Asia

Separatists from Pakistan’s Balochistan province claimed responsibility for nearly a dozen coordinated attacks across southern Pakistan early on Saturday that targeted civilians, a high-security prison, police stations and paramilitary installations. Eleven civilians, 10 security personnel and 67 insurgents were killed, authorities said. Though Baloch separatists and the Pakistani Taliban frequently target security forces in Balochistan and elsewhere in the country, coordinated attacks on this...

The leaders of Japan and Britain agreed on Saturday on the urgent need for their countries and like-minded partners to cooperate in strengthening supply chains of critical minerals, as Tokyo seeks to align more closely with London in the face of China’s growing clout. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi told a joint press event with her British counterpart Keir Starmer after their meeting in Tokyo that they affirmed the two nations will strategically promote cybersecurity cooperation and set up a new...

Compared with the turmoil threatened by US President Donald Trump’s actions in everything from geopolitics to trade, the outcome of Japan’s parliamentary lower house election, set for February 8, may seem like small beer. Yet it could presage a great upheaval in global finance. The election outcome is widely expected to strengthen the political power base of the fiscally expansionist Japanese prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, and increase borrowing when government debt almost everywhere is already...

Russia’s call to revive a troika with China and India is unlikely to be greeted with enthusiasm by New Delhi, with critics pointing to tense border stand-offs and India’s reluctance to be seen as part of an “anti-West” grouping. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov earlier this month lauded Moscow’s bilateral ties with Delhi and Beijing, calling for the revival of the Russia-India-China (RIC) trialogue. First mooted in 1998 by then Russian prime minister Yevgeny Primakov, the RIC has not taken...

A man who was sentenced to jail in Singapore over an altercation with the police was released on the same day he was sentenced due to an error in calculating the jail term. Muhammad Fathurrahman Mohd Adzlan was contacted and returned to jail four days later to complete his sentence. In a statement on Friday, a judiciary spokeswoman said Muhammad was sentenced to 32 weeks’ jail on October 27, last year. However, this was erroneously reflected as 20 weeks. According to court papers, Muhammad, then...

At an Indian gourmet food store, Avanti Mehta is organising a blind tasting of drinks sourced from France, Italy and India. No, this is not wine, it is water. Participants use tiny shot glasses to check the minerality, carbonation and salinity in samples of Evian from the French Alps, Perrier from southern France, San Pellegrino from Italy and India’s Aava from the foothills of the Aravalli mountains. “They will all taste different … you should be choosing a water that can give you some sort of...

Muhammad Syafiq, a 25-year-old banker from Kuala Lumpur, has started noticing something recently that felt like “real politics” compared with the soft sell of an election campaign poster at train stations in the Malaysian capital. “One government programme I think is pretty solid is the People’s Income Initiative, or IPR [Inisiatif Pendapatan Rakyat], where small vendors use vending machines to sell food and drinks,” he told This Week in Asia, pointing to what he described as affordable...

A Japanese start-up is expanding a “granny business” that turns seniors’ lifetime skills into paid work through cafes, food stalls and community festivals, placing elderly women – including those with dementia – at the centre of local economies. Based in the Fukuoka prefecture city of Ukiha, Ukiha no Takara, or Ukiha’s Treasure, draws on cooking, hospitality and fashion skills accumulated over decades, offering paid employment rather than volunteer roles. The initiative aims to reduce isolation...

China has plans to increase its investments in Nepal to take advantage of the country’s rich hydropower resources, according to a Nepalese official. Nepal’s hydropower sector is particularly attractive to Chinese investors because there is potential to sell some of the power generated to India, said Hong Kong-based Consul General Bindeswar Prasad Lekhak. The Himalayan nation, which borders China and India, has vast untapped hydropower resources and it is keen to attract more foreign investment...

On a lively weekend afternoon beneath Marina Bay Sands, there is no stage, no spotlight and no audience in the conventional sense. Still, familiar music fills the underground concourse. A group of teenage girls moves in sync to rookie K-pop girl group Hearts2Hearts’ “Focus”, counting beats under their breath. A few meters away, another dance team rehearses choreography to Twice’s “Feel Special”, adjusting their formation as shoppers pass by. No one appears surprised. Scenes like this now unfold...

