Asia

Philippine Vice-President Sara Duterte-Carpio did not attend the opening of her impeachment trial on Monday, leaving her lawyers to fight charges that, if upheld, could remove her from office, permanently bar her from politics and reshape the 2028 presidential race. Legal experts told This Week in Asia they expected Duterte-Carpio to be difficult, though not impossible, to convict despite the gravity of the charges because prosecutors would need at least 16 senators – two-thirds of the chamber –...

A 20-year-old Indonesian woman was stabbed to death in her flat in Hamamatsu, central Japan, police said on Monday as they investigate whether a man who was fatally hit by a train nearby was involved in the case. The woman, identified as Keiko Altaira Hanafi, was found stabbed and in a critical condition by a police officer at around 11.40am in the flat where she lived with her parents. She was later confirmed dead at a hospital. According to the police, a neighbour made an emergency call after...

India and Japan have agreed to jointly develop technology that makes Indian warships harder to detect, in a move that analysts say takes their defence partnership to a new level and reflects growing unease in both capitals over how far they can rely on Washington. The project involves fitting Indian warships with Japan’s Unified Complex Radio Antenna (Unicorn) system, which lowers a vessel’s radar profile by combining multiple antennas into a single, compact structure and reducing the exposed...

Indonesia and Singapore vowed on Monday that the Strait of Malacca, a critical oil transit chokepoint in the region, will remain “accessible” even as Iran imposes fees on ships traversing the Strait of Hormuz. Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto discussed the matter with Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong in Jakarta as Southeast Asia reels from the effects of oil prices pushed sky-high by the Middle East war. The Strait of Malacca, surrounded by Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and...

Singapore’s decision to open more labour channels to workers from East Timor could give the city state an “early-mover” edge in an emerging Asean market, though the economic gains are expected to take years. Analysts also say both countries, whose leaders met last week in the capital of Asean’s newest member, are looking at a “win-win” situation, with the deal set to ease Singapore’s structural manpower shortage while giving Dili a chance to better utilise its young and growing population. On...

Clashes in a Sri Lankan jail have killed 26 people, including seven guards, and wounded more than 100 in the worst prison riot in more than five years, officials said on Monday. Victims with cuts and gunshot injuries were rushed to Negombo Hospital, north of the capital Colombo following overnight fighting between inmates from two drug gangs, police said. Hospital director Pushpa Gamlath said 23 bodies were brought to her state-run health facility, and more than 100 wounded inmates and guards...

A spate of seizures of Thai cannabis in the United Kingdom, Germany, Indonesia and Hong Kong has cast a shadow over the Southeast Asian nation’s decriminalisation of the plant. Thailand became the first Asian country to decriminalise cannabis in 2022, promising a lucrative new cash crop for a market intended strictly for medicinal use. But four years on, with lawmakers still wrangling over cannabis control legislation, high street dispensaries have proliferated for recreational sale, while...

Indonesia has deported 92 Chinese suspected scammers and barred them from the country for life in one of the biggest mass exercises in recent years. The Chinese nationals had been arrested in May in connection with an alleged online gaming and investment fraud syndicate operating from a flat complex in the holiday island of Batam, the Jakarta Globe reported. Others arrested came from Vietnam and Myanmar. Galih Kartika Perdhana, head of the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport’s immigration...

Six people including five children were killed when a building collapsed in Mumbai, officials said on Monday, as monsoon rains pounded India’s financial capital, flooding roads and leading to school closures. A dilapidated residential building collapsed on Sunday in the megacity’s east, trapping residents under the debris, Mumbai Mayor Ritu Tawde said in a statement. The deaths came as heavy rainfall paralysed parts of the city, with the India Meteorological Department recording more than 200mm...

A 15-year-old student was stabbed multiple times at a secondary school in Malaysia on Monday, in an attack that sent students fleeing and prompted a police investigation. The victim is currently in a stable condition, according to health authorities. The victim was stabbed in the back and shoulder and is being treated in hospital. Police said the alleged attacker, also 15, had been absent from the school in Banting for several months while undergoing medical treatment. Kuala Langat district...

