Asia

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...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and successive US presidents have spent the better part of the past three decades warning that a nuclear-armed Iran would threaten the whole world. Now, thanks to the illegal US-Israeli war, Iran may have to go nuclear by claiming self-defence. After all, what is good for the goose is good for the gander. Israel would justify its clandestine nuclear weapon programme, which dates back to the 1950s, by claiming Arab states wanted to exterminate it. Well,...

The Philippine House of Representatives has moved Vice-President Sara Duterte-Carpio’s impeachment closer to a decisive vote, the first step in a week-long process that will test whether allies of President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr have enough support to send the case to a Senate trial. The House placed the impeachment on its plenary agenda on Tuesday, a day after its justice committee endorsed the case, setting up a possible vote by all lawmakers on whether Duterte-Carpio should stand trial in the...

Indonesia is moving to reshape its ride-hailing industry from the inside, with officials saying the state has acquired stakes in app companies as President Prabowo Subianto seeks to raise drivers’ earnings and rein in commission fees. The move could mark a significant shift in one of Southeast Asia’s biggest on-demand economies, where millions of drivers for platforms such as Gojek and Grab have become a highly visible labour force and, analysts say, a potent political bloc. Last week, Prabowo...

A Japanese infantry unit has withdrawn a new patch designed by artificial intelligence after it was criticised for being immature, “aggressive” and out of step with the public image of the country’s Self-Defence Forces (SDF). The 1st Infantry Regiment’s patch was unveiled on April 29 and features an elephant in a helmet and other combat gear, holding a machine gun across its chest. The elephant has chains across its shoulders and a human skull apparently attached to its chest, with blue flames...

Thailand on ⁠Tuesday cancelled a long-standing agreement ⁠with Cambodia to work towards joint offshore ⁠energy exploration, Thailand’s prime minister said, defying calls from its neighbour to stay the course on the 25-year-old pact. The Thai cabinet’s cancellation of the 2001 agreement, which seeks to develop a framework to jointly explore hydrocarbons in parts of the Gulf of Thailand ‌where the claims of Thailand and Cambodia overlap, had long been expected and follows two rounds of armed...

Four men slipped aboard in the darkness. Armed with knives and moving fast, they descended into the engine room of the Taipan as the Marshall Islands-flagged tanker threaded its way through the Singapore Strait on the night of April 22. The crew managed to raise the alarm in time and thankfully no one was hurt. But by the time the vessel was searched the intruders were gone, vanished back into the water with a clutch of spare engine parts in tow. It was a modest haul. It was also the 16th such...

A Malaysian minister urged the country’s police chief to clarify the status of investigations into allegations that a network of businessmen was colluding with anti-corruption agency officials to oust executives. The government has ordered law enforcement agencies, including the Malaysian Anti‑Corruption Commission (MACC), to look into the allegations involving the businessmen, nicknamed the “corporate mafia”. So far, the police say they have found no evidence of the MACC’s involvement. “It is...

The death of a runner from heatstroke after a Penang hill run event has put a spotlight on the rising risks of soaring temperatures in Malaysia, as authorities report a spike in heat-related illnesses and are seeding clouds to trigger rains in the country’s drought-hit northern region. The death of the 41-year-old, the island’s first-ever confirmed heatstroke fatality linked to a sporting event, comes as temperatures in Malaysia soar to the mid-30s degrees Celsius. The man from Tampin, Negeri...

When a South Korean cargo ship exploded and caught fire in the Strait of Hormuz late on Monday, Donald Trump wasted no time declaring what he thought it meant. “Perhaps it’s time for South Korea to come and join the mission!” the US president wrote on his social media platform Truth Social, invoking the incident as fresh justification for Seoul to send naval forces to the embattled waterway. Seoul’s answer, for now, has been a polite but firm no – or at least, not yet. The explosion occurred...

Singapore schools used caning as a disciplinary measure only when all other options were inadequate, given the gravity of the misconduct, Minister for Education Desmond Lee said on Tuesday. Responding to more than 20 parliamentary questions on the Ministry of Education’s (MOE) updated efforts to tackle bullying, Lee acknowledged that studies linked poorly administered and frequent corporal punishment – particularly in unregulated settings such as the home – with negative outcomes. “We recognise...

Philippine annual inflation accelerated to a ⁠three-year high in April, ⁠as a surge in fuel prices ⁠triggered by the Middle East conflict raises the chance of more policy tightening. Consumer prices rose 7.2 per cent last month, the statistics agency said on Tuesday, the highest since March 2023. That was above the 5.5 per cent median forecast in a poll of economists. The April print also breached the central bank’s forecast range of 5.6 to 6.4 per cent for the month. Emilio Neri, lead economist...

