Asia

Lorelai Jacinto had worked as a domestic helper in Riyadh for two and a half years before she flew home to the Philippines on September 19, increasingly worried that the conflict in the Middle East was making it unsafe to stay. “When the conflict with Iran happened, I started feeling like it wasn’t safe there any more because I was right there in Riyadh myself, so the bombing, the missiles, were closer to us,” Jacinto told This Week in Asia. “I got worried, I got scared that maybe I wouldn’t be...

Pyongyang test-fired two types of cruise missile from a submarine, its state news agency said on Thursday, after weeks of friction with Seoul over a landmine explosion along their border. The missiles were fired into the East Sea, also known as the Sea of Japan, on Wednesday without “any adverse impact on the security of neighbouring countries”, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said. Relations between Pyongyang and Seoul have been further strained since the landmine blast on...

Confronted by a fuel crisis beyond its control, Bangladesh’s government is spending hundreds of millions of dollars each month to insulate its people from surging prices. But as growth slows and inflation rises, the new government’s reform plans are being tested before it has had much time to clean up the country’s bad banks or retool its young, abundant – but underemployed – workforce for the AI era. Prime Minister Tarique Rahman took office on February 17, elected on promises of sweeping...

Malaysian property tycoon Lee Yeow Seng is making waves as one of the most aggressive buyers of commercial real estate in Singapore, and he is not done yet. His IOI Properties Group is in exclusive talks and due diligence to purchase two property assets – Chijmes, a retail venue inside a former Catholic convent in its civic district, and the nearby Capitol Kempinski hotel, CEO Lee said in an interview. He declined to disclose how much a final agreement will value the two assets at, citing...

A stabbing rampage by a repeat violent offender wearing an electronic ankle monitor has raised questions about whether South Korea’s system can adequately supervise those deemed high-risk and prevent attacks before they happen. The 59-year-old suspect told investigators he had become frustrated over what he perceived as mistreatment at a hospital, police said on Wednesday. Three criminal profilers were helping investigators establish the motive for Tuesday’s attack at a shopping centre in...

Singapore will “keep its options open” on taking legal action against errant companies as air quality in the city state significantly deteriorated this week due to choking haze stemming from Indonesian wildfires. The government is collecting data on the haze as it weighs possible action under its Transboundary Haze Pollution Act, Sustainability and Environment Minister Grace Fu told local media on Wednesday evening. The law, enacted in 2014, targets those responsible for causing or condoning...

Japanese companies have faced a growing wave of cyberattacks in recent weeks, exposing millions of customers’ records as analysts warn that artificial intelligence is helping hackers exploit long-standing security weaknesses and overcome language barriers that once offered some protection. More than 500 breaches of corporate systems were reported in the year to this month, surpassing the total for all of 2025, the Yomiuri newspaper reported last week. On October 7, a ransomware attack on IDC...

Australia’s navy said on Thursday it would audit bathrooms across its fleet after a video recording device was found in the cabin of one of its ships. Navy chief Matt Buckley has vowed a full investigation into the incident aboard the HMAS Leeuwin, a survey ship docked in the northeastern city of Cairns in the state of Queensland. A member of the armed forces has been identified as a “person of interest” and was assisting military police with enquiries, Australia’s defence ministry said in an...

Philippine officials want a new anti-foreign interference law ahead of the 2028 presidential election, as a raid on a suspected online scam centre near the country’s military headquarters and reports of Chinese-linked money transfers to a company tied to Vice-President Sara Duterte-Carpio’s family fuel national security concerns. On Monday, immigration and military operatives arrested 76 foreigners at a facility in Quezon City suspected of being linked to Philippine offshore gaming operators...

Japanese Agriculture Minister Kazuo Yana said he tendered his resignation following allegations of possible vote-buying, lining him up to become the first minister in Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s government to quit over a scandal. “I apologise for causing such a huge inconvenience to those involved,” Yana said to reporters after submitting his resignation on Wednesday. He said he made the move out of concern for holding up parliament and his ministerial duties. Yana declined to comment on how...

