Asia

In a sprawling palace in western India, the “queen” or Maharani of Baroda welcomes guests with fragrant rose petals, presenting torchlit dances of Hindu myths. Dressed in glittering finery, Radhikaraje Gaekwad is a queen in name only, a modern businesswoman presiding over a world her ancestors once ruled. “The key has been that we have adapted,” the 48-year-old said in her vast Lakshmi Vilas Palace, describing how India’s former royals have found new roles, from cultural ambassadors to...

President Lee Jae Myung’s overseas trips have again drawn attention to South Korea’s shifting political standards, adding to a familiar cycle of disputes over presidential golf and the presidential plane whenever power passes between conservative and liberal administrations. The controversies centre on taxpayer money and the public’s attitudes towards presidential privilege, with governing parties defending certain activities as necessary for diplomacy or official duties and the opposition...

An analysis by Japan’s GMO Internet Group found that a North Korea-linked hacking group was likely behind the cyberattack on the company last month, sources close to the matter said, citing characteristics of the malware used and other traces left by the perpetrators. The company appears to have already reported the matter to the government and will now focus on determining the full circumstances. Kyodo News, working with security experts, also found that five IP addresses used to access a...

Video game companies have long been at the vanguard of artificial intelligence, using it in its more nascent form to dictate non-player character behaviour, simulate crowds and adjust game difficulty on the fly years before the advent of chatbots like ChatGPT. Today, the technology is increasingly being deployed to write code, create visual assets and even synthesise real-time voice-overs, supplanting humans who would have otherwise done the work. Yet studios do still pay people to animate their...

Tens of thousands of volunteers helped raise 108 Buddhist stupas in Bhutan on Sunday, marking the Himalayan kingdom’s ambitious plans for a “mindfulness” city aimed at driving economic growth. The 15-metre tall solid towers – sacred Buddhist monuments found across the Himalayas – stretch along 12 kilometres (7.5 miles) of riverbank near the Indian border, at the site of the future Gelephu Mindfulness City. More than 40,000 volunteers took part in building the structures as “a physical form of...

Thousands protested in Delhi on Sunday to demand the resignation of India’s election chief over a revision of voter lists, the latest in more than a month of ‌opposition demonstrations challenging Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Led by Congress party chief Rahul Gandhi, Sunday’s protesters say the controversial revision benefits Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. Analysts say the protests and growing support for the opposition form the worst crisis for Modi since he came to power in...

India’s new high-altitude combat tank was designed to go where its heavier armoured fighting vehicles cannot: the thin mountain air, narrow roads and small bridges along its disputed border with China. In its base configuration, the Zorawar weighs some 25 tonnes – light enough to be flown all the way to the Line of Actual Control – but a push to make it strong enough to withstand high-calibre autocannon fire could add an extra seven tonnes to that loadout. Reports of renewed stand-offs between...

Malaysian Transport Minister Anthony Loke Siew Fook has dismissed a recent claim on social media that students were forced to serve alcohol at an old boys’ association reunion and centenary dinner, calling the allegations a politically motivated attack against him. The DAP secretary general, who is also a former student of St Paul’s Institution, claimed the individual who allegedly uploaded the post had been looking for every possible opportunity to attack him. “In the social media post, the...

Long dubbed an “air-conditioned nation”, Singapore is experimenting with cooling alternatives from chilled beams to “passive displacement” to curb its thirst for energy-guzzling air conditioning. The city state has the highest per-capita air conditioner ownership rate in Southeast Asia, with about 99 per cent of private residences equipped with cooling units. Singapore’s local building sector accounts for one-fifth of its emissions, while cooling itself accounts for 40 to 60 per cent of a...

For Singaporean flight attendant Chloe Tan Zi Ling, 35, the problem with paper straws is their impracticality. “It softens before we can finish the drink, so we have to gulp it down without a straw,” she said, adding that reusable metal alternatives left an unpleasant taste in her mouth. Her frustration reflects a wider debate over Asia’s shift away from plastic straws, with a recently released South Korean study finding that conventional plastic straws performed better than paper and other...

