Asia

North Korea’s recent missile launch may be a test of upgraded exports to Russia, observers say, as the war in Ukraine gives Pyongyang opportunities to improve its weapons. At about 6am on Wednesday, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) detected a missile launched from the North’s southeastern port city of Wonsan. It flew roughly 700km (435 miles) eastward before falling into the Sea of Japan. The JCS conspicuously did not specify the missile’s launch angle or whether it should be classified...

A doctor and his friend who were arrested during a raid at a villa on Singapore’s Sentosa Island were sentenced on Wednesday to one year’s jail each for taking drugs. Dr Rayson Lee Rui Sheng, 36, and 29-year-old Tan Li Ming both intend to appeal against their convictions. The pair had contested their respective charges of taking MDMA, also known as Ecstasy, claiming their drinks had been spiked. However, the judge rejected this defence based on the inconsistencies in their statements and...

The rivalry between two of Indonesia’s former presidents is moving onto the political ground where their alliance was first forged, with Joko Widodo’s youngest son preparing to contest the constituency held by Megawati Sukarnoputri’s daughter. Kaesang Pangarep plans to seek a parliamentary seat in Central Java V in 2029. The constituency has been represented since 2009 by House Speaker Puan Maharani – one of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle’s (PDI-P) most prominent figures and the...

A visit by Vietnam’s top leader To Lam to Australia and New Zealand this week is expected to lead to stronger maritime security cooperation, especially in intelligence-sharing and joint patrols. The Vietnamese president is seeking to bolster partnerships and strengthen cooperation in science and technology, according to a government statement. During Lam’s six-day trip, which ends on Friday, he is expected to sign 12 to 16 agreements with Canberra – covering education, digital transformation,...

North Korea fired a ballistic missile off its east coast towards Japan early on Wednesday, Seoul’s military said, days before the planned start of massive US-South Korea joint drills. The 11-day exercises due to begin on Monday are a regular fixture of the summer calendar, designed to steel the United States and South Korea for defence against the nuclear-armed North. Pyongyang calls them rehearsals for an invasion and has staged missile launches before and after them in the past. “Our military...

The resignation of Indian education minister Dharmendra Pradhan last month, yielding to pressure from the “cockroach” youth protests, was an example of democracy in action. Outraged over the leaking of the medical school entrance exam question paper, protesters, led by a group calling itself the Cockroach Janata Party, demanded accountability and reforms. At least 20 young people had taken their own lives after a retest for the medical entrance exam was announced, underlining how such exams have...

Russian attacks across Ukraine killed at least 10 people overnight and wounded dozens, Kyiv said on Tuesday, accusing Moscow of launching North Korean missiles in the raid. The allegation comes after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned – without providing evidence – that Moscow was receiving more ballistic projectiles and troops from its ally Pyongyang. Russia has turned to North Korea for support throughout its four-and-a-half-year invasion. Earlier in the war, Pyongyang dispatched...

Around 2.4 million girls in Afghanistan have been denied access to secondary education since the Taliban returned to power in 2021, the United Nations said on Tuesday, urging an end to such “discrimination”. The Taliban administration, recognised solely by Russia, has imposed a series of restrictions on women that the United Nations has characterised as “gender apartheid”. Girls cannot study beyond primary school, a policy the Taliban authorities justify based on their interpretation of Islamic...

Philippine Vice-President Sara Duterte-Carpio was hit with a criminal charge on Tuesday over an alleged death threat against the country’s president, a key part of the case against her at her ongoing Senate impeachment trial. The charge of “grave threats” was filed on Tuesday afternoon in a Quezon City courtroom, Department of Justice (DOJ) spokesman Polo Martinez said. It stems from a National Bureau of Investigation criminal complaint filed in February 2025, months after a late-night news...

A new defence pact between Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey has raised questions in New Delhi over whether Islamabad could use the agreement to build wider security ties with Muslim-majority countries in India’s neighbourhood, analysts have said. The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, signed on Friday, states that an armed attack on any one of the three countries would be treated as an attack on all of them. The tripartite agreement followed a bilateral one between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan signed...

