Asia

The Philippine ⁠Senate, sitting as an impeachment ⁠court, on Wednesday lowered the number of votes needed to convict Vice-President Sara Duterte, reducing the threshold prosecutors must clear to secure a guilty verdict. The court ruled that only ‌senator-judges able to take part in the trial should be counted when determining the threshold for conviction. Four of the 24 senator-judges have been unable to take part in the proceedings and cannot vote. The decision means prosecutors now need 14...

Malaysians on social media are offering increasingly outlandish solutions to a months-long royal tussle in Negeri Sembilan state, from making rival claimants sleep on a bed of nettles for a week to putting the entire state through Islamic spiritual healing. The dispute has left Negeri Sembilan with two men claiming the throne, a state government at odds with the palace and no clear legal route to settle the fight. One social media user suggested reviving adat perpatih – the customary law of...

Female prisoners in Myanmar are subjected to widespread torture, sexual violence and life-threatening medical neglect, Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday, underlining the chronic ill-treatment of thousands of detainees in the war-torn nation. Since the military seized power in a February 2021 coup, a protracted civil war ‌has gripped the impoverished Southeast Asian nation, devastating several regions and killing about 100,000 while displacing more than 3.5 million. In a report, the New...

Kuala Lumpur is making it easier and cheaper to bring international music stars to the city, hoping that a bigger concert calendar can help Malaysia capture more of Southeast Asia’s booming live-music economy. But as more global acts come to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian musicians are asking whether the concert boom is creating more opportunities for local artists too. Fuad Alhabshi of Malaysian rock band Kyoto Protocol said local bands once routinely benefited when major international acts came...

Melaka on Wednesday officially called for a state election – the latest test for Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s government, which is already facing an internal feud and growing public frustration over failed reforms. The state assembly was dissolved effective from Wednesday following an official notification sent to the country’s Election Commission the previous day by Ibrahim Durum, the Melaka state assembly’s speaker. “A state election will be held within 60 days of the dissolution...

Singaporeans are among the most open to allowing an artificial intelligence agent to shop for them, but they also want the strictest guard rails, research shows. The latest agentic AI study from Global Payments released on Wednesday indicates the hoops agentic AI will need to jump through to be trusted to make purchases without human intervention. The study, which surveyed seven countries including the United States, China and the United Kingdom, found 59 per cent of Singaporeans are open to an...

A series of small earthquakes beneath Keningau, an inland district of Sabah in Malaysian Borneo, is drawing attention to a part of the state where scientists say the faults are poorly understood and the consequences of a larger quake could be devastating. The latest, a magnitude-3.4 tremor on September 3, was felt in several parts of Keningau, prompting staff at the district office to suspend a meeting and move to a designated safe area. No serious damage was reported. The tremor was one of...

Paul Bratby had already drawn up plans for expanding to Hong Kong when war broke out in the Middle East earlier this year. But the founder of xBratAI, a Dubai-based AI-powered trading signals platform, soon brought that timeline forward as the Iran conflict dragged on and widened in scope. “Our Hong Kong entity had been scheduled for a few years later, but we established it in early 2026,” he said. Bratby is not alone in looking east. As missiles continue to target Gulf capitals and shipping...

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Tuesday that trade negotiations with India are making “good progress” and that the two countries are aiming to conclude talks by the G20 summit in mid-December. Carney also said India had, to his understanding, confirmed that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi would visit Canada around that time, though the precise date had not been finalised. “We are making good progress in our trade negotiations with India,” Carney said at a news conference on the...

More than 170,000 respiratory cases were recorded in regions affected by haze in Indonesia, a health ministry official said on Tuesday, as the country continues its battle to control fires that caused the toxic smog. Blazes in Borneo, Sumatra and Papua have blanketed parts of the vast archipelago of more than 280 million people with haze, as well as neighbouring Malaysia and Singapore, sending air quality indices plummeting. The toxic smog contains pollutants including PM 2.5, a fine particulate...

