Asia

Malaysia’s Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi on Friday called for the general election to be held immediately, in the once-dominant Malay party’s clearest indication yet that it was looking beyond the country’s current governing alliance ahead of the next election. The call comes as Umno deepens ties with opposition Islamist party the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), buoyed by recent state victories and growing talk of a new alignment to consolidate the Malay vote. “The time has come for the...

Indonesian authorities are working to repatriate five baby orangutans allegedly trafficked to India, where they were found motherless in a forest, Jakarta’s forestry ministry said on Friday. The critically endangered animals were found on Tuesday by rangers patrolling in the Balasore district of India’s eastern Odisha state. Authorities suspect the primates, known for their shaggy red fur, were trafficked into India, sparking a criminal investigation. The youngsters, estimated to be about...

Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul has come under intense social media scrutiny after photos resurfaced showing him wearing a high-value amulet created by a senior monk now at the centre of a fraud and sex scandal. The photos were taken in October 2023 while Anutin – then serving as deputy prime minister and interior minister – was leading a group of Bhumjaithai Party MPs to watch the hit horror-comedy The Undertaker, local outlet ThaiRath reported. Anutin publicly displayed the Thai...

Malaysia’s Pardons Board has postponed discussions on disgraced former leader Najib Razak’s pardon application, days after widespread public outrage over the possibility that he could walk free from his corruption conviction. The country has been in an uproar since it was revealed earlier this week that Najib’s application for clemency was on the agenda of the board’s meeting, chaired by King Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar. However, Putrajaya said on Friday the king, constitutionally empowered to grant...

Any sign of domestic violence must never be dismissed, with families, friends and neighbours urged to step in and help without judging victims, Malaysia’s Deputy Women, Family and Community Development Minister Lim Hui Ying said on Thursday. Lim said support should be given carefully, prioritising the victim’s safety, as this could be crucial in helping someone seek protection. She said domestic violence was not a private matter that should be hidden or endured alone. “It is a serious form of...

India’s proposal to put ⁠health warning labels on some food products has sparked a nationwide debate over how the country came to rely on cheap packaged food while companies sold more nutritious versions of the same brands in other markets. With an income per household well below the global average, Indians are keen consumers of cheap food products such as Nestlé-owned Maggi instant noodles and Coca-Cola Co’s Thums Up – giving big food manufacturers a huge market with little pressure to apply...

At a market in Bangkok, stallholders say they had no idea initially about a boxy structure covered in gunmetal grey panels that was quickly built and installed opposite their stalls. According to them, nauseating oil began to waft through the area, where a hospital is also located, several months ago along Rama XI, an arterial road in the heart of the Thai capital, prompting complaints that led to the revelation that a new data centre might have been set up. More worryingly for the stallholders,...

Japan’s hugely popular Sapporo Snow Festival is shifting its focus towards protecting the environment and sustainability, with a climate expert warning that global warming and reduced snowfall across Hokkaido will make it increasingly difficult to stage the event. In August, organisers unveiled a new logo, official mascot and revised concept for the 77th snow festival, an eight-day event running from February 4 next year. The updated branding expresses appreciation for the annual snowfall the...

A fraying global economic order could push South Korea and Japan towards deeper trade integration, with business leaders and analysts saying the two neighbours stand to benefit from such a partnership despite lingering historical wounds. The two countries could draw closer as the era of relatively open global trade gives way to tit-for-tat tariffs and supply-chain disruptions due to conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine. SK Group chairman and Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry chairman...

The ocean looks like peace from afar and truth up close, they say. But beneath the waves, the map of the world’s oceans is far less settled than it looks. Today, dozens of sea borders remain unresolved. Like so many conflicts, they owe their origins to complicated questions of where one country’s territory ends, and another’s begins. Many involve overlapping claims to areas rich in resources; and a disproportionate number concern the waters of the Global South. Africa’s coastline is a stark...

