Asia

Philippine Vice-President Sara Duterte-Carpio posted bail at a Manila courthouse on Saturday, a day after an arrest warrant was issued over her alleged death threat against the country’s president. Duterte-Carpio was charged last month with “grave threats” stemming from a late-night news briefing in which she claimed to have hired a hitman to kill President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr, his wife and a congressman cousin should she be cut down first. She later said the comments had been misconstrued. The...

Malaysia’s biggest Islamist opposition party has used its annual convention to reopen the door to former rival Umno, while signalling that any reunion will come with a new pecking order as the party sets its sights on leading the federal government. The recalibration comes after a partnership involving Umno and the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) jointly toppled Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s coalition in Negeri Sembilan last month, weeks after Umno crushed Pakatan Harapan (PH) in Johor. With...

Japan and the United States have confirmed they will advance cooperation on investing in strategic sectors and honour the other terms of a trade deal they reached last year, even though President Donald Trump’s tariff policies have changed significantly over time. “We reaffirmed that last year’s agreement remains unchanged,” Japan’s Trade and Industry Minister Ryosei Akazawa told reporters in Washington on Friday, after meeting Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and US Trade Representative...

Bangladesh’s deadliest measles outbreak in decades is nearing the grim milestone of 1,000 child deaths, as a devastating epidemic sweeps through the country and crowded hospital wards fill with struggling babies. Cries of sick children and the hiss of oxygen machines fill the air at Dhaka’s Shishu Hospital, where Rima Akter keeps a vigil beside her nine-month-old son. “Just an hour ago, a child died, and they wheeled him out in front of us,” 30-year-old Akter said on Thursday. “We saw two...

When the day heats up, small business owner Chung Kee Wa, 68, changes how he tends his oil palm plantation in Yong Peng, in Malaysia’s southern Johor state. Oil palms younger than three years offer little shade, so he tends them in the early mornings and evenings, spraying pesticide, applying fertiliser or weeding. “We try our best to avoid going to the plantation around noon,” Chung said. He carries extra drinking water and, as a smallholder, decides when to slow down or change his hours. But...

In a country consumed by conflict, a sport defined by brutality dominates: Myanmar’s lethwei martial art, where headbutts are encouraged and knockout blows are the aim of the game. “I can’t live without fighting,” said 19-year-old Su Luck, who enters the ring under the paradoxical pseudonym “Peace Prize”. “I have never once considered giving up this passion,” she said. Lethwei is traditional Burmese boxing, distinct from Thai kickboxing because head blows are permitted and fighters compete...

India’s largest-ever business delegation, 200 executives strong, touched down in Japan late last month in search of money, machinery and manufacturing know-how. At its head was Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, whose four-day tour from August 24 to 27 not only laid the groundwork for next year’s 75th anniversary of diplomatic ties but also worked to solidify an economic partnership now expanding into shipbuilding and defence. “We believe in the principle of continuous improvement and we are...

Helen Fung’s home felt empty. After her husband died last October, she found herself rattling around a house in Singapore with only a domestic helper she could not get along with for company. She turned down her children’s invitations to move to England, put off by London’s grey winters, and instead checked herself into an assisted living facility. On a recent Monday afternoon in St Bernadette Lifestyle Village at Trevose Crescent, tucked away in the leafy residential estate of Bukit Timah, Fung...

Thailand’s embrace of data centres hit a speed bump after the government suspended construction of 49 server farms as public concerns about the power-hungry facilities’ impact on communities intensify. The projects were halted to give officials time to develop new industry regulations, expected to be announced in a month, Danucha Pichayanan, secretary general of the National Economic and Social Development Council, said at a press briefing on Friday. Danucha spoke after the first meeting of the...

The Amazon deliveries stopped reaching the USS Abraham Lincoln in February as it entered the conflict zone with Iran. A few weeks later – much to the chagrin of the sailors on board – even that most American of meals, the hamburger, was compromised by supply shortages when burger buns ran out. But as they unwind on their first shore leave in 286 days, the 5,000 crew of the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier are finding out what tens of thousands of their forebears already knew: Pattaya will...

