BN stronghold. The contest for Johor’s 56-seat assembly has put Anwar’s multi-ethnic party in an awkward position, but...

The United States is set to resume military sales to Turkey, Nato’s second-largest military power, after President Donald Trump said sanctions imposed against Ankara over its procurement of Russian air defence systems seven years ago would soon be lifted. “We don’t want to sanction friends,” Trump told journalists at the Nato summit in the Turkish capital on Wednesday, while emphasising his “good chemistry” with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Trump further said he would soon take a final...

As US President Donald Trump flew home from a fractious Nato summit in Turkey, he was poised to resume the war with Iran, whose leaders he labelled “sick” and “scum”. Trump also complained about European leaders’ failure to spend enough on arms, support him in Iran and recognise the need for the US to take control of Greenland. The sense of rising global conflict has been palpable this week. What clearly showed at the summit of the transatlantic security alliance was confirmed by the latest...

Differences between Prime Minister Balendra Shah and RSP chief Rabi Lamichhane, two politicians with competing centers of authority, were inevitable.

A large and powerful typhoon approached a remote chain of islands in Japan’s southwest on Friday, prompting authorities to warn of violent winds, torrential rain, landslides and flooding in what could be the region’s most destructive storm in years. Super Typhoon Bavi is expected to pass very close to Japan’s Sakishima Islands, a remote island chain that is part of Okinawa prefecture, early on ‌Saturday morning, according to meteorological authorities. Maximum sustained winds were topping out at...

When Karasi Chandramogan’s father died four years ago, the 35-year-old Singaporean was left with the overwhelming responsibility of being the sole carer for her brother, who has autism, and mother, an amputee. “Me and my dad were a tag team,” the freelance behavioural therapist said. “When he passed on, I couldn’t mourn too much because I had to handle the funeral situation as well as my mum and brother.” She recalled an incident in April, when her brother, Bala, suffered seizures during lunch....

While the government focuses on burnishing its appeal to well-heeled tourists, massive holdings of Thai elite wealth remain effectively untaxed.

The scholars described the Batanes Islands as a “natural geographical extension” of Taiwan, which therefore belonged to China.

A decision by a city near Tokyo to bar a mosque from holding a long-standing outdoor prayer session in one of its parks has triggered debate over multicultural coexistence in Japan, with questions raised over whether officials had sufficient grounds for the move. The dispute began in May when a mosque in Ichikawa, Chiba prefecture, was denied permission to hold a group prayer in the public park, located in a residential neighbourhood, during a festival that had been held there for years with...

Are India’s fraying relations with the US transient, or do they represent a fundamental rupture with long-term impacts on US-India relations and India’s growth story?

The Philippines still lags behind its neighbours in attracting foreign direct investment, with inflows stagnating in 2025 even as a financing influx swept the region. This shortfall has cast a spotlight on a corruption scandal that has roiled the country and dented investor confidence, analysts say, compounding long-standing systemic issues. Manila ranked sixth in Southeast Asia for FDI last year, capturing just US$9 billion of the region’s US$244 billion investment haul, according to the UN...