Asia

Cloud seeding operations will be carried out in Selangor, Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya following worsening haze conditions in Malaysia, according to the National Disaster Management Agency. The agency said the operations would be scheduled for Saturday and Sunday. “However, the operations are subject to weather conditions and the availability of suitable clouds for the seeding process,” its director general, Meor Ismail Meor Akim, said in a statement on Saturday. The operations will be carried out...

Alina B.K. should have been preparing for her end-of-year university exams, but news of devastating floods along the Nepal–Tibet border kept pulling her back to a troubling question: what kind of future awaits her? The 21-year-old forestry student, who coordinates the Pokhara network of Nepalese Youth for Climate Action, said she struggled to concentrate as reports of death and destruction deepened her fears about a changing climate. “With the floods and deaths happening around us, it is really...

The death toll from an explosion and gun attack at a police headquarters in northern Pakistan rose to at least 31, including 16 police personnel, a senior police official said on Saturday, with fighting ongoing. An attacker rammed an explosives-laden car ‌into the Old Police Lines complex while gunmen stormed the compound on Friday afternoon as officers and ⁠their families were praying in a mosque. The police complex at Kohat, a town of around 220,000 people in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa...

Fears that advanced artificial intelligence could wipe out humanity have dominated global headlines, but in Japan the technology is being used for a sweeter purpose – developing never-before-seen convenience store desserts. For customers tired of the usual egg sandwiches and rice balls, major chains are turning to AI to develop products, including some unexpected flavours. Lawson, one of the country’s biggest convenience store operators, said on Tuesday it would roll out three new food items,...

South Korea’s Justice Minister nominee Kim Seung-won withdrew his nomination on Saturday following allegations concerning his involvement in a Covid-19 treatment and approval of its clinical trials. “After much deliberation, I decided to step down as the nominee for minister of the justice ministry. I apologise for failing to live up to your expectations,” Kim said during a press conference at the National Assembly. Kim, who said he did not want to add any burden to Lee Jae Myung’s...

Briton Johnny Gibbs has been in Australia for six months, surfing and working part-time – like countless other young people drawn to the country’s pristine beaches and laid-back way of life. He is one of thousands that venture Down Under on so-called “working holiday visas” – a chance to work, and play, in Australia for as long as three years. But the future for some backpackers is now in doubt, following the government’s announcement of plans to cut the number of visas issued – and detain...

Japan’s wartime kamikaze pilots remain among the most recognisable symbols of the Pacific war: young men flying aircraft into Allied ships on missions from which they were not expected to return. Far less well-remembered are the fukuryu – suicide frogmen trained in the closing months of World War II to walk into the sea with mines on bamboo poles, then wait beneath the waves for an Allied invasion fleet. Kanade Hamamoto was one of many Japanese people who had never heard of them, despite...

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is caught in an energy policy bind with no easy exit. Cutting Russian oil imports to avoid potential new US tariffs could increase fuel prices ahead of key regional elections, or stress government finances. Maintaining such purchases could cripple Indian exports to its largest market. India, the world’s third-largest oil importer and among the biggest buyers of Russian crude, reacted unusually strongly on Thursday to a US congressional bill that would allow...

In Silicon Valley and beyond, the architects of artificial intelligence are increasingly warning about the risks it poses to humanity. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei wants the industry to slow down. A former engineer at his company, who also worked at its rival OpenAI, told reporters after quitting earlier this month that he was “genuinely frightened” unchecked AI development might mean “we could all die in the immediate future”. Even Geoffrey Hinton, the Nobel Prize-winning computer scientist known...

EOS-05 is a single satellite that is part of a broader imitative of India to strengthen its ISR capabilities.

From church vandalism to grave desecration, assaults against Christian minorities are increasing in the large state of West Bengal since the BJP, an RSS offshoot, came to power in May.

The motivations of individual women who join militant organizations cannot be reduced to a single explanation. The organizational incentives are easier to identify.

The Chinese narrative attempts to erase the independent agency Tibet exercised before 1951, framing Shipki La as a historical link between China and India (not Tibet and India).