Malaysia declared an emergency on Friday in a town in Sarawak state on Borneo Island after air pollution breached the country’s emergency-level threshold linked to fires in neighbouring Indonesia. The Air Pollutant Index in Serian, a small agricultural town of just under 90,000 near the border of Indonesia’s Kalimantan province, surged to 521 on Friday, according to Malaysia’s environment department. Sarawak’s much larger capital, Kuching, also showed a hazardous reading of 311. Malaysia’s King...

India is betting big on domestic manufacturing of semiconductors – the microscopic brains that power everything electronic from cars to AI processing – in an ambitious bid to slash imports and boost its local industry. But observers say the country should set its sights even higher upstream on the value chain by mobilising its “secret weapon” – a talent pool that could realise its dream to turn “Make in India” into “Engineer in India”. New Delhi earlier this week launched the second phase of its...

The son of Malaysia’s king has dismissed a report that a potential tax bill of more than S$2 billion (US$1.6 billion) is complicating his plans to sell 16.6 hectares (41 acres) of land in Singapore, saying he was “more than happy” to absorb levies on both sides of the causeway. “As a regular taxpayer, this is normal. No complication and more than happy to contribute to both countries. Should make it double,” Tunku Ismail Sultan Ibrahim posted on social media on Thursday, hours after the...

South Korea is moving towards the possible deployment of naval assets to the Strait of Hormuz under mounting pressure from Washington, potentially making it one of the first US allies to contribute militarily to the strategically vital waterway, observers have said. The government has reportedly drawn up plans to deploy military assets, including a naval logistics support ship and P-8A maritime patrol aircraft, to the strait. If carried out, the deployment would mark South Korea’s first dispatch...

A court in the Philippines has issued a warrant of arrest against Vice-President Sara Duterte-Carpio over death threats she made against President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr. The warrant involves three counts of grave threats, according to a court order that also set bail at 120,000 pesos (US$1,900) for each count. The charges were first filed last month, based on a National Bureau of Investigation criminal complaint in February 2025. Duterte’s lawyer, Paul Lawrence Lim, on Friday confirmed the Quezon...

Two sailors from the US aircraft carrier making a port call to Thailand were sent back to the ship after a drunken altercation, Thai police said on Friday. Police were alerted to a “small scuffle” involving the sailors in the early hours of Thursday near Pattaya’s nightlife hotspot Walking Street, city police chief Colonel Anek Srathongyoo said. “The sailors were drunk and they were fighting, making loud noise,” he said. He described the incident as “trivial” and said local residents had only...

The presence of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s youngest son at the opening of detained televangelist Apollo Quiboloy’s 75,000-seat Kingdome stadium this week offered a striking display of how ties between the Duterte family and the Kingdom of Jesus Christ (KJC) have endured despite the criminal cases surrounding its founder. Observers say the lavish inauguration, attended by an estimated 80,000 people alongside Davao City Mayor Sebastian Duterte, proved the organisation’s ability...

A “wintry wonderland” on a highway in tropical Malaysia left motorists awestruck – until a police revelation melted away the viral moment and turned it into a road safety warning. Social media videos showed thick white foam carpeting several lanes of the Shah Alam Expressway as vehicles drove through the “snowy” route. The spectacle was extremely unusual in Malaysia, where there is no traditional winter season and temperatures remain relatively uniform throughout the year. However, that did not...

Two hydropower workers were pulled from a tunnel buried by debris in Nepal on Friday, a rare ray of hope on the 10th day of rescue efforts after catastrophic Himalayan flooding. Rescuers cheered as one man was pulled from a muddy opening, video released by the energy ministry showed. He was helped to his feet by rescuers, and later carried on the backs of the emergency workers, raising his hand as they took him towards a helicopter. A photograph showed the second man caked in mud, his hands...

Six Malaysian men have been detained in connection with a drug smuggling case involving a 39-year-old Malaysia Airlines pilot detained at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Indonesia. The six were arrested following information obtained during questioning of the pilot by a team of Bukit Aman Narcotics Crime Investigation Department (NCID) officers sent to Jakarta from August 11 to 15. Bukit Aman NCID director Commissioner Hussein Omar Khan said the six had allegedly acted as suppliers and...