Six orangutans including two nursing infants have been rescued from fires raging on Borneo island in the past week, Indonesian authorities and rescuers said on Thursday, bringing the total to 15 in a month. The apes were saved from plantations in deep rural West Kalimantan province, on the Indonesian part of the island, where they got stuck after fires cut off access to their forest home, according to the forestry ministry and the YIARI wildlife rehabilitation foundation. A large fire was...

A former Malaysian minister overseeing religious affairs will be charged with corruption next week, the country’s anti-corruption agency has said, as authorities close in on once-powerful figures believed to have stolen from the nation’s haj pilgrim fund. The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) confirmed on Thursday that Jamil Khir Baharom – who served as religious affairs minister under disgraced former prime minister Najib Razak – would face three charges on Monday for misappropriation...

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s daughter and apparent successor is believed to have a younger sibling, South Korea’s spy agency has said, offering a more detailed view of the ruling family’s line of succession. Seoul’s spy agency previously said Kim was thought to have three children, but some uncertainty remained on the number of offspring as well as the order of their birth. The Kim dynasty is now in its third generation ruling the closed-off nation, and the current leader’s children would...

Indonesia’s wildfires are creeping towards Nusantara, the country’s new capital under construction on Borneo island, challenging its promise of becoming an eco-friendly “smart forest city”. The Southeast Asian nation is battling what officials call its most intense wildfire season in 11 years. Nearly 202,000 hectares (499,000 acres) of forest and peatland have been razed nationwide from January to June, according to Sipongi, the Indonesian forest ministry’s monitoring platform. Sipongi data...

Malaysia’s Umno has been drawn deeper into a royal row in Negeri Sembilan, after the president of the dominant Malay nationalist party denied attending a meeting reportedly linked to a bid to remove the state’s ruler. The controversy has put the new Umno-led state government under pressure barely six weeks after taking office, reviving the same royal crisis that helped bring down its predecessor and force a snap election in August. The episode is particularly sensitive for Umno, which has long...

China signalled a willingness to help set up a meeting between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, the South China Morning Post reported exclusively. Beijing is playing an “active” and “constructive” role in rebuilding US-North Korea diplomacy, the SCMP said on Thursday, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter. A Trump-Kim meeting could potentially take place at the November Apec summit in Shenzhen, China, one person said. A US envoy visited the city and...

Hundreds of Thais, led by a veteran political activist, rallied outside the Israeli Embassy in Bangkok on Thursday in a rare public protest against a group of foreign nationals. The protest follows months of complaints about illegal landholding, disrespect towards local culture and proliferation of religious houses for Israelis, echoing those made by some locals in the Philippines and Sri Lanka. Israelis have been flocking to Thailand since the war on Gaza that followed the October 7 Hamas...

Every climate summit now runs on the same illusion: the next pledge will be the one that finally saves us. It will not. The money the rich world has promised the poor world is not coming at anything like the scale advertised, and pretending otherwise has become the main business of climate diplomacy. Barely nine weeks before the UN climate summit Cop31 opens in Antalya, Turkey, the honest task is not a bigger pledge. It is to make the finance that already exists reach the people drowning in the...

Indonesia is demanding that Netflix pay an estimated 75 billion rupiah (US$4.3 million) in royalties accumulated since its launch in the country or risk being shut down. The National Collective Management Organisation (LMKN), a government-supported agency overseeing the country’s royalty system, said the streaming platform had not paid music royalties since entering the Indonesian market 10 years ago, the Jakarta Globe reported. “The amount is estimated at around 75 billion rupiah, which Netflix...

While Singapore’s officials are among the highest-paid in the world, money alone cannot attract the brightest leaders to public service, lawmakers have said during a debate on the increase in ministerial salaries – a move supported by both opposition and ruling party MPs. The parliamentary discussion on Thursday, which saw MPs share their personal reflections on stepping into public office, followed an announced rise in ministerial salary, which Prime Minister Lawrence Wong insisted was...

Grab Singapore has apologised after a new promotional series formatted like popular Chinese microdramas raised concerns over personal boundaries and passenger safety in the city state. Titled I Fell In Love With My Grab Driver, the video campaign stars local actress-model Regina Lim as Emily, a widow stretched thin by the demands of her children and mother. The campaign’s trailer, released on Friday, shows Emily meeting Grab driver Henry – played by Singaporean actor-singer Glenn Yong – when he...

