Asia

Foreign ministers from Asean were ⁠told on Sunday by their Myanmar counterpart ⁠that detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi is in good health and would be looked after, ASEAN’s special envoy to Myanmar said. Maria Theresa Lazaro, the Philippine foreign minister, has been seeking access to Suu Kyi, 81, who has been detained since her elected government ‌was ousted in a 2021 military coup. “My recollection of the statement of the Myanmar foreign minister on Aung San Suu Kyi is that she’s in good...

South Korea issued its first-ever emergency heatwave alert on Sunday under a new warning system launched this year, advising people to halt outdoor activities and keep cool. The new warning system was introduced to better deal with a rising number of heatwaves in South Korea, which have become longer and more intense, officials said. An emergency alert is issued when areas experiencing a heatwave are forecast to hit perceived temperatures of 38°C or an actual temperature of 39°C for one...

As the car bounces along a rural Thai road, a baby just a few months old watches the emerald green countryside rush by from Nicha’s* lap, oblivious to the countdown that has already begun. Soon the child will be handed over to her father to be raised in China by grandparents whose own hopes of a larger family were curtailed by decades of state population control. Nicha may never see the baby she gave birth to again, but she knows that is the painful price of commercial surrogacy. This is her...

Japan’s Hayabusa2 fly-by of Torifune marks a leap in asteroid defence, showcasing the country’s growing space prowess and “goodwill science” role vital for protecting Earth from cosmic threats. The space probe, named after the Peregrine falcon in Japanese, successfully flew within 800 metres (0.5 miles) of the asteroid, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said on July 5. JAXA said Hayabusa2 performed as expected and responded to all instructions from land-based mission control, about...

For many K-pop fans in South Korea, the hunt for concert tickets has turned into a high-stakes battle, one where logging on early is no longer enough and ordinary fans find themselves outmatched by organised resellers, bots and shadowy workarounds that can send prices soaring far beyond face value. Previous solutions have failed to rein in the problem, but the government is hoping that the threat of massive fines may finally free ticket seekers from the grips of predatory scalpers. From August...

Japan has found a new export industry and it doesn’t come off an assembly line. It arrives by plane, spends freely and is, increasingly, what Tokyo is banking its economic future on. Last year, 42.7 million foreign visitors arrived in the country, a record that shattered the previous year’s high by nearly 16 per cent. Now Tokyo wants to turn that surge into something more lasting: a permanent pillar of growth to rival, or even outlast, the industries that built modern Japan. To achieve that...

Barisan Nasional’s (BN) sweeping win in Johor is expected to embolden it within Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s unity government while forcing his Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition into a difficult postmortem over its waning appeal on the ground. BN, which ruled the country for six decades before losing power in 2018 and later joining Anwar’s bloc in 2022, retained its Johor stronghold with 48 seats out of 56 on Saturday night – an improvement from the 40 it won in the 2022 polls. PH...

A boat returning from an island trip in southern Vietnam capsized on Saturday, killing 15 Indian tourists less than half a kilometre (0.30 mile) from shore, as passengers shouted for help, officials and a witness said. The speedboat was carrying 32 Indian tourists and four crew members when it overturned on Saturday afternoon shortly after leaving Hon May Rut Ngoai Island, which is near Phu Quoc, Vietnam’s largest island, authorities were quoted as saying. “The boat had not even gone half a...

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...

The coalition of Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim was dealt a blow on Saturday after state rival Barisan Nasional (BN) trounced Pakatan Harapan (PH) in the Johor election. BN cruised to victory with 48 seats out of 56 up for grabs, while Anwar’s PH managed only eight. BN’s result was better than the 40 seats it secured in the 2022 race. The two-thirds majority it retains gives it absolute power to pass constitutional amendments and redraw electoral boundaries in Johor. The state was turned...

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...

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...

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...

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....

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...

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...

Malaysia’s Barisan Nasional (BN), the dominant political coalition in Johor, might have expected to cruise to an easy victory come Saturday when the southern state goes to the polls – until a single remark from the son of jailed former prime minister Najib Razak suddenly gave its rivals political ammunition. On July 3, Nazifuddin Najib, who heads BN in Langkawi, suggested that a strong showing by the coalition would validate calls for his father’s pardon. “If we win big, it will send a signal...

The Hong Kong stock exchange is drawing a growing number of foreign companies from across Asia and North America that are seeking international capital, as the bourse marks progress in its ambition to be a global magnet for fundraising. The latest firm seeking to join the cohort is Kazakhstan Temir Zholy, the Central Asian nation’s railway operator and owner of the country’s largest fleet of locomotives and rolling stock, which filed for a Hong Kong listing on June 30, according to bourse...

Koo can see Johor changing around him, even if the promised wealth has not reached his bank account. The 30-year-old service worker has lived for 25 years in Skudai, a busy Johor Bahru suburb anchored by universities, older housing estates and the kind of Chinese shoplot economy that helped make the Democratic Action Party (DAP) a force in Malaysia’s southern state. He sees cranes, rail works and projects built by Chinese companies. But before Saturday’s state election, and as the China-linked...

Falling durian prices have done little to deter thieves in Malaysia, with a Penang trader losing baskets of prized Black Thorn variety in two break-ins just days apart. Wenny Ooi, 27, said thieves targeted her family’s stall twice on June 25 and June 29, marking the first break-ins since they started the business six years ago. In the first incident, two baskets of Black Thorn, also known as Or Chi, were stolen but footage from the surveillance camera shows only one thief leaving with a basket...

The Philippines is preparing to create a military space centre by 2028, a move that could help Manila strengthen surveillance, communications and command across its archipelago and in contested areas of the South China Sea. But analysts said the ambition would be constrained by the technical, financial and personnel hurdles of turning space assets into military capability. Philippine military chief General Romeo Brawner Jnr said on Tuesday that the initiative would enhance communications,...

A Singaporean man, hired by his aunt to tutor primary school pupils, instead beat them with a clothes hanger, forced them to hold push-up positions for long periods, punched and starved them. One of the children, a six-year-old Chinese national, was abused for 18 hours and forced to drink his own urine. On Thursday, the 31-year-old pleaded guilty to two counts of child abuse, one count of voluntarily causing grievous hurt and one of giving false or misleading information to police, local media...