Asia

Southeast Asia is among the most vulnerable regions grappling with growing risks from heatwaves and high humidity, while the period of extreme weather has more than doubled globally over the past five decades. The duration of extreme weather has increased worldwide to an average of 23 days per year from 10 in the 1970s, according to a report by non-profit news organisation Climate Central. Parts of Southeast Asia, South America and coastal West Africa are among the regions that now experience at...

When Japan quietly deployed members of its elite airborne brigade for parachute drills in the Philippines’ northernmost province earlier this month, the exercise was not vigorously publicised by officials on either side. The drills on Batan Island, in the Batanes province, formed part of Kamandag – a countrywide mission jointly hosted by Philippine and US marines that ran until Wednesday. Involving some 2,000 troops, the exercise was designed to improve readiness, interoperability and...

Only half of Malaysian women who were married or in a sexual relationship polled in a nationwide survey said they could refuse sex with their spouse or partner, with those who gave in saying they believed it was their marital duty or that they were guided by their faith. The survey, commissioned by Muslim women’s advocacy group SIS Forum and released on Thursday, polled 1,004 women above 18 years old, the Malay Mail newspaper reported. They were categorised into three marital statuses: 61 per...

Singapore’s cooling strategy, pioneered by founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, has come in for praise in Europe, which is sweltering under a deadly heatwave. Even Tesla founder and world’s first trillionaire Elon Musk has weighed in, calling the late statesman “a genius”. Record-breaking temperatures in countries including Britain, France and Germany have killed dozens, overwhelmed hospitals and led to the closure of schools and cultural sites. Mercury in Paris hit a June record of 40.9...

A South Korean court sentenced former first lady Kim Keon-hee, already serving time behind bars for corruption, to another seven years’ imprisonment on Friday in a jobs-for-gifts scandal. Kim, 53, was found guilty of accepting “high-value precious metals” in exchange for favours in personnel appointments, according to the live-streamed ruling. The court said she “unhesitatingly accepted valuables of a kind that the average citizen would struggle to acquire even once in a lifetime”. Kim is...

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Malaysia is seeking compensation of 226 million euros (US$257 million) from a Norwegian defence firm after a deal to deliver a naval missile system was cancelled, despite the Southeast Asian country having paid about 95 per cent of the contract value. The claim comprised 129.86 million euros in direct losses, including payments already made by the government, and 96.26 million euros for additional costs and consequential damages, Defence Minister Mohamed Khaled Nordin told parliament on Friday,...

Malaysia’s ruling Malay party has been drawn into a sensitive palace row on the eve of Johor’s nomination day after a veteran figure quit Umno and accused the southern state’s royal household of influencing the timing of a snap election. The controversy arrives at a difficult moment for the United Malays National Organisation, the Malay nationalist party anchoring the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition. It is trying to defend Johor, its birthplace and one of its last major strongholds, without...

A Malaysian teenager’s dream of owning a Yamaha Y15 motorcycle has pushed his imagination to the next level. Too young to actually ride one, the 13-year-old instead converted his bicycle by mounting motorcycle parts with cable ties. His innovative invention drew laughter from police officers – and social media users. In a viral video, officers can be seen inspecting the “motorcycle” he is proudly showing off. “I want to ride this motorcycle but I can’t [yet],” he tells them. Apart from the...

Japanese airlines cancelled on Friday more than 100 flights as two tropical storms barrelled towards the archipelago, with authorities advising evacuations in some areas because of possible flooding and landslides. Severe tropical storm Mekkhala, downgraded from a typhoon, was packing gusts of up to 144km/h (89mph), according to forecasters, with heavy rain already pounding parts of southern and western Japan. The weather system was expected to skirt the islands of Kyushu and Shikoku over the...

Singaporean Hong Weilun was left disappointed after he failed to secure tickets for limited Teochew screenings of the Chinese film Dear You when they were released on Monday. “It is important to watch the original version because the mood, nuances and emotional weight of the film are best conveyed through the actors’ expressions, accents and subtle vocal cues,” Hong said. The 40-year-old, who is Teochew and had initially planned to travel to Malaysia to watch Dear You, may now get the chance to...