North Korea is set to use its coming Workers’ Party congress to signal an escalation towards carrying out large-scale nuclear retaliation in the event of a conflict with the US, with analysts expecting Pyongyang to unveil plans centred on intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) capable of striking American cities. The move was foreshadowed by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Tuesday, when he said he would announce next-phase plans to further strengthen the country’s “nuclear war deterrence...

It was a policy meant to ignite a golden age of infrastructure development and put Thailand at the heart of Southeast Asia’s trade and investment for decades to come. Three years – and three prime ministers – after it was first proposed, a multibillion-dollar “landbridge” across Thailand’s southern neck to slash transport times between Asia’s main shipping lanes has now hit a dead end, entangled in the kingdom’s intractable political crisis. As Thais prepare to vote on February 8 for yet another...

Japanese Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi and his South Korean counterpart Ahn Gyu Back decided on Friday to step up personnel exchanges between their forces amid mounting regional security challenges. At the Maritime Self-Defense Force’s (MSDF) base in Koizumi’s hometown of Yokosuka, near Tokyo, the two agreed to hold annual reciprocal visits, as ties between the Asian neighbours have continued to improve in recent years. “We opened the door for a new level of defence exchanges between Japan...

Remarks by a prominent economist about India’s air quality have raised a debate on whether New Delhi should prioritise tackling pollution over tariff talks, as the country continues to transition towards a green economy. Former International Monetary Fund chief economist Gita Gopinath made the comments at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, arguing that investors considering India would have to factor its environment because it “is going to be consequential for health”. India has been...

Wang Gungwu is widely regarded as a pre-eminent expert on the ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia and the history of China, but at 95, he writes in his latest memoir that he is no longer able to call himself a historian. In No Borders: Journeys Across Islands and Continents, launched in Singapore on Thursday, Wang writes that while a historian today has the objective of reconstructing the past as it actually happened, the Australian sinologist is no longer interested in this. Through his studies...

In Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, Mike Campbell described how he went bankrupt: “Gradually, and then suddenly.” Over the past weeks, there is a feeling that US President Donald Trump and his administration have reached the “suddenly” bit. First, Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney captivated a World Economic Forum audience when he described the “rupture” in the rules-based order, a “bargain” that “no longer works”: leaving middle countries like Canada with no choice but to dilute their...

Malaysia’s football leadership resigned en masse this week in what it called a governance move to protect the sport, but critics say any “reset” will count only if the association explains how allegedly forged eligibility documents were submitted and who will be held responsible. The Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) late on Thursday said it had formally informed Fifa and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) that all members of its executive committee for the 2025–2029 term had...

South Korea’s Ministry of Employment and Labour has apologised to the family of a Cambodian migrant worker who died after living in a makeshift “greenhouse dormitory” and vowed to reinforce protections for foreign workers, following a Supreme Court ruling that found the government liable. In a statement issued on Thursday after the decision, the ministry said it respects the ruling of the Supreme Court and promised to help swiftly proceed with compensation procedures for the bereaved family of...

Singapore’s move to bar undesirable visitors from boarding planes to the city state began on Friday, with airlines flying into its airports required to deny access to passengers flagged as risks. The new directive is aimed at preventing “undesirable or prohibited immigrants, and those who do not meet Singapore’s entry requirements, from boarding flights bound for Singapore”, according to an Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) statement released on November 28 last year. Airlines flying...

A visit by a United States warship to a Cambodian port built with major Chinese backing has underscored Phnom Penh’s superpower balancing act, but observers say American concerns will linger over the facility’s usage being dominated by Beijing. The USS Cincinnati arrived on Saturday at Ream Naval Base as part of a mission to strengthen cooperation between Cambodian-US forces and departed from the Preah Sihanouk location on Wednesday, local media reported. The littoral combat ship is the first...