The cremations of the victims of the Debsirin school shooting in the Thai province of Nonthaburi had barely begun when another body was added to the country’s rising toll from gun violence. On Monday morning, a former MP for Nonthaburi fired four rounds at a local official inside a car – then calmly strode away, the pistol tucked back into his belt. Police Colonel Thongchai Yenprasert was shot over an alleged money dispute by 71-year-old Chalong Riewrang, a three-time lawmaker with deep...

A South Korean actress has apologised for the controversy surrounding her great-grandfather’s pro-Japanese ties during Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule, a day after calling the accusations “groundless”. “After further checking, we have confirmed that records of great-grandfather Ahn Sang-ho being listed as a councillor of the Daejong Chinmokhoe in 1916 actually existed,” Anh Ha-young’s agency Bistrus Entertainment said on Tuesday, according to the Korea JoongAng Daily. “We sincerely apologise for...

Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim accused opposition lawmakers of staging “political drama” on Tuesday after they walked out of a special parliamentary session on a long-awaited royal inquiry into the country’s Muslim pilgrimage savings fund. The confrontation came less than two weeks after Anwar’s Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition lost power in Negeri Sembilan. During campaigning, the prime minister had repeatedly invoked the Tabung Haji inquiry as evidence of the need to confront corruption...

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese sidestepped calls to apologise on Tuesday after a clip emerged of him engaging in crude banter about a gift from his Japanese counterpart. Albanese had already faced a backlash and apologised over comments made during an interview last month with the Bush Deep podcast in which he said he would “shag” singer Kylie Minogue. But separate comments during that interview in which he joked about a gift from Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi during her...

Havelock Palace has apologised for cooking foraged seafood in Singapore. The apology comes weeks after the Chinese restaurant received online flak and a barrage of one-star Google reviews for its involvement in a video showing a group of individuals foraging for seafood in mass quantities at Changi Beach. In the video, the foragers are seen collecting various marine life in large quantities, including crabs and clams, before bringing them to Havelock Palace to be cooked. The incident has...

A summit next month by the Brics grouping of nations has raised hopes that major players India and China will align to rally member states to resolve the Strait of Hormuz crisis, with the United States making little headway. Analysts say the forum from September 12 to 13 amid the global energy crisis wrought by the Middle East conflict could see parallel diplomacy, given the 11-member grouping’s economic clout accounts for about 40 per cent of the world’s gross domestic product. “I see a...

South Korea is working to close a legal loophole that allowed people sharing AI-generated pornography featuring fictional personas to go scot-free. The move by lawmakers came after a court in Goyang, Gyeonggi province, acquitted a man accused of distributing deepfake images of nude women in a Telegram chat room. Despite prosecutors presenting the evidence under a law carrying up to seven years in prison or a maximum fine of 50 million won (US$35,341), a judge last August ruled that the victims...

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. Anger in Malaysia as Liow pays fine, has money-laundering charges dropped The revelation that an alleged Malaysian scam kingpin was released after paying 10 million ringgit (US$2.4 million) fine has sparked public outrage over claims of preferential treatment for a man...

Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby has pressed Southeast Asian nations to join a “flexible realism” strategy in the Indo-Pacific, as the United States prioritises practical defence cooperation and deterrence over ideology. Speaking at a forum in Manila on Monday, Colby said he would travel to Jakarta, Bangkok and Phnom Penh as part of his first official trip to Asia, delivering a message he called “realistic and perhaps bracing, but also reassuring”: that America’s interests were “more engaged...

Yoon Jin-woo had never gone to Seoul World Cup Stadium to watch FC Seoul, the city’s team and the club that calls South Korean football’s symbolic home its own. But on Sunday night, he made the pilgrimage from the suburbs of Gimpo to see Manchester City and Atletico Madrid, two European clubs whose pull in South Korea rivals, and often overwhelms, interest in the domestic game. The 21-year-old and his friends were among 50,000 fans who filled the stadium with City’s light blue and Atletico’s...