A public row between Seoul and the US-led United Nations Command (UNC) has revealed a fresh fault line over how the two interpret North Korea’s recent border fortification activities. South Korea views its arch-rival’s actions as a violation of the 1953 Korean war armistice agreement. The UNC does not. The dispute follows a separate disagreement over which authority should govern access to the demilitarised zone (DMZ), while analysts say differences also persist between Seoul and Washington over...

The United States has assured India that future artificial intelligence models will not be “cut off” days after Washington abruptly banned Anthropic’s advanced models on national security grounds, a senior Indian official told the South China Morning Post on Thursday. “There was an understanding, and something that they [US officials] certainly mentioned, that access to technology, once it is provided, will not be cut off. I think that was an assurance,” said S. Krishnan, secretary of India’s...

Asian economies are expected to exercise caution in buying oil from Iran following a 60-day sanctions waiver for the Gulf country’s oil exports that took effect from Sunday, as they weigh compliance, financial risk and a potential return of hostilities between Washington and Tehran. Global markets have been looking for signs of progress that the United States and Iran could reach a lasting peace agreement despite concerns over the sustainability of a 60-day ceasefire that began earlier this...

Fissures along ethnic lines are being opened ahead of the Johor state election in Malaysia next month, as the Malay-nationalist Barisan Nasional (BN) moves to box in the Chinese-dominated Democratic Action Party (DAP), and political imperatives pit key government coalition members against each other. Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim helms an uneasy coalition of erstwhile political rivals. He is seeking to keep his Pakatan Harapan unity government – with the DAP as a core member – on an even keel...

When a modest Chaoshan-dialect film about an indebted grandson, a missing grandfather and a bundle of yellowing remittance letters opened quietly in China in late April, few expected it to become one of the biggest films of the year. Yet Dear You has earned more than 1.8 billion yuan (US$265.75 million) at the Chinese box office. It has done so without major stars or heavy promotion – an unlikely triumph for a film told largely in Teochew or Chiu Chow. As the film is released across Southeast...

A zoo in Japan has issued a stern warning after a visitor is seen aiming a laser pointer at Punch, the baby macaque who became a viral sensation, in an online video. The Ichikawa City Zoo and Botanical Gardens in Chiba prefecture told The Japan Times on Thursday that it received a call a day earlier about a YouTube video posted last week showing someone shining a laser on Punch. “It’s unacceptable,” Takashi Yasunaga, who is in charge of the city’s zoo division, told the newspaper. Pointing...

The Indonesian tourism ministry’s proposal to expand visa-free entry to more countries risks bringing in “low-quality tourists”, its immigration chief has said, asking the government to reconsider the decision. “We do not want visitors who do not contribute positively. When visas are waived, we effectively give up a source of state revenue. We must also protect the dignity of the nation,” Immigration Director General Hendarsam Marantoko told the Jakarta Globe newspaper. On Wednesday, the tourism...

In July 2024, India’s weight in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, a leading gauge of stocks in developing economies, hit a record high of 19.99 per cent. At the time, this was less than three percentage points below China’s weight, which at one point was as high as 43 per cent. Between 2022 and 2024, India was the darling of emerging market equity investors. The combination of the country’s fast-growing economy, strong corporate earnings, the Covid-19 pandemic-induced boom in retail trading and...

Japan and South Korea should build a stronger security alliance to anchor regional stability as US commitment to East Asia becomes less certain, former Japanese foreign and defence minister Taro Kono said on Wednesday. “I think it is indispensable for peace and stability for East Asia that Japan and Korea create a very strong security alliance, not just the economy. Japan and Korea need to sit down and discuss security in the region,” Kono said during the “Asia-Pacific in the age of American...

