Asia

Malaysian King Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar arrived in Moscow on Thursday for a high-profile visit that comes as Kuala Lumpur looks for alternative oil sources amid the Iran war-linked fuel crisis. Sultan Ibrahim landed at Vnukovo-2 International Airport at 4.20pm local time on Thursday, according to Malaysian reports, and was received by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko, senior protocol officials and Malaysia’s ambassador to Russia, Cheong Loon Lai. The king is attending Russia’s May 9...

A South Korean appeals court reduced the sentence of former prime minister Han Duck-soo on Thursday by eight years for crimes relating to ex-president Yoon Suk-yeol’s martial law declaration. Yoon’s decree in December 2024 briefly suspended civilian rule and plunged South Korea into chaos, but only lasted around six hours as opposition lawmakers moved quickly to overturn it in a vote. A lower court had sentenced Han in January to a heavier-than-expected jail term of 23 years for engaging in the...

In the weeks leading up to Donald Trump’s second inauguration, conservatives in Japan were delighted and hopeful that his return would usher in robust economic growth, new trade opportunities and a stronger security relationship with Tokyo. Now, barely 18 months later, many of the conservatives admit to being shocked at the state of the bilateral relationship and mounting global uncertainties due to the US president’s policies. The conflict that he started in Iran was the final straw for some of...

New Zealand is weighing the purchase of advanced warships from Japan or the UK to modernise its ageing fleet and bolster its defence capability. The South Pacific nation, member of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network alongside Australia, the US, the UK and Canada, is focused on Japanese Mogami-class or the UK’s Type 31 frigates. Discussions are under way with the Royal Australian Navy and the UK’s Royal Navy about the frigate replacement and ongoing service arrangements, Defence Minister...

North Korea’s UN envoy said his country was not bound by the non-proliferation treaty (NPT) on nuclear weapons and external pressure would not change its status as a nuclear-armed state, official media reported on Thursday. Pyongyang threatened to withdraw from the treaty in 1993 and formally did so in 2003. It has since conducted six nuclear tests – prompting a raft of international sanctions – and is believed to possess dozens of nuclear warheads. Signatories of the NPT have been holding a...

North Korea has removed references to “national reunification” from its constitution and newly defined its territory as land bordering South Korea, a move analysts say may signal Pyongyang’s intent to avoid direct conflict with Seoul. The constitutional overhaul is widely seen as aligning with the North’s evolving stance towards Seoul – shifting away from reunification and towards a more formalised state-to-state relationship. Pyongyang took more than two years to revise the constitution after...

“In an increasingly severe security environment, no single country can now protect its own peace and security alone,” declared Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last month, signalling a major shift in Tokyo’s defence posture. “Under the new system, we will strategically promote equipment transfers while making even more rigorous and cautious judgments on whether transfers are permissible,” she added, confirming long-running speculation that Tokyo would relax decades-old restrictions on...

A passenger bus collided head-on with a fuel tanker truck on a highway on Indonesia’s Sumatra island on Wednesday, killing at least 16 people and injuring four others, officials said. The crash occurred around midday on the Trans-Sumatra Highway in North Musi Rawas regency of South Sumatra province, when an intercity bus carrying at least 20 people struck a tanker truck travelling in the opposite direction, said Mugono, a local disaster management agency official. Mugono, who uses a single name...

A visit by Vietnam’s leader to India is set to enhance New Delhi’s growing influence with Hanoi while allowing the Southeast Asian country to hedge against China in the event of any escalation in maritime disputes. Vietnamese President To Lam’s trip underscores concerns from both countries of being “overly dependent” on any superpower, according to political analysts. Lam arrived in Delhi on Tuesday for a three-day visit, marking his first trip to India since assuming office. The visit coincides...

Beneath the surface of the world’s oceans lies an infrastructure so essential, modern life would stall without it – yet so invisible it rarely enters public debate. Submarine cables, slender fibre-optic systems laid across the seabed, carry over 95 per cent of global internet traffic, transmitting the data that underpins financial markets, diplomatic exchanges and everyday communication. What appears to be neutral infrastructure is, in fact, a deeply political system – one that exposes a...