A ⁠Philippine senator who is ⁠an ally of Vice-President Sara ⁠Duterte-Carpio was arrested on Monday on a plunder charge, hours before the Senate begins a high-stakes impeachment trial that could determine Duterte’s political future. Senator Rodante Marcoleta was due to sit as a senator-judge on Monday at the impeachment trial ‌against Duterte-Carpio. If convicted by a two-thirds majority in the 24-member Senate, Duterte-Carpio could be barred from running in the 2028 elections, where she remains...

For decades, the Philippine Air Force hunted communist rebels and Islamist militants in the country’s forests and southern islands. Now, amid seemingly intractable tensions in the South China Sea, it is being reshaped into an armed service meant to defend one of Asia’s most contested maritime frontiers – even as analysts rank it the weakest air arm among Southeast Asia’s six largest militaries. “Because we are an archipelago, we really need to strengthen our air assets,” air force spokeswoman...

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has promised durian growers in Johor that he will raise their falling prices with his “good friend” Chinese Premier Li Qiang during a visit to Beijing next month, as a nationwide glut leaves farmers struggling to sell the famously pungent fruit at sustainable prices. Speaking during a political campaign stop in Johor, where a state election will be held on Saturday, Anwar said growers had complained to him during his two-day swing through the southern state...

A 24-year-old man has died after he was reportedly struck by lightning in Singapore. The man was among a group of eight people, aged between 13 and 54, who were taken to hospital on Sunday afternoon, the police said on Monday. The police said they had received a call for help on Sunday at about 4.50pm from 131 Pasir Ris Road, just off Pasir Ris Beach. The incident reportedly involved a lightning strike. Two people were taken to KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital, while the other six were taken...

Australia signed a new defence alliance with Fiji on Monday, bolstering ties with its South Pacific island neighbour as it seeks to outmanoeuvre China in the region. The Ocean of Peace alliance elevates Fiji to one of Australia’s few treaty allies and binds each nation to come to the other’s “mutual defence”. China sent waves through the region in 2022 when it signed a secretive security pact with the Solomon Islands, stoking fears it could one day lead to a permanent military...

A prefecture in western Japan is drawing attention for a unique bear management programme that uses microchips implanted in captured animals to estimate population levels and guide culling decisions, as rising sightings across the country fuel calls for more effective countermeasures. Hyogo prefecture says it is the first in Japan to use information gathered from microchipped bears to determine an appropriate population size and maintain a balance between conservation and population control. The...

The South Korean won was stable against the dollar after inching higher as the currency began its first day of 24-hour trading, marking a milestone in Seoul’s push to open its financial markets to global investors. The won eased 0.1 per cent to 1,531.40 against the US dollar, after rising as much as 0.2 per cent when it started trading at 6am. Other major currency pairs were little changed. The launch of 24-hour trading is the centrepiece of a years-long effort to improve foreign access to local...

Three months after moving from China to Japan, Alisa Lin has yet to buy a single drink from Mixue – the Chinese ice cream and tea giant – despite being a frequent customer back home, where a cup costs under five yuan (73 US cents) during promotions. “It’s not a very popular brand here. Only one of my friends in Japan has ever bought it,” Lin said, adding that value for money was the main consideration behind her own consumer choices in Tokyo. While Mixue’s basic teas are cheap, a plain bubble...

In the Philippine capital, 85 pesos (US$1.40) is barely enough to buy a meal for one, let alone a family of five. Yet that modest sum, roughly the price of 1½kg of premium imported rice, is the largest single wage increase ever approved for Metro Manila’s minimum-wage earners. The government called it “historic”. Labour groups called it an insult. The increase, to be rolled out in two stages, was confirmed by the Department of Labour and Employment on Tuesday. Non-agricultural workers will see...

A Japanese space probe performed a fly-by of a near-Earth asteroid on Sunday, in a test mission for technology that could help protect the planet from space rocks. The fridge-sized Hayabusa2 was due to fly within 800 metres (0.5 miles) of asteroid Torifune, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) scientists said earlier, a trial run to see whether such a probe could deflect a potentially dangerous space rock away from Earth. The mission comes after Nasa deliberately smashed a spacecraft into...