Japan’s Mogami-class warship is turning out to be a hot item among global navies. Australia is buying 11, New Zealand is considering putting in an order – and now, even the United States is showing interest. According to a US Naval Institute report published on Tuesday, government and naval planners are looking at three possibilities: Japan’s Mogami-class frigates, South Korea’s Chungnam guided-missile frigate and Turkey’s Istanbul-class warship. This is the first time since World War II that a...

As pressure mounts in the Philippines for authorities to act on strengthening school security after two fatal shootings in eight weeks, safety experts say any measure must look at mitigating violence much earlier, even before a child brings a weapon to the campus gate. A bill pushed by lawmaker Bam Aquino will require schools to establish a comprehensive safety framework, including localised safety plans with guidelines on prevention, emergency response and recovery. The bill also includes...

Two Mercury-bound spacecraft left their mother ship behind on Thursday and headed down the home stretch of their nearly decade-long voyage to the solar system’s smallest and closest-to-the-sun planet. The linked European and Japanese spacecraft separated as planned from their cruiser, but controllers had to wait two anxious hours to receive confirmation via radio signals. The crucial operation was broadcast from the European Space Agency’s control centre in Germany, more than 200 million km (124...

Another 777 students and teachers contracted food poisoning in Indonesia’s Central Java after consuming government-issued free meals, a school principal said on Thursday, bringing the total number of people made ‌ill by the scheme to more than 1,700 in just a week. In separate incidents in three other locations this week, 950 Indonesians had fallen ill as a result of food poisoning linked to the programme, a member of a parliamentary commission overseeing health said. President Prabowo Subianto...

An adult male orangutan found struggling to breathe in a palm oil plantation on Indonesia’s Borneo died hours after being rescued, authorities said on Thursday. The orangutan, named Sampurna and believed to be around 20 years old, was found by residents on Sunday morning in Ketapang district, West Kalimantan, an area affected by wildfires. He was unable to stand and was struggling to breathe when a joint team from the West Kalimantan Natural Resources Conservation Agency and the Indonesian...

India is touting its locally manufactured AK-203 Sher assault rifle – an advanced version of Russia’s powerful Kalashnikov – as an important milestone for the “Make in India” initiative to reduce reliance on foreign-made weapon systems. The Sher, or Tiger, will replace the older, heavily criticised Indian National Small Arms System (INSAS) service rifles used by the Indian Army. Complaints about the INSAS emerged just a year after it was adopted by the army. Indian soldiers fighting the...

Rajendra Lama’s phone has barely stopped buzzing. In between coordinating rescue operations for flood survivors with the Nepal Mountaineering Association and running his travel company, he spends his days communicating with anxious tour groups, trying to persuade them not to cancel their trips. “We have a crisis in one part of the country, but we’re open elsewhere and are not affected by the floods,” said Lama, a tourism entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience. “I’m just trying to...

Bangladesh’s potential entry into a defence pact with Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan could give Dhaka fresh leverage in its dealings with India, but observers warn the move risks fracturing its long-standing strategic neutrality and alarming a hawkish New Delhi. Foreign Minister Khalilur Rahman told parliament on August 27 that Bangladesh was considering joining the Mecca pact, a security framework signed last month. Earlier reports citing unnamed sources said the invitation originated from...

South Korean police are pushing for an indictment of music tycoon Bang Si-hyuk, the chairman of the agency behind K-pop supergroup BTS, over alleged investor fraud. The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency referred Bang to the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors’ Office on Thursday, asking him to be indicted on a charge of violating the Capital Markets Act, according to the police agency and the prosecutor’s office. Police have been investigating Bang, the billionaire founder and chairman of Hybe,...

The potential deployment of an American army specialist unit capable of integrated operations across domains, including cyberspace, to South Korea could further reorient the US military’s role on the peninsula from deterring North Korea towards containing China, analysts say. Recent reports that the Pentagon is considering moving elements of the Second Multi-Domain Task Force (MDTF), currently deployed in Germany, to South Korea have drawn attention to potential changes in the structure of the...