A debate over tipping culture has erupted across the Indonesian resort island of Bali and beyond, triggered by a politician’s unfavourable comparison of domestic and foreign tourists. In a social media video, I Gusti Arya Wedakarna urged domestic tourists to “normalise giving tips in touristy places”, which he said was part of the island’s “ethics”. “Perhaps that’s the psychological reason why Balinese people are more excited about serving foreigners,” said Wedakarna, an Indonesian Regional...

When Daniela Cruz arrived in Singapore last week, hazy skies obscured the picture-perfect sights she had seen on social media, offering a different view of the city state from the one she had expected. The 27-year-old bank associate had travelled from Australia for the Formula One Singapore Grand Prix, but the smoky weather dampened her experience. “The buildings we saw on social media were covered in haze, and it made conditions extremely hot and humid,” she said. The haze blanketing...

Two leaders of India’s youth-led Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) were remanded in custody for five days on Wednesday, as police ratcheted up efforts to clamp down on anti-election commission protests. CJP activists and opposition parties have defied a security crackdown to demand the resignation of India’s chief election commissioner, accusing the poll body of manipulating voter rolls to benefit Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party. The commission, which oversees voting in the world’s most...

A Malaysian court on Wednesday rejected Najib Razak’s bid to suspend his 15-year jail sentence in the 1MDB scandal pending the jailed former prime minister’s appeals, ruling that his health and other grounds did not justify a stay. The decision means his sentence is set to begin after his current prison term ends in August 2028. Najib, 73, received a conditional royal pardon last month allowing him to serve that separate sentence in the SRC International case at home, but he must first pay a 50...

Rescuers dragged 13 dead children out of India’s Ganges River after an overloaded boat capsized en route to a Hindu festival, officials said on Wednesday, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressing grief over the “deeply painful” tragedy. The boat overturned late on Tuesday in Vaishali district in eastern Bihar state, with locals rushing to pull people out of the water in the dark using mobile phones to find the bodies. “It was dark when we suddenly heard children screaming and crying for help...

Japan’s prime minister said on Wednesday she probably spent “three or four more hours” than her male predecessors tackling household duties on top of her already packed daily schedule. “In the morning, I bathe, fix breakfast and then wash dishes, not to mention apply make-up,” Sanae Takaichi, elected last year as Japan’s first woman prime minister, told parliament. “I feel like I’m spending three or four more hours than male prime ministers doing these things.” A self-described workaholic,...

A long-awaited code of conduct (COC) for the South China Sea risks becoming a toothless agreement, analysts have warned, as Beijing and Southeast Asian nations scramble to hammer out a deal by the end of 2026. More than three decades since it was mooted, the proposed pact has remained gridlocked over how to balance competing territorial claims among China and four rival claimant states – Malaysia, Vietnam, Brunei and the Philippines. Maritime experts speaking at a conference in Kuala Lumpur this...

Asian countries must remind themselves about what happened during the region’s financial crisis in the late 1990s and guard against a recurrence of such shocks, the head of the Philippine central bank said ‌on Wednesday. Before the Asian financial crisis started in 1997, regional economies saw huge capital inflows that prompted the World Bank to describe it as the “East Asian miracle”, Eli Remolona, governor of the central bank, said in an International Monetary Fund panel on the outlook for the...

Stilt houses in villages north of Bangkok are no longer high enough to stay dry as Thai authorities deliberately flood riverside communities to spare the capital. Inside the home of Kamonchanok Sathaphonamonwut, raised more than three metres (10 feet) above the ground in Ayutthaya province, her family of three sleeps on makeshift platforms and cannot use the waterlogged toilet. Her village has been flooded six years in a row, pushing some to move away, while others have raised their houses...

Malaysians aged 30 and below bought some 5.4 billion ringgit (US$1.32 billion) worth of goods and services on short-term credit in the first half of this year, the country’s Finance Ministry has revealed. The ministry said it had recorded 65.9 million “buy now, pay later” (BNPL) purchases among younger consumers in the first six months of 2026 – equivalent to more than one in three, or 37.9 per cent, of total purchases nationwide. As of June 30, the outstanding BNPL financing balance among this...