For over three decades, Dolores Balladares Pelaez has lived and worked in Hong Kong without once returning to the Philippines for Undas, the annual two-day observance honouring the dead. This year, she is arranging prayers from afar for her late father and four siblings, but will once again miss the gathering back home. On Thursday morning, the 56-year-old domestic helper called her mother and niece in Laguna province to discuss hiring a prayer leader to visit the family home. Her sisters-in-law...

A little-known South Korean music act has climbed the charts with a viral hit that has caught listeners off guard – not just for its sudden popularity, but because its vocals were generated entirely by artificial intelligence. Meomuru’s single, “Have You Become the Adult You Dreamed Of?”, climbed to No 2 on Melon’s Top 100 – South Korea’s flagship streaming chart – earlier this week. The track’s popularity has turned Meomuru into one of the country’s most-talked-about acts. The song was created...

Southeast Asia’s electric vehicle boom risks leaving the region’s smaller companies behind, as Chinese automotive giants bypass local part-makers in favour of imported components and locked-in supplier networks. Local manufacturers across Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia are facing a double squeeze: demand is weakening for parts used in petrol and diesel cars, collectively known as internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, while steep barriers to entry also keep them out of EV supply...

The theft of billions of dollars from Binance within a matter of minutes, the biggest cryptocurrency heist in history, was orchestrated by North Korean hackers, the FBI said on Saturday. The Federal Bureau of Investigation said in a statement that this week’s attack was tied to “malicious cyber activity” by an entity known as TraderTraitor, the same actors behind a US$1.5 billion Bybit hack last year. The FBI asked cryptocurrency exchanges, blockchain analytics companies and others to block...

Nearly 200 nations have struck hard-fought agreements at a UN biodiversity summit, but the outcome was accompanied by disappointment over missed opportunities to address humanity’s destructive toll on nature. Delegates cheered on Friday as crucial texts were approved in overtime but the celebrations were tempered by acrimonious debates and regret over limited progress on some of the most contentious issues. The Cop17 summit in Armenia sought to revive a landmark commitment to halt and reverse...

In the Land of the Rising Sun, Bangladesh looks forward to a new dawn. The hope that comes with Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s visit to Japan goes beyond the deals signed or the financial support expected. It shows a country that has emerged from authoritarian rule and wants to turn its new political voice into bigger economic chances and freedom of choice. For a government chosen by the people, foreign policy must answer one question: how does it make life better for the people who gave it...

Malaysia’s Melaka state began its election campaign on Saturday after 79 candidates were cleared to contest a poll testing whether Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s governing partners can turn an opportunistic alliance with his Islamist opponents into a platform for national power. The coastal state south of Kuala Lumpur heads to the polls on November 14, handing the United Malays National Organisation (Umno) and the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) another opening to deepen cooperation after...

The United States, South Korea and Japan reaffirmed their commitment to the “complete denuclearisation” of North Korea on Saturday, as Pyongyang continues to reject disarmament ahead of possible talks with Washington. Speculation is mounting over a potential meeting between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at next month’s Apec summit in China, with Trump making repeated overtures to Pyongyang for nuclear talks. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, South Korean Foreign...

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attended an exhibition devoted to drones and called for rapidly expanding the country’s drone technology, state media reported on Friday, as his military escalates threats against South Korea and the United States. Acquiring advanced drones is a top priority for Kim, who now wants to strengthen conventional and nuclear capabilities to counter what he calls US-led security threats. It is unclear how far North Korea’s drone programme has progressed. Experts say...

A village that sent hundreds of men to one of imperial Japan’s most notorious wartime units is being demolished to make way for a runway at Tokyo’s Narita International Airport. Unit 731 carried out lethal experiments on captives, many of them Chinese, to develop biological weapons during the second world war. Around 300 of its roughly 3,000 personnel came from Kamo, a neighbourhood in Shibayama town, Chiba prefecture, east of the capital. Its founder and commander, Lieutenant General Shiro...