When S* enrolled at Newcastle University Medicine Malaysia (NUMed Malaysia) in the Southeast Asian nation, the British-born Pakistani student believed the five-year medical degree would give him a realistic route into Britain’s National Health Service (NHS). The pathway was never formally guaranteed, but S said NUMed had highlighted a decade-long record in which students who applied for the UK Foundation Programme (UKFP) – the supervised training route for medical graduates – had secured...

South Korea may have been steadfast in its support for Ukraine against Russian and North Korean forces, but Kyiv’s request for air defence systems could prove to be a step too far for Seoul to accept. In addition to South Korea’s legal and policy limits on arms transfers to countries at war and its own defence needs, providing such weapons to Ukraine could further strain its ties with Russia, according to analysts. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has urged South Korea to provide air...

When Singaporeans tuned in to watch the annual National Day Parade on Sunday, an AI-generated short film depicting a zombie apocalypse version of the event has generated buzz in the city state. The four-minute-long Bersama Majulah, a spin-off from the human-written, artificial intelligence-generated Spore Fall video series, shows a spore pathogenic outbreak spreading across the fictional city of Lionara, which bears resemblance to Singapore’s skyline complete with the Marina Bay Sands,...

The Philippines and the United States are marking the 75th anniversary of their defence alliance with a renewed pledge to step up joint drills as geopolitical tensions in the region continue to simmer. While the allies are moving towards more frequent planning for maritime security cooperation and deterrence, there are still questions about Washington’s long-term commitment to the security of the Philippines and the broader region, according to analysts. At an annual meeting to strengthen...

A string of deadly motorcycle accidents around Malaysia’s biggest Yamaha RX-Z gathering has intensified calls for the annual event to be scrapped, but enthusiasts say the backlash unfairly conflates a vast owners’ community with illegal street racers. More than 200,000 devotees of the discontinued motorcycle converged on Terengganu, on Malaysia’s east coast, earlier this month for RXZ Members 8.0, reflecting how the modest two-stroke bike has become a vivid badge of identity for a culture with...

The ⁠United States is ⁠not disengaging from Asia and ⁠is instead “digging in” to maintain a favourable balance of power in the Indo-Pacific, but wants its partners to shoulder more responsibility for their defence, a senior Pentagon official said on ‌Monday. Seeking to counter concerns about Washington’s reliability, Elbridge Colby, Undersecretary of Defence for Policy, reiterated the US interest in the region as he called for greater burden-sharing and “partnership, not dependency”. “America is...

Landslides and floods caused by non-stop monsoon rains have killed at least 12 people in the Philippines, while eight more were missing and thirteen injured, authorities said. More than half a million people in 33 provinces have been affected by the southwest monsoon that has been enhanced by two tropical cyclones, according to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council. The agency also reported hundreds of damaged homes and infrastructure, with about 98,000 displaced from their...

A Malaysian lawmaker is offering a 5,000 ringgit (US$1,200) bounty for the person responsible for an arson attack which left an elderly woman in critical condition in Malaysia’s capital Kuala Lumpur. The 62-year-old counter staff suffered 50 per cent burns to her body after an unidentified individual doused her in what police believe was petrol and set her on fire at a lottery shop in Kepong, a suburb some 14km (nine miles) from the city. Kepong MP Lim Lip Eng said the attack was an “act of...

Indonesia’s top Islamic clerical body has warned men not to wear “women’s clothing” for Independence Day festivities despite a long-standing tradition of men in dresses playing football as part of the annual fun. Amid a rising tide of anti-LGBTQ sentiment in the Muslim-majority Southeast Asian nation, the influential Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) said in a statement such behaviour was “haram” or forbidden. The MUI said its intervention was “an effort to prevent the covert campaign of the...

An Indonesian minister has called for better protection of students after nearly 1,000 weapons were found at a private school in South Jakarta. Police seized 995 airsoft guns and one live firearm from a school run by the Harapan Ibu Islamic School Foundation on Friday, Antara news agency reported. The foundation’s former chair, identified only by the initials IWD, has been called in for questioning. IWD had been dismissed amid allegations of misuse of foundation funds, according to the Jakarta...