The Philippines has less than two years to turn its ambitious Pax Silica project from a US-backed plan into a functioning industrial hub before a change of government in Manila – and potentially Washington – puts its future to the test. Pax Silica is an initiative by US President Donald Trump’s administration to diversify US supplies of critical minerals and semiconductors. The Philippines is seeking to position itself as a manufacturing base for companies looking to reduce their dependence on...

The mother of a 15-year-old Thai-Swedish teenager who died after his motorbike crashed into a truck illegally reversing into oncoming traffic has made an emotional appeal for justice, accusing police of failing to execute an arrest warrant for the alleged driver, a Chinese national, seven months after the fatal crash. Tommy Boulanger, an aspiring footballer, was left in a coma following the February 20 crash in the Nongpure district of Chonburi, near the resort city of Pattaya. He never regained...

A South Korean university has embedded graduation photos with anti-deepfake technology to prevent a repeat of a scandal two years ago, when portraits of female graduates were used to create sexually explicit manipulated images. Seoul National University’s (SNU) use of StealCut Protect, created by a start-up founded by SNU alumni, marked the first time it was used for a university graduation album in the country, The Korea Herald reported. StealCut provided the technology to SNU free of...

Indonesia plans to press ahead with discounted Russian crude oil imports to secure domestic energy supplies and manage fiscal pressures, despite the risk of higher US tariffs as Washington moves to tighten economic pressure on Moscow. On Friday, US President Donald Trump signed into law an act that would give him authority to impose sanctions on Russia and slap tariffs of up to 100 per cent on the top five buyers of Russian crude oil, gas and military equipment, or countries that help Moscow...

Sri Lanka’s High Court has found 15 of the 24 men accused of being directly involved in the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings guilty. The attacks killed 279 people and wounded around 500. The three-judge bench found that 14 of the accused were guilty on all charges, which included murder, conspiracy to commit terrorism and possessing firearms and explosives under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. A 15th defendant was found guilty of only some of the charges, while nine others were acquitted. The...

The United States, Japan and South Korea agreed to resist “economic coercion” and emphasised the need for stability in the Taiwan Strait, taking an implicit shot at China just days before President Xi Jinping’s White House summit. The three countries plan new talks on economic security and enhancements to a trilateral supply chain early warning system, according to a statement issued after a meeting between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and counterparts Toshimitsu Motegi of Japan and Cho...

The third son of Thailand’s King Maha Vajiralongkorn has said he wants to return home for urgent brain surgery. Chakriwat “Than Aong” Vivacharawongse posted a video on social media on Monday saying he had two large brain tumours requiring surgery. The 43-year-old doctor said he wanted to receive treatment in Thailand. “I want to return to Thailand for treatment because Thai doctors are highly capable,” he said in the video. Chakriwat said he did not have enough money to pay for the surgery in...

Indonesia’s bid for another term on the United Nations’ premier security body stands a good chance of success given Jakarta’s growing global engagement, analysts say, but its balancing act between competing powers could complicate efforts to speak for the Global South. Jakarta’s Foreign Ministry said on Thursday that it would launch its campaign this week for a fifth term as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council for 2029–2030. The ministry said it was seeking the seat to...

Residents of a wide swathe of eastern Japan were picking up the pieces on Tuesday after Typhoon Dujuan tore through the area the previous day, causing extensive flooding, landslides, power outages, flight cancellations and at least four deaths. Nearly 2 million people were instructed to evacuate their homes in low-lying coastal areas, or be prepared to move at short notice, after the Japan Meteorological Agency had warned that the typhoon posed an “imminent threat to life”. While the evacuation...

Inside a brightly lit cleanroom at Chungbuk Semiconductor High School in South Korea, a group of teenagers in head-to-toe protective suits carefully handled silicon wafers, learning the same production processes used in commercial chip plants. About half of the school’s graduates head straight to large companies such as Samsung Electronics or SK Hynix without ever setting foot in a university classroom. The scene illustrates how South Korea’s semiconductor boom is beginning to challenge the...