Even as investment tops 327 billion rupees, firms at Allama Iqbal Industrial City report inadequate wastewater infrastructure, unreliable utilities, and no public transport.

A combination of media misunderstandings, Chinese distortions, and Dutch mistakes raise the risk that Europeans draw the wrong conclusions about economic security.

Uzbekistan aims to attract greater U.S. investment, and is making its own investments in the United States. But it can’t forget the people. 

The tangible outcomes will be modest, but the stakes are high.

Central Asian states should jointly develop drone capabilities to prepare for current and future security needs.

South Korea is betting big on universal AI access, using state activism and corporate collaboration to strengthen its position in the global AI race.

Asian economies heavily dependent on imported energy are facing an even sharper squeeze after the shutdown of Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline removed a key escape route from the disruption in the Strait of Hormuz, deepening an energy shock that has already pushed crude oil above US$100 a barrel. Analysts said the loss of that bypass would hit Asian refiners first before feeding through to inflation, currencies and economic growth across the region. Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil...

Singapore Airlines was awarded the title of world’s best airline in the annual rankings by Skytrax, taking the top spot from Qatar Airways in a year that saw Middle Eastern carriers come under significant pressure from the ongoing war in Iran. The award, which is based on a survey of almost 25 million travellers, was announced in London on Friday, with a list dominated by Asian carriers. Only one European airline – Air France-KLM – made the top 10, and not a single US company, despite their...

China is pushing patrols into new waters near Taiwan, regularizing its presence, and deploying research vessels that can conduct military reconnaissance.

Here’s what satellite imagery and the IAEA are telling us.

An Australian accused of murdering a teenage girl in Thailand and abandoning her body in a suitcase pleaded not guilty in court on Friday, citing self-defence. Simon Peter Carman, 45, was arrested at a Bangkok airport in June as he prepared to take a flight back to Australia after the 17-year-old victim’s friend had reported her missing. The young woman’s body was found in a suitcase near a railway track in Pattaya, a seaside resort city south of the capital, Bangkok. Police said she died of...

Singapore Defence Minister Chan Chun Sing’s use of Mandarin and Chinese philosophy in his speech at a major security forum in Beijing has won him praise on Chinese social media, while shedding light on how cultural familiarity and language can be diplomatic tools for the city state. Videos of Chan at the Beijing Xiangshan Forum quoting ancient philosopher Mencius, or Mengzi in Mandarin, have gone viral on platforms such as Weixin and Baidu, with users hailing his command of the language and...

Thailand has moved to make weight-loss pens prescription-only, as a glut of the GLP-1 medicines – which mimic the hormones released once someone is full – floods the black market and influencers swarm TikTok to extol the quick wins of the simple injections. The Southeast Asian nation, which is never far behind wellness or aesthetic trends and has a notorious black market in counterfeit drugs, has seen the uptake of GLP-1 medicines skyrocket, doctors say, including the market-leading Ozempic...

Property agent Raymond Heng had suspected True Fitness was struggling, but he did not expect the gym he had visited for more than a decade to disappear overnight. The closure was not entirely surprising given the region’s fiercely competitive fitness industry, but its abruptness left Heng, 47, in disbelief after paying S$8,800 (US$6,900) for a lifetime membership in 2013. “I guessed that they might not have been doing that well since branches have been closing over the years, but I did not...

As Rodrigo Duterte’s crimes-against-humanity trial looms, an international tribunal faces the challenge of managing a sprawling prosecution case around the health of an 81-year-old former president of the Philippines, on top of shielding the proceedings from a highly charged media environment. Those pressures came into focus at an International Criminal Court (ICC) status conference on Wednesday, when Presiding Judge Joanna Korner urged prosecutors to trim their witness list and evidence ahead...

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung has drawn a clear line against any US request for Seoul to join the war against Iran, explicitly ruling out the dispatch of troops or military assets that could involve his country in the conflict. The stance comes amid mounting public opposition to any military deployment and growing pressure from Washington for Seoul to contribute to efforts to secure freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz. Lee’s government faces the difficult task of balancing...

What are the political implications of Martin Romualdez’s arrest, Rodrigo Duterte’s ICC appearance, and the new criminal case against Vice President Sara Duterte?