New Zealand has seen a surge in Chinese tourists since it began testing an easier pathway for visitors via Australia. The government began a 12-month trial in November that exempted Chinese and Pacific people from visa requirements if they were travelling from Australia. Officials estimated that after six months the new option has resulted in a 40 per cent increase in Chinese visitor arrivals, Tourism Minister Louise Upston said on Thursday in Wellington. Tourism is New Zealand’s second-largest...

Philippine authorities successfully foiled another possible school attack in Leyte province just two days after Monday’s deadly shooting in Tacloban City, thanks to a timely tip from Senator Bam Aquino. The senator, nephew of former president Corazon Aquino, informed Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla of the threat on Wednesday night. “At 8 o’clock last night, Senator Bam Aquino called me up and gave me a tip that there was chatter in Tacloban that there was an impending mass shooting that was...

A man in Singapore posed as his ex-girlfriend and shared her nude photos in a sex chat group with a religious theme, but was exposed when the victim caught wind of it and went undercover to investigate. The victim, who was a teenager when she shared the photos with the culprit, was horrified to discover that the chat group contained many obscene images and videos of women clad in religious garb, including the tudung (headscarf). She filed a police report. Abdul Marzuq Waliyuddin Abdul Majid, a...

The number of China-Japan flights scheduled by airlines for the coming summer travel period – the peak months of July and August – has dropped by 57 per cent versus a year ago following a political flap and a price hike in Japanese visas, according to industry data. A total of 2,629 round-trip flights were expected next month between the two Asian countries, down from 6,317 in July last year. In August, 2,641 were scheduled, a drop from the 6,127 flown in August 2025, data compiled by British...

A Malaysian paediatrician based in Perth has been remanded on 33 charges of child sexual offences and possession of child exploitation material, widening a case that Australian prosecutors say involves multiple children. The case adds to a list of child sex-related prosecutions involving Malaysian medical practitioners overseas, including a child psychiatrist jailed in Ireland in 2024, and another doctor convicted in Australia last year. Saw Chia Liang, 41, remains in custody after his latest...

Every booking inquiry that lands in dive operator Richard Swann’s inbox these days carries the same undertow of anxiety. Before his clients commit to a dive trip off Kota Kinabalu, they want reassurance: are Sabah’s reefs still worth the journey? It is a question that would have seemed strange a generation ago, when the waters off Malaysian Borneo were simply assumed to be among the finest on Earth. Now it is one of the first things visitors ask – and the answer, according to a new environmental...

A Form Two male student died after collapsing during a rugby training session at a secondary school in Telok Mas, Malaysia’s Melaka state. The 14-year-old is believed to have lost consciousness at about 6pm on Wednesday shortly after a break while listening to a briefing by his coach. The victim’s granduncle, Yahya Endut, 64, said he rushed from Alor Gajah after receiving news of the incident involving the teenager, whom he had raised since childhood. “I was informed that the victim had only...

The war in Iran is effectively over. Although the dust has yet to settle, some lessons are already visible. First, US President Donald Trump has waged a personal war at the world’s expense. Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu warned that arms are ill-omened tools, employed only as a last resort. Trump, who has admitted he doesn’t like to read, may not realise this. Few people know why he ordered a strike on Iran. Maybe kidnapping president Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela was too easy or Israeli Prime...

Pakistan police said on Wednesday that they had rescued a French woman and her five children after she told authorities she had been held captive by her husband for more than a decade and subjected to years of domestic abuse in the country’s northwest. The woman, identified as 54-year-old Sylvie Yasmina, was rescued earlier this week from a mud-brick home in Bara, a town in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province near the Afghan border, district police chief Waqar Ahmad said. He said Yasmina’s husband,...

A key road named after US President Donald Trump in India’s opposition-ruled tech hub of Hyderabad has drawn criticism from ‌Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party, which dismissed the move as “hypocrisy”. US-India ties have deteriorated during Trump’s second term, with Washington imposing high tariffs on Indian goods, punishing New Delhi for purchasing Russian oil, and engaging closely with India’s arch-rival Pakistan. The road in the capital of the southern state of Telangana, ruled by...