Cambodia is set to present the outcome of its crackdown on scams to global governments and security agencies gathering in Phnom Penh this week. Yet questions remain over where the missing billions have gone – as well as the role of the country’s elite, who for many years denied the problem existed at all on Cambodian soil. Scam compounds took over declining mega-casinos during the pandemic. As borders closed, gamblers were replaced with scam workers: many tricked, trafficked and forced to commit...

Believing that a lorry driver in the same neighbourhood had punctured his tyres, a private-hire driver twice left urine and faeces outside his neighbour’s flat in Singapore. Martin Chua Kim Soon, a 67-year-old Singaporean, was fined S$5,000 (US$3,920) by a court on Tuesday. He paid the fine in full after pleading guilty to two counts of insulting behaviour under the Protection from Harassment Act. The court heard that Chua was a private-hire driver with Tada at the time of the offences and lived...

We have selected seven stories from the SCMP’s coverage of Asia over the past week that resonated with our readers and shed light on topical issues. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. South Korean killer’s drone escape from Philippine prison foiled by test footage A South Korean crime lord convicted of murder in the Philippines reportedly planned to escape prison by strapping himself to a drone – until his own accomplice’s rehearsal footage gave the...

Malaysia’s Sabah state has ordered a full investigation into the Semporna resort where a female tourist from China was allegedly molested and assaulted inside her room by an intruder early last Saturday. State Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Jafry Ariffin said he instructed tourism authorities and enforcement agencies to investigate the security lapses that led to the incident and the resort’s licensing status. “I have instructed the relevant tourism authorities to immediately look...

More than 200 Japanese companies still operating in Russia face growing uncertainty following Moscow’s seizure of three Western firms’ assets, amid deteriorating diplomatic relations. The Kremlin announced on Friday that the assets of Swiss food giant Nestlé, French retailer Auchan and home improvement chain Lemana Pro had been transferred to Russian entity LEV Management under a decree signed a day earlier by President Vladimir Putin. “These are unfriendly nations,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry...

The September 24 summit between President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump is no ordinary engagement. Their May summit took place in Beijing and largely centred on economic issues. This one will be on Trump’s home turf and is expected to put strategic questions on the table. Will the Korean peninsula and North Korea’s nuclear programme again be pushed to the margins? In Beijing, both sides focused on their immediate national interests, such as trade, semiconductors, rare earths and...

Former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan’s party said on Monday that his three sisters had been arrested ahead of ‌a protest ⁠march planned for September 27. “Punjab police have raided Aleema Khan’s home and have abducted Imran Khan’s other two sisters, his nephews and their children,” Zulfi Bukhari, a spokesman for Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, said on social media. “Khan’s sisters and their children were taken into custody but the children were released,” PTI’s information...

Under a global cloud of wars and bitter divisions, world leaders meet at the United Nations in New York this week facing new fears that runaway artificial intelligence could threaten humanity even as climate shocks and escalating prices are already making life much tougher for hundreds of millions of people. The annual high-level gathering at the UN General Assembly will also be consumed with major wars in Iran, Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, Congo and Myanmar and a persisting question: can the leaders...

A 3.5-metre-long shark that wandered into a Busan waterfront channel has become an unlikely internet celebrity in South Korea, drawing nearly 20,000 spectators over the weekend as authorities opted to leave the animal alone rather than risk provoking it. The shark was first spotted on Friday in the waterway at North Port Waterfront Park, where it has remained for at least four consecutive days despite repeated efforts by the public to catch a glimpse of it. South Korea’s National Institute of...

Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to meet US President Donald Trump in Washington this week, after the May talks in Beijing and before the November Apec summit in Shenzhen. This sequence of diplomacy will test if the commitment to building a “constructive China-US relationship of strategic stability” translates into practical arrangements. The Washington meeting faces clear limits. Differences over trade, technology, industrial policy, Taiwan and regional security are deeply embedded in...