Thailand vowed on Wednesday to tighten oversight of tourists’ behaviour after a series of incidents involving foreigners caught having sex in public, warning they damaged the country’s image. Tourism is vital to the Southeast Asian nation’s economy but foreign arrivals are yet to return to their pre-Covid highs. Visitors displaying “inappropriate behaviour”, including illicit drug use, would face prosecution as it “contradicts the beautiful culture of Thailand”, the prime minister’s office said...

A chilling voice note from her husband was all the warning Indonesian housewife Shanty Shanaya received of his impending kidnapping in some of the world’s most treacherous waters. “I’m about to be attacked,” her 33-year-old husband, Captain Ashari Samadikun, said in the April 21 voice note threaded with fear as a group he assumed to be pirates approached. He was captaining the Palau-flagged MT Honour 25 tanker, which was carrying fuel from Oman to Somalia – a route once notorious for pirates who...

After his party’s stunning conquest of West Bengal, Narendra Modi stands at a juncture that would have seemed implausible mere months ago. The prime minister who lost his parliamentary majority in 2024, briefly inviting talk of a weakened leader, now controls roughly 70 per cent of India’s state legislatures through his ruling coalition, the National Democratic Alliance. The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) sweep of West Bengal, winning 207 of 294 assembly seats and ending three consecutive terms...

Malaysia’s anti-corruption agency is seeking to charge two unnamed individuals over a 1.1 billion ringgit (US$278 million) semiconductor deal with British chip designer Arm Holdings, as former economy minister Rafizi Ramli returned for a third day of questioning in the same probe. The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) said the investigation was nearing completion after officers recorded statements from 22 witnesses, including Rafizi and his former aide, political analyst James...

Indonesia has unveiled a new vision to transform the holiday island of Bali into a global finance hub inspired by destinations such as Dubai, Hong Kong and Singapore, but the tourist hotspot faces a raft of systemic and infrastructural hurdles before it can attain the lofty goal. Indonesian Chief Economic Minister Airlangga Hartarto earlier this week said the government was finalising regulations to establish a financial hub in the Kura Kura Special Economic Zone (SEZ) on Serangan island, 500...

Asia’s next food crisis is under way. After the US-Israeli strikes on Iran, shipping through the Strait of Hormuz collapsed, sending shock waves across energy, fertiliser and food systems. Fuel, freight and fertiliser costs are rising sharply, amplified by skyrocketing insurance premiums – feeding directly into the price of every tonne of fertiliser that still reaches the market. The scale of disruption reflects the strait’s outsize role in global trade. It carries around one-third of globally...

Japan has long grappled with what to do about hikikomori – the social hermits who seal themselves off from the world, sometimes for years, retreating from all human contact. In the past, these recluses were thought of as a youth problem: troubled teenagers, rudderless young men. But that framing no longer holds. Japan’s shut-ins are growing old, and the parents keeping them alive are growing older still. The average hikikomori is now 36.9 years old, according to the Asahi newspaper, citing a...

Across much of India, an energy crunch caused by the Iran war has prompted long queues for cooking gas cylinders. That is not a problem for Gauri Devi. On a stove with blue flames, she flips a chapatti flatbread, burning biogas produced from cow dung – an alternative fuel helping ease pressure on supplies. “It cooks everything,” the 25-year-old said in her courtyard kitchen in Nekpur, a village in Uttar Pradesh, about 90km (55 miles) from New Delhi. “If the pressure goes down, we let it rest for...

Four paintings linked to one of the world’s most audacious financial frauds stood on easels at Malaysia’s anti-corruption headquarters on Wednesday: a Picasso, a Miro, a Balthus and an Ultrillo – all allegedly bought with money stolen from the Malaysian people. The unveiling of the works at the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission’s (MACC) headquarters in Putrajaya marked the first public showing of artworks recovered from the multibillion-dollar Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal since...

A group of 13 Australians related to alleged Islamic State (Isis) jihadists is returning home from Syria, Australian authorities said on Wednesday, warning some will face arrest. The four women and nine children, who had been living in Roj camp in Syria, are expected to land in Sydney and Melbourne airports on Thursday, according to local media. Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said he received an alert on Wednesday morning when the group’s travel booking was made. “The government is not...