Four Chinese nationals, including a woman, claimed trial at the Sessions Court in Balik Pulau, Malaysia’s Penang state, on Thursday to charges of kidnapping a Singaporean man. The accused: Liu Ting Jun, 46; Huang Jin, 39; Wang Hao Yu, 32; and Guan Siqi, 24, pleaded not guilty after the charge was read to them in Mandarin before Sessions Court Judge Ahzal Fariz Ahmad Khairuddin. According to the charge sheet, the four are alleged to have acted jointly to abduct and wrongfully confine 72-year-old...

The Philippines has deployed coastguard, military and civilian vessels in a race to find survivors on a smouldering passenger-and-cargo ferry off the western island of Palawan, after ‌a fire on board killed at least five people and left more than 80 missing. Drone footage released by the coastguard showed the blackened ferry surrounded by clear blue-green waters, with the vessel still generating smoke hours after the fire broke out on Wednesday night. Coastguard spokeswoman Commodore Noemie...

The Philippines’ military modernisation road map is set for delays over budget constraints, with critics calling out what they say is President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr’s “lip service” approach and questioning his commitment to the ambitious project. In 2024, Marcos approved a revised 1.9 trillion Philippine pesos (US$30 billion) plan to acquire newer military assets until 2034, aiming to enhance the capability of the military to project power in parts of the South China Sea that Manila considers...

Russia has rebuffed a strongly worded complaint from Japan over a statue in the city of Khabarovsk depicting a Soviet soldier smashing an imperial-era border marker bearing the Japanese emperor’s emblem, with analysts predicting bilateral relations will stay chilly. The 15-metre granite monument, commemorating the Soviet Union’s victory over Japan in 1945, shows a soldier using the butt of his rifle to shatter the border post – a replica of the markers once installed along the 50th parallel on...

Indonesia is facing ⁠a surge in emissions from wildfires burning through parched stretches of forest and peatland on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra, with carbon dioxide readings currently the highest in the world, data has shown. Fire emissions from Indonesia from September 1 to September 7 reached 19.7 million metric tons, overtaking Russia this week and making up more than a third of the global total, according to Fire Emissions Watch, a portal developed by the European Union’s Copernicus...

Singapore’s DBS Bank is being sued for an estimated S$1.298 billion (US$1.03 billion) in damages linked to the multibillion-dollar 1MDB scandal, Southeast Asia’s largest lender DBS Group has said. The claimants include the liquidators of four companies: BlackRock Commodities (Global), Platinum Global ‌Luxury Services, Affinity Equity International Partners and TKIL Global Investments. The liquidators confirmed in an emailed statement that they ‌had filed and served a damages claim of more than...

The death toll from measles in Bangladesh topped 1,000 children since March, health officials said on Wednesday, admitting that failures in a vaccination drive could have fuelled the outbreak. The South Asian nation of 170 million has recorded 1,002 deaths and 187,484 infections among children, making this year’s outbreak the country’s deadliest in decades, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS). Measles is highly contagious, spreading through coughs and sneezes, and has...

Malaysia’s ruling Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition has doubled down on its pledge to stamp out corruption, as all eyes turn to the country’s Pardons Board, which is reportedly set to discuss the possible release of disgraced former leader Najib Razak at a meeting this week. The Pardons Board, chaired by the country’s king, is expected to meet on Friday to discuss potentially granting Najib clemency from his ongoing jail sentence for corruption linked to the multibillion-dollar 1MDB scandal,...

When leaders of the Brics group of emerging economies meet in New Delhi on September 12-13, India will confront an awkward paradox: the grouping has never been bigger or harder to make coherent. What informally began as a four-member bloc comprising Brazil, Russia, India and China in 2006 has expanded into a grouping spanning Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. Its members include major energy exporters, manufacturing powers, emerging economies and countries with sharply different...