Asia

No Ethiopian, Pakistani, Indian, Brazilian or other serious policymaker believes artificial intelligence will solve corruption or improve governance overnight. National policies such as Digital Ethiopia 2030, Pakistan’s National AI Policy 2025 or other initiatives in Chile, Argentina and Colombia consider AI as a means to enhance service delivery in healthcare, education, agriculture, taxation and disaster management, rather than as institutional reform. These are practical applications....

Hong Kong and Singapore routinely top global rankings of unaffordable cities. Yet it is the residents of Manila, Colombo and Yangon who are far more likely to tell pollsters they cannot afford shelter. The Philippines recorded the world’s highest share of people reporting difficulty affording housing in a new survey from US-based firm Gallup, with 55 per cent saying they had struggled to pay for shelter in the past 12 months. Sri Lanka followed at 54 per cent, Myanmar at 49 per cent and Thailand...

Malaysia is expected to experience a critical moment with regards to fuel supply by June, according to Economy Minister Akmal Nasrullah Mohd Nasir. He said the government is implementing measures to address the global fuel shortage amid the Middle East conflict, including exploring alternative raw materials. “June and July will be a very critical period in ensuring fuel supplies are available,” Akmal Nasrullah said after attending an event in Johor Bahru. “It will be equally important to ensure...

Promotional posters for the horror film Aku Harus Mati (“I Must Die”) have been taken down in parts of Indonesia after sparking backlash from child protection experts, who say the campaign’s stark language and imagery are especially alarming amid what officials have called a “child suicide emergency”. The row has struck a nerve in a country where concerns over child mental health and suicidal ideation have been mounting, turning what might otherwise have been dismissed as provocative horror...

Filipinos like their pares, a traditional beef stew, served hot – but the soaring cost of liquefied petroleum gas has made that prospect increasingly difficult since war erupted in the Middle East. To save a few pesos, 20-year-old Eric Garcia delicately turned a knob to adjust the flame under his warming trays to the lowest setting as he grapples with fuel costs that have nearly doubled in price. While sticker shock at petrol stations has garnered the biggest headlines since the war forced the...

Singapore’s national media network Mediacorp has responded to criticism from Malaysian organisations over its drama Highway to Somewhere, which some claim portrays the country as a hub for scam syndicates. In a statement, a spokesperson said the production had taken care in its depiction of Malaysia and that the storyline was not meant to target any specific country. The 20-episode Chinese-language series follows a married couple played by Romeo Tan and Jeanette Aw, and four friends portrayed by...

For years, Southeast Asian countries have preferred to avoid taking sides between China and the United States. This year’s State of Southeast Asia survey shows that this approach still holds, but a more contested geostrategic environment is making it harder to sustain. The region continues to feel uneasy about China’s entrenched influence, is increasingly troubled by US leadership under President Donald Trump and is more conscious of Asean’s institutional constraints. The weakening of confidence...

In a quiet street in northern Singapore, a car plies the road like any other – except it is a left-hand drive from China and the person in the driver’s seat has been trained to keep his hands off the wheel and his foot off the pedals unless an emergency arises. Eventually, there will be no need for a safety officer or any human behind the wheel at all – mirroring the autonomous vehicles (AVs) already operating in cities such as Beijing, Shenzhen, San Francisco and Los Angeles. For now, Singapore...

In India’s West Bengal state, the beloved fish has leapt from the kitchen table to the campaign trail, becoming an unexpected flashpoint in a fiercely contested election. For Bengalis, fish is not merely food. It is intrinsic to the Bengali identity and pride. Its aroma drifts from roadside fryers, and it is a must at wedding feasts and festival spreads. Now, as the state of over 100 million people gears up for polls on April 23 and 29, the slippery staple has also become political...

Rocking her baby to soothe his searing pain and gasping breaths, 18-year-old Rubia Akhtar Brishti recounts how her son nearly died in Bangladesh’s deadly measles outbreak. “The boy had [a] high fever and found it hard to breathe,” Brishti said, wiping the fevered brow of one-year-old Minhaz, cradled in her arms. “His whole body had rashes.” At least 143 people have died in the outbreak since March 15, the vast majority children, with more than 12,000 suspected cases – the worst in the South...