We have selected seven stories from the SCMP’s coverage of Asia over the past week that resonated with our readers and shed light on topical issues. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. More Singaporeans are choosing jobs below their qualifications. Here’s why A new survey shows 19.4 per cent of Singapore’s resident workforce had academic qualifications beyond what was required for their job in 2025. 2. Why UAE’s exit from Opec is good news for...

Japan’s defence minister is touring Southeast Asia this week with what analysts describe as a clear, if diplomatically understated, mission: turning Indonesia and the Philippines into harder targets for Chinese maritime ambition. Shinjiro Koizumi landed in Jakarta on Monday to sign a defence cooperation pact with his Indonesian counterpart Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin, coming hot on the heels of Tokyo’s landmark decision to lift a decades-old ban on the export of lethal weapons last month. He heads next...

Fuminori Arita once farmed iyokan, a Japanese citrus variety, but about 10 years ago he switched to growing avocados, revelling in the challenge of producing crops of what he describes as a “sensitive and difficult to grow” fruit. The 67-year-old is symbolic of efforts by the western Japanese city of Matsuyama in Ehime prefecture, long known primarily for citrus cultivation, to shift more to avocados, partly as a strategy to adapt to rising temperatures amid climate change. Given the challenge...

Authorities in Thailand are unravelling a “phantom birth’’ racket involving possibly hundreds of babies – mainly Chinese – falsely registered as Thais by corrupt officials so that their parents can gain land and company ownership rights. Scores of birth certificates have come under scrutiny, with several officials arrested for suspected bribery in a scam that first came to light in northern Chiang Mai but has since clustered around a Bangkok suburb and northeastern Nakhon Ratchasima...

Two marine rescue volunteers died after their boat capsized while attempting to help a yacht in distress off the east coast of Australia, according to New South Wales police. On Monday evening, a member of the public reported that a yacht appeared to be struggling at a breakwall in Ballina in northern New South Wales, police said. A vessel of volunteer service Marine Rescue NSW with six crew on board was responding to the call when “their vessel capsized while crossing the Ballina Bar in heavy...

Singapore’s Grab reported first-quarter profit that exceeded analysts’ estimates, helped by resilient demand for ride hailing and delivery in a market rattled by economic and political challenges. Southeast Asia’s biggest ride-hailing and delivery firm has been trying to boost spending on its platform by incorporating artificial-intelligence features into its superapp and bundling its core ride-hailing, delivery and financial services. With oil and gas prices soaring due to the war in the Middle...

Chinese multinational company Landbridge Group’s legal claim regarding Darwin Port – the first case ever brought against Australia at the international tribunal – is likely to yield a multi-year proceeding, which could serve as a buffer to provide some positive impacts for the Australia-China relationship, analysts said. The owner of Landbridge, Ye Cheng, filed a case with the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investor Disputes (ICSID) requesting “arbitration proceedings” over...

The sounds of passing cars and birds chirping broke the morning stillness at Penang’s Northam Road Protestant Cemetery as visitors began filtering in after 8am. Tour guide Zul Harris arrived in a purple shirt, grey trousers and a black flat cap to greet seven tourists waiting at the gate. Inside, a narrow laterite path ran through the cemetery beneath old frangipani trees, whose dense canopy cast a muted green light over weathered headstones tilting at uneven angles. Zul was leading a cemetery...

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Hindu nationalist party on Monday wrested control of the state of West Bengal, an opposition stronghold, in a key election. The Election Commission of India released partial results showing the Bharatiya Janata Party won at least 124 seats in the 294-member West Bengal assembly, and was leading in 83 others. Final results are expected on Monday evening. It would be a significant breakthrough for Modi’s party, which had tried for years to dislodge the...

Seoul said on Monday that an “explosion and fire” had struck a South Korean ship in the Strait of Hormuz, the crucial Middle Eastern waterway effectively blocked following US-Israeli attacks on Iran. The foreign ministry said that, at around 8.40pm in Seoul, “an explosion and fire occurred on a vessel operated by a South Korean shipping company … anchored in waters near the United Arab Emirates inside the Strait of Hormuz”. There had been “no casualties to date” among the 24 crew members on...

A Bangladeshi man who jumped onto the train tracks to shield his baby with his body as a train ran over them has gained kudos but also criticism from social media users after a video went viral. The family had been travelling on the Dhaka-bound Titas commuter train at Bhairab Railway Station, according to a report by Bangladeshi newspaper Daily Sun. When the train, which was delayed by about 1½ hours, pulled into the station at about 3.30pm on Tuesday, the family reportedly failed to get...

North Korean athletes are set to step onto South Korean soil for the first time in eight years, raising hopes that sports could again help ease bilateral tensions even as Pyongyang continues to define Seoul as a hostile state. Naegohyang Women’s FC of North Korea have confirmed their participation in the 2025–2026 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Women’s Champions League (AWCL). “We have been informed by the AFC that Naegohyang Women’s FC have expressed their intention to participate in the...