Motorists have been left queuing for hours at petrol stations across Indonesia’s resort island of Bali in recent days amid reports of a crippling fuel shortage. Long queues have been spotted all around the island, including in the capital Denpasar, Badung and Tabana, according to the Bali Post. On Tuesday, Bali Governor I Wayan Koster stressed that there was enough fuel to go around, suggesting that panic buying might have caused the shortages at the pumps. “People need to be patient because the...

A growing number of Japanese regard the United States as the greatest threat to world peace ahead of traditional rival China, according to a new survey. The annual poll, released by the Japan Press Research Institute on Saturday, found 26.8 per cent of respondents named the US as the biggest threat to global peace. That was up 9.3 percentage points on last year and far above the 6.6 per cent recorded in 2024. Russia came top of the list in 2025 but slipped to third place this year, with 18.3 per...

Russia’s FSB security agency said on Tuesday it had detained a Japanese journalist for alleged espionage, and Moscow’s Foreign Ministry said it regretted that Tokyo was using correspondents to carry out spying. In a statement on its website, the FSB said the Hokkaido Shimbun journalist was detained in the far eastern Sakhalin region on the day before he planned to leave Russia. It did not specify when this was. Russia and Japan, ‌which never signed a formal World War II peace treaty, have seen...

The Philippine military has rejected calls to restore direct communication channels with its Chinese counterpart, despite warnings from Beijing that their absence risks “miscalculation” during confrontations and could further escalate tensions in the South China Sea. On Tuesday, the Armed Forces of the Philippines said it would not communicate with its Chinese counterpart in advance of its maritime operations, arguing that such channels were ineffective without mutual respect for international...

The US government’s plan to live-stream the execution of a former Army member convicted in a deadly 2009 mass shooting is raising questions about how effectively Southeast Asian governments can restrict graphic online content. Analysts say while authorities may have powers to restrict access to the live stream, containing clips and altered copies of the killing posted to social media could prove far more difficult. The issue gained fresh urgency on Tuesday, after Australia’s Environment Minister...

A 59-year-old man stabbed at least eight people on Tuesday at a shopping centre in the South Korean city of Incheon, police and fire officials said. One victim was in life-threatening condition and received surgery at a nearby hospital. The suspect attacked shoppers as he moved through the shopping centre before business owners and bystanders subdued him, according to local police and witnesses. The man has a history of violent offences and mental illness and was required to wear an electronic...

US President Donald Trump’s decision to ease sanctions on Russian diesel exports and allow fresh supplies to reach global markets could give India greater leverage in its own dispute with Washington over discounted crude purchases, analysts said. Beyond the energy dispute, they said the move could also open up diplomatic opportunities for New Delhi, from pressing for more consistent treatment by Washington to building on its efforts to help negotiate an end to the Russia-Ukraine war. Under the...

Leaders of India’s “cockroach” protest movement were detained again on Tuesday, their second detention in days, as a stand-off with authorities deepened over a contentious overhaul of voter rolls. Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das, two prominent faces of the youth-led Cockroach Janta Party, were taken into custody with other members after jumping barricades to enter Jantar Mantar, historically one of New Delhi’s main protest venues. Delhi police on Monday removed Jantar Mantar’s designation as a...

An Indonesian official’s claim that the country exports “oxygen” and not just smoke to its neighbours has renewed criticism of Jakarta’s handling of its annual forest fires, with analysts warning that defensive nationalism risks undermining regional cooperation to tackle the recurring haze crisis. The remarks by Syahganda Nainggolan, the newly appointed head of the Government Communication Agency, reignited criticism over Indonesia’s handling of its ongoing forest and peatland fires, which have...

Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said on Tuesday that officials were reviewing the off-base code of conduct for US troops in Japan following the alleged killing of an Okinawan woman by a US marine. Crimes including rapes, assaults, hit-and-runs and drunk driving by US military personnel have long triggered protests on the southern Japanese island, which has for years urged other regions in the country to share the burden of hosting US troops. “We plan to hold discussions including...