Soaring fuel prices are driving up costs for Thais travelling home for the holidays, but the chance to spend the new year with loved ones is a price worth paying, they say. “There aren’t many opportunities to go home during festivals like this,” said 24-year-old army cadet Korawich Changpat at Bangkok’s Mo Chit Two bus station, despite his inflated fare back to central Chaiyaphum province. “First of all, I’ll go see my mother. Looking this handsome in my uniform, I must go pay my respects to...

Nepal has ordered private schools to stop double-charging fees, repay illegally collected ones and clearly publish their pricing structures, reopening a debate about education costs that runs across South Asia. From Dhaka to Delhi, parents have long complained that private schools charge too much and operate with too little oversight, inviting questions about whether governments should try to rein them in, improve state schools, or do both. Nepal’s Ministry of Education issued directives this...

Asian digital entrepreneurs that once saw Dubai as a safe, well-connected base for global expansion are now reassessing that view after the US-Israel war on Iran exposed vulnerabilities in the city’s appeal as a financial and technology hub. For many investors and founders from India, China and Southeast Asia, the strain is not just about physical security but also about what disruption around the Strait of Hormuz has revealed about liquidity, credit and market confidence. Dubai has in recent...

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung on Saturday accused Israel of failing to “reflect” on allegations of rights abuses by its forces, after Israel decried him for amplifying social media “disinformation”. Lee irked Israel’s foreign ministry this week with his comments on a social media video with a caption purporting it showed Israeli soldiers torturing and pushing a “Palestinian kid” off a roof. “I need to look into whether this is true, and if so, what measures have been taken,” Lee said in a...

Malaysian immigration officers have raided two massage parlours suspected of offering sexual services to clients, detaining 21 foreign workers and a local man believed to be the manager of the premises. The raids in Johor, which began at around 3pm on Thursday, targeted outlets that publicly advertised standard massage services from 80 ringgit (US$20) an hour. “The businesses were believed to be involved in immoral activities and employed foreigners without valid documents,” Johor immigration...

On Tuesday, Vietnam’s National Assembly elected a new prime minister. For once, the appointment looks less like a factional compromise than a deliberate bet on competence. Le Minh Hung, born in 1970, is the country’s youngest prime minister since 1955. In a system that often prizes seniority, that alone is striking. More striking still is Hung’s profile: he is not a provincial baron or a deal maker forged in the rough-and-tumble of local politics. Hung is a technocrat with economic training in...

Days before Pakistan had helped to secure a ceasefire in the Iran war this week, the United Arab Emirates was seeking repayment of a US$3.5 billion deposit from Islamabad’s central bank. The withdrawal, brushed off as a “routine financial transaction” by Pakistan’s foreign ministry, equated to roughly 21 per cent of the country’s foreign exchange reserves. It was accompanied by a wave of criticism on Emirati social media directed at Islamabad. “When our security is directly threatened, we hear...

Harvest-ready rice fields are lying idle and farmers are deciding whether to skip planting for the coming season, as spiking fuel and fertiliser costs from the war in the Middle East hit one of the world’s biggest rice-growing regions. Across Southeast Asia, tens of millions of smallholders are struggling to find affordable crop nutrients as well as the diesel needed to run tractors, irrigation pumps and rice planters. In Thailand, some farmers are leaving the crop in the ground as it is too...

Penang, the Malaysian state long marketed as the Pearl of the Orient, is better known today for its hawker food, colonial-era streetscapes and the multicultural life of George Town, whose historic core won Unesco World Heritage status in 2008. When Francis Light, a British merchant, landed on Penang on August 11, 1786, he took possession of the 293 sq km (113 square-mile) island on behalf of the British East India Company and renamed it Prince of Wales Island. One enduring local legend holds...

Japan’s energy security has long hinged on Middle Eastern oil. The Iran war simply exposed how breakable that lifeline had become. While a two-week ceasefire agreed on Tuesday promises some relief by reopening the Strait of Hormuz to tanker traffic, analysts say the shock has laid bare vulnerabilities Tokyo cannot easily paper over. As an archipelago nation with no cross-border pipelines, Japan draws more than 95 per cent of its crude from the Middle East and routes the bulk of it through the...