A “super typhoon” with equivalent force to a category-5 hurricane made landfall on the US island of Rota in the Pacific on Monday, the National Weather Service (NWS) said, warning of “catastrophic damage and [a] life-threatening situation”. “The western eyewall of Super Typhoon Bavi is currently moving over the island of Rota. The latest forecast intensity is at 180mph (290km/h) as it passes over Rota,” the NWS said. “Catastrophic winds exceeding 150mph will continue across Rota during eyewall...

“The Emiratis – by far the most hawkish, by far the most pro-Israel country in the [Gulf Cooperation Council] – they’re having conversations with the Iranians that have never happened before,” US Vice-President J.D. Vance told British media outlet UnHerd following the Iran-US negotiations in Switzerland. The Iranians “are certainly talking differently than they have in the past”, he added in a note of cautious optimism, highlighting how both Washington and its allies in the Persian Gulf are...

Hit by the biggest energy supply shock in decades during the Middle East war, import-dependent India is expanding domestic crude exploration, its oil minister says. India, the world’s third-largest importer of oil and the second-largest buyer of liquefied petroleum gas, faced major disruptions due to restrictions on the Strait of Hormuz during the conflict between the United States and Iran. With a temporary US-Iran deal in place to pause hostilities, oil and gas shipments are flowing through...

In a quieter part of western Bali, far from the crowds and chaos of the south, a 38-year-old housewife was bitten by a stray cat while hanging out laundry in May. Within weeks, she was dead: one of five people killed by rabies on the Indonesian resort island so far this year. The following month, a rabid dog kept as a family pet in the same region, Jembrana regency, attacked two children and an adult. All three survived, thanks to swift post-exposure vaccination after tests confirmed that the...

When South Korea’s national football team returned home on Tuesday after their shock group-stage exit from the 2026 World Cup tournament, the fury of fans was not targeted at captain Son Heung-min or other players. It was aimed at head coach Hong Myung-bo, who announced his resignation during a press conference in Guadalajara, Mexico – the tournament’s co-host – on June 28. South Korea lost 1-0 to Mexico and South Africa after opening their World Cup campaign with a 2-1 win over the Czech...

Asean military observers have now visited both sides of the Thai-Cambodian frontier, measuring damage and recording claims as Bangkok and Phnom Penh continue to trade allegations of ceasefire breaches following last year’s deadly clashes. In late June, a delegation from member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations fanned out across Thailand and Cambodia, escorted through contested ground and competing narratives. The fighting last year resulted in more than 100 military and...

Japan has partnered with the UN Development Programme (UNDP) to support Kazakhstan’s efforts to address the decline in the Caspian Sea’s water level driven by climate change, pledging a 465 million yen (US$3 million) grant towards its sustainable use. Under the initiative for the world’s largest inland water body, Japan hopes to promote cooperation among littoral states on water resource management and enhance monitoring systems, according to the foreign ministry. The decline in the Caspian...

Early in the morning on June 18, a message from an unknown account slipped into the TikTok inbox of a flight attendant in Bangkok with a series of questions: “Are you flying to Australia? Do you do carry-for-hire? What is your rate?” The 30-year-old, who flies ‌for a regional budget carrier, ignored the message and forgot about it – until Tuesday, when a Thai Airways flight attendant was charged with importing more than one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of heroin into Australia hidden in several tote...

Almost anywhere you look these days, you can find claims from political, academic and other various sources that China’s supposed overproduction and exports of manufactured goods pose unfair advantages. These sources may also claim such unfair advantages justify protectionist countermeasures. But it is difficult to counter one’s own folly. For decades, the US, much of Europe and even Japan, long proud of its manufacturing skills, have prided themselves on becoming “post-industrial” and...

When Chelsea Wang travelled to Seoul with two friends in late April, they barely visited any of the city’s palaces or tourist attractions. Instead, their three-and-a-half-day itinerary revolved around duty-free shopping, beauty treatments, hair salons and cosmetics stores. Wang arrived with a shopping list of her own: a backpack she estimated would cost at least 500 yuan ($70) less than in China, and a bottle of perfume at a similar discount. One of her friends, Wu, a 28-year-old white-collar...