Japan’s prime minister touched down in Australia on Sunday with a set of shared anxieties – about Trump, China and the fragility of supply chains that the two insular nations have long relied upon – to which she sought some small relief. By the time she departed, Sanae Takaichi and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had signed an economic security pact, unlocked nearly US$1 billion in critical minerals funding and laid the groundwork for what observers describe as the most comprehensive...

A South Korean appellate court judge who presided over a high-profile case involving former first lady Kim Keon-hee was found dead early Wednesday morning, police said. Shin Jong-oh, who had overturned a lower court’s not guilty verdict and imposed a harsher sentence on Kim, was discovered with severe injuries in a flower bed near the Seoul High Court building in Seocho district, southern Seoul. He was pronounced dead upon arrival at a nearby hospital. Police suspect the 55-year-old died after...

Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa was once one of the most visible faces of Rodrigo Duterte’s deadly war on drugs, a tough-talking national police chief who was seen as the hatchet man carrying out the former Philippine president’s crackdown against alleged criminals of the narcotics trade. Now a senator, Dela Rosa has somewhat fallen off the radar – for six months, he has not appeared for work after reports circulated that he could face arrest in connection with the International Criminal Court’s crimes...

North Korea welcomed foreign visitors and firms to a trade fair this week, showcasing home-grown products including the latest model of its sleek Jindallae smartphone. Diplomatically isolated and under biting sanctions over its nuclear and weapons programmes, North Korea has an ageing manufacturing base which analysts doubt has the ability to make high-quality consumer technology. Still, Pyongyang has touted Jindallae – “azalea” in Korean – as a convenient way for citizens to stay connected,...

A pro-Kremlin Japanese politician has said Russia is trying to arrange a meeting of the two nations’ foreign ministers in July, although analysts suggest that Muneo Suzuki’s efforts to act as a go-between are unlikely to bear fruit. Suzuki, who represents a constituency in Hokkaido and returned to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party in 2025 after 23 years as an independent member of the Diet, met senior Russian government officials in Moscow on Monday. Andrey Rudenko, deputy foreign minister in...

Global attention is fixated on Japan’s strategic shift under Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi. From the strengthened US-Japan alliance to the tense stand-off with China, from advocating for constitutional reinterpretation to allowing weapons exports and deploying counterstrike capabilities – these moves have been dissected in capitals worldwide. But the real, and more decisive, story is unfolding on Japan’s home front. The domestic dynamic driving this change is often a footnote, yet it is the...

The son of Myanmar’s deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi demanded France’s help in seeking independently verified proof of his mother’s life after she was transferred to house arrest, her lawyers said. The country’s junta chief-turned-president Min Aung Hlaing on Thursday ordered the 80-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner to be moved, five years after putting her into detention in a coup. But her son, Kim Aris, says he has still not heard from his mother, who remains massively popular inside...

The US Army on Tuesday shot a Tomahawk missile from its Typhon Mid-Range Capability launcher system in the Philippines during a military exercise, marking the first time it has fired such a weapon since the system’s arrival in the country two years ago, which drew a rebuke from China. Built by Lockheed Martin, the Typhon system had been flown 13,000km (8,000 miles) from Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state to Luzon in the Philippines as part of a military exercise called Salaknib and...

With Singapore facing a global energy crisis due to the conflict in the Middle East, the “storm clouds” that Prime Minister Lawrence Wong warned of at an election rally last year now appear to be an understatement. Under the scorching midday sun at a lunchtime speech in the heart of the city, Singapore’s leader last April urged voters to re-elect his tested People’s Action Party (PAP), arguing that voting for the opposition would weaken his team’s ability to navigate coming headwinds. On top of...

Japan’s defence minister pledged to deepen military cooperation with the Philippines during a visit Tuesday to Manila, aiming for the “early transfer” of Abukuma-class destroyers to the archipelago nation. The two countries’ shared grievances over Chinese territorial claims have seen them draw increasingly close in recent years, including the signing of a reciprocal access agreement allowing for the deployment of troops on each other’s territory. Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi’s visit came as...