In classrooms and training centres across China, a growing number of students from Southeast Asia, Africa and beyond are learning not just the Chinese language, but how the country’s factories operate, how supply chains are managed and how products are marketed and sold across borders. Hebei Software Institute, in the northern city of Baoding, has been at the forefront of the push. The vocational college said it had established multiple overseas-oriented programmes in recent years, particularly...

Singapore and Australia pledged on Friday to keep fuel and gas flowing between them as the Middle East conflict rattled global energy markets, with both sides also working towards a legally binding agreement on essential supplies. At a joint press conference in Singapore, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Canberra stood ready to supply more liquefied natural gas (LNG) if the city state needed it, while Albanese’s Singaporean counterpart Lawrence Wong said his government would...

Iran’s threat to impose tolls on vessels passing through the Strait of Hormuz is stirring concern far beyond the Gulf, sharpening fears that one of the world’s most important maritime chokepoints could be used as political leverage rather than governed by international rules. The concern is especially acute in Asia, which remains heavily reliant on Middle East energy supplies and exposed to any disruption in the waterway, through which nearly a fifth of the world’s oil passes. Analysts warn that...

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has reaffirmed Malaysia’s independent foreign policy stance, saying that while the nation prioritises maintaining strong ties with its neighbours, it remains firm in its refusal to overlook the causes of current regional instability. Responding to recent remarks by Singapore’s Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan, who stated that the republic would not negotiate for safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz, Anwar said Malaysia’s diplomatic approach is guided...

A Malaysian association has come under fire after warning that wider work-from-home arrangements would hurt urban businesses, with critics accusing it of prioritising city-centre takings over the government’s effort to cut fuel use across the country and rein in soaring subsidy costs. The backlash comes days before Malaysia begins a phased work-from-home roll-out for eligible civil servants on April 15, part of a wider effort to cut fuel use and manage rising costs tied to disruptions caused by...

Legendary British rock band Deep Purple made ⁠Japanese Prime Minister ⁠Sanae Takaichi’s day with a brief ⁠visit to their high-profile superfan on Friday as they returned to the country they first toured more than half a century ago. Takaichi’s reputation as an amateur drummer and fan of hard rock and heavy metal has been ‌well documented, and she has referred to Deep Purple as one of her favourite bands along with the likes of Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. “You are my god,” a giddy Takaichi...

Indonesia’s richest man has begun selling small stakes in his listed companies as tighter ownership rules push firms to increase shares available to public investors. Billionaire Prajogo Pangestu sold a 0.56 per cent stake in coal and mining holding Petrindo Jaya Kreasi to boost the company’s free float, according to a stock exchange filing late Thursday. Prajogo-affiliated Green Era Energy this week also sold a fraction of its stake in his Barito Renewables Energy. Regulators are fast-tracking...

Buying illegal drugs has become as easy as ordering a pizza in South Korea – especially for teens and young adults who have grown up in the digital age – as drug trafficking has increasingly moved online. On platforms like Telegram and the dark web, users familiar with drug-related slang can easily locate dealers. Consumers simply place an order, pay with bitcoin, and, once the transaction is complete, receive a message with instructions on where to collect their purchase. Pickup locations are...

Her father is in custody at The Hague, her alliance with President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr has collapsed into bitter rivalry and she is fighting to halt impeachment proceedings before the Supreme Court. Despite all of that, Philippine Vice-President Sara Duterte-Carpio is still, by a distance, the early favourite to be the country’s next president. A new survey by Manila-based pollster WR Numero found 36 per cent of Filipinos would vote for Duterte-Carpio if the 2028 election were held today – a...

Russia’s protest over a proposed investment by a Japanese company in a Ukrainian drone maker signals its concern that Tokyo may be supporting closer cooperation with Kyiv’s defence sector and planning to lift a long-standing ban on weapon exports, according to an international relations expert. On Wednesday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko registered Moscow’s protest in a meeting with Akira Muto, the Japanese ambassador to Russia. Muto “rebutted” the protest, according to a Jiji...