Nafeesa Azman has applied for hundreds of jobs over the past two months, yet the 24-year-old Malaysian marketing graduate is yet to find a permanent role that pays what she needs or uses the skills she spent years, and a good deal of money, developing. Natthanicha Intawong, a final-year media arts student in Bangkok, describes the terror many of her peers feel as they prepare to enter a jobs market that artificial intelligence is already beginning to scythe through. For Joshua Nai, a Singaporean...

China has broken up a major transnational drug trafficking network in cooperation with Indonesia and Malaysia, seizing around 1.2 tonnes of liquid methamphetamine, China’s Ministry of Public Security said on Friday. The operation was carried out on October 21 by Indonesia’s National Narcotics Agency (BNN), which raided and shut down a large-scale drug processing and purification facility in Aceh, Indonesia, and arrested 11 people, with help from China’s National Narcotics Control Commission...

Australia’s preparations for a possible conflict with China reflect “a relatively superficial understanding”, argues prominent economist John Edwards. Europe, Canada, Indonesia, Malaysia and India, he notes, are not preparing for such a conflict. Why should Australia? Edwards, a former senior economic adviser to former Labor prime minister Paul Keating, makes the observation in a Lowy Institute paper released in October and in a newspaper interview. Instead, he sees US-China rivalry as a...

Transnational drug syndicates in the Philippines continue to thrive despite decades of crackdowns targeting street-level dealers, with analysts warning that regional suppliers, financiers and trafficking networks have largely eluded enforcement efforts. Former drug officials and security analysts say the country’s drug trade remains closely connected to a wider regional supply chain, with criminal groups relying on local partners, maritime routes and established distribution networks to move...

In recent weeks, Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi has frequently taken to the streets – joining protest marches, staging sit-ins at police stations and confronting authorities over alleged abuses of power and corruption. Often trading the formal attire traditionally worn by India’s political elite for a T-shirt and jeans, Gandhi’s high-visibility participation in grass-roots demonstrations has drawn wide attention as he seeks to place himself at the forefront of a growing movement of...

South Korea will file criminal complaints against students caught cheating on a national university entrance exam with smart glasses and toughen penalties for their use, a government official has said. Sales of smart glasses – which allow the wearer to shoot photos and videos and interact with an AI assistant among other abilities – are growing worldwide. But so is a backlash around the gadgets, including concerns over people being filmed without consent and their use by exam cheats. South...

Indonesia is looking beyond Singapore for petrol supplies as it seeks to reduce its dependence on a single source, but analysts say diversifying imports will do little to address the country’s fuel production shortfall without faster refinery modernisation and investment in alternative fuels. Indonesia has long sourced petroleum products from Singapore, including RON 90 petrol, which has a minimum octane rating of 90 and is marketed domestically as Pertalite. Singapore’s geographic proximity,...

Recent school attacks across Malaysia have shone a light on a troubling trend of teenagers joining an online subculture that glamorises real-life killers, according to a prominent security analyst. Three violent incidents in Malaysian schools – in Kuching on October 21, Banting in July and Bandar Utama in October last year – could be linked to the True Crime Community (TCC), said Munira Mustaffa, founder of Kuala Lumpur-based security consulting firm Chasseur Group. In the Kuching case, the...

Malaysia received its first South Korean-made light combat jet on Friday under a nearly 4 billion ringgit (US$990 million) procurement, in what analysts describe as welcome relief for an ageing air force still years away from replacing its frontline fighters. The FA-50M Block 20 jet arrived at the air force base in Labuan, off Borneo, with a second expected in Kuantan on the peninsula’s east coast next Monday. They are the first of 18 aircraft ordered from Korea Aerospace Industries under a deal...

Pollution from smoke emitted by months of wildfires across Indonesia caused an estimated 3,560 deaths in the vast Southeast Asian archipelago in September, according to a new study. The same month, about 57.8 million people in Indonesia were inhaling unhealthy to hazardous air, said the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), a Helsinki-based think tank. “Worsening air quality due to forest and land fires in Indonesia pushed the estimated death toll to 3,560 cases in September 2026,...