From his newly built three-storey home outside Hanoi, Trinh Tat Thang has watched the surging global gold price with mounting dread. The Vietnamese have a long tradition of holding their wealth in gold, and a parallel practice of borrowing the asset from relatives to build homes rather than cash from a bank. But the debt must be repaid in gold. Family members loaned Thang four glittering one-luong bars – a standard Vietnamese unit equivalent to 1.2 troy ounces (37 grams) – to break ground on his...

[The content of this article has been produced by our advertising partner.] Asia is scaling renewable power, electrification and clean manufacturing faster than any other part of the world. Yet the pace is outstripping the availability of skilled workers, creating a bottleneck that could slow progress towards net zero. Global renewable energy jobs reached 16.2 million in 2023, an 18 per cent increase year on year, driven largely by growth in solar energy, equipment manufacturing and power...

Subdued Chinese demand was a key contributor to a decline in Australia’s wine exports last year, according to the Australian government agency that promotes the industry. With consumer sentiment and evolving tastes reshaping the Chinese market, shipments to mainland China fell 17 per cent year on year to A$755 million (US$532.10 million) – the biggest single factor in an 8 per cent fall in Australia’s total wine exports last year – Wine Australia said in a report released on Wednesday. The weak...

A group of three suspects robbed five people on a street in central Tokyo on Thursday night, fleeing with suitcases that the victims said contained around 420 million yen (US$2.7 million) in cash, according to police. A few hours later, a man with luggage containing 190 million yen in cash was attacked early on Friday with pepper spray in a parking space at the Japanese capital’s Haneda airport, but nothing was stolen from him, police said. Investigators are looking into a possible link between...

Thailand’s slump in visitors from China has become so acute that Chinese tourism workers in Phuket are learning English for the first time to attract new customers, according to a boat tour organiser. Chanchanat Boonlon said her catamaran business was once a cash cow, fully booked each day during high season by large groups of Chinese visitors who flocked to Phuket, Thailand’s largest island. While the Lunar New Year holiday next month brings hopes of a seasonal bounce, data on arrivals from...

A precautionary recall of infant formula products in Europe has sent South Korean parenting communities into a frenzy, with online mum cafes and forums buzzing over fears that some popular imported brands may pose health risks to babies. While the recall affects several European manufacturers, much of the anxiety in South Korea has centred on Aptamil – a premium brand widely dubbed the “Gangnam formula” for its association with wealthy families and high-end parenting choices. The recall involves...

The number of children who died by suicide in Japan rose to a record 532 in 2025, the second straight year in which the figure has reached a historic high, even as the country’s overall suicide toll fell to its lowest level in decades. Preliminary statistics released by the health ministry on Thursday showed the figure was up by three from the previous year and is the highest on record since comprehensive data were first made available in 1980. In a statement issued the same day, Hitoshi...

At Davos, US President Donald Trump declared he had “always had a very good relationship with President Xi” Jinping, calling the Chinese leader “an incredible man”, “highly respected by everybody”. Trump also praised TikTok’s decision to transfer parts of its US business to a consortium of US investors, thanking Xi on social media. This broadly friendly rhetoric is likely to be a signal of Washington’s keen interest in finalising a trade deal with the world’s second-largest economy. Trump’s...

Indonesia is fighting to save its financial reputation after a disastrous two days saw stock prices plunge by 8 per cent. Authorities are racing to pass new rules to prevent a downgrade that has already scared investors into pulling billions of dollars out of the local market. The rout, which knocked off about US$80 billion in overall market value, came after index provider MSCI flagged concerns about ownership and trading transparency in Indonesian stocks, the latest setback for a market that...

At the training centre for KD Transport Group, South Korea’s largest bus operator, in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, boyish-looking men stood out among about 100 drivers gathered for safety training on January 20. According to the company, 47 of the 460 drivers at its Pangyo branch are in their 20s or 30s, accounting for roughly 10 per cent of the workforce. “Most of them joined within the last year or two,” a company official said. “It is unusual to see such a sharp increase in young...