Asia

Malaysian Prime Minister ⁠Anwar Ibrahim on Sunday ⁠introduced measures to address rising living ⁠costs and support businesses, including restoring higher quotas for subsidised petrol and diesel purchases, as well as more funding for schools and small traders. The measures are expected to take effect on September 1, Anwar said in a televised address. “The economic ‌growth of the country must be returned to the people,” he said. Anwar has been under pressure to tackle higher living costs, even as...

Pakistan’s prime minister said eight officials were suspended and called for criminal proceedings against them, after 14 infants were killed in a fire in a maternity ward in a hospital in the country’s capital. A preliminary report conducted by a four-person committee formed by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif found the deadly blaze had engulfed the unit “within approximately two minutes” just after 6.30am on Wednesday, with a nurse only able to save one of the 15 infants in hospital care. Among...

As the waters of the Bhotekoshi and Trishuli rivers recede, leaving behind mud, debris and damaged infrastructure, a familiar pattern is visible in Nepal. When disaster strikes, the country’s usual political divisions, cronyism and institutional mistrust give way, for a while, to real unity. Across party lines, political leaders worked around the clock alongside security forces. Digital channels opened for the Prime Minister’s Disaster Relief Fund, a “one-door policy” was enforced to prevent...

At Tower Records in Tokyo’s Shibuya district earlier this month, fans flocked to a pop-up store set up for Filipino boy band SB19, buying exclusive merchandise including limited-edition CDs, T-shirts, stickers and phone straps. Due to overwhelming demand, the store ran for an additional five days. During the band’s tour in Japan, SB19 met fans in Yokohama and performed in Tokyo and Osaka during the Summer Sonic festival. Another Philippine act, the eight-member girl group BINI, made their debut...

The wife of a British passenger who died after severe turbulence struck Singapore Airlines (SIA) flight SQ321 in May 2024 has begun legal proceedings against the carrier in Britain, seeking damages after she suffered serious spinal injuries in the incident. Linda Kitchen, 74, broke her back during the flight and has begun High Court proceedings seeking damages to help her access specialist support for her recovery, the BBC reported. Her husband Geoff Kitchen, 73, had also died on the...

A yellowing receipt, framed behind glass near the entrance of Abdul Razak Gold House, records an address that no longer officially exists: “63 Ampang Street, Kuala Lumpur (Malaya)”. The shop’s modern glass frontage, polished counters and gleaming bullion cases give little away about its history. But step inside and that simple receipt serves as a small window onto pre-independence Malaysia. For six decades, this family business has reinvented itself in step with the city around it. What began as...

Yutaka Kato* knew there would be risks when he reported suspected misconduct by his employer to Japanese authorities. What he did not expect, he said, was a 47.88 million yen (US$300,000) damages claim from that employer – the Japanese subsidiary of US-listed medical device manufacturer STAAR Surgical – along with the prospect of years in court and the uncertainty of whether he would ever return to work. Kato is among a growing number of whistle-blowers in Japan who say laws meant to protect...

North Korea’s defence minister has been dismissed as part of a reshuffle of the country’s military leadership, state media reported on Sunday. The “structural reorganisation plans” were decided during a meeting on Saturday led by Kim Jong-un, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said. No Kwang-chol was not only dismissed as defence minister but also demoted in the ruling party leadership to “first vice-director of the Munitions Industry Department”, KCNA said. Kim Song-gi, director of the...

Three weeks ago, I watched with horror the car crash of Cambridge professor Jason Arday’s public unravelling. You know the story: allegations about plagiarism; then more accusations, headlines and people announcing they had always felt “something was off”. It was less an investigation than a very British public audit involving spreadsheets, screenshots and the enthusiasm normally reserved for catching misbehaving MPs – except far more obsessive. Even after Arday’s death and his family’s request...

Nepali army rescuers broke through to a hydropower tunnel on Saturday and began pumping air and sending a camera inside, raising hopes of reaching workers trapped since devastating floods struck the site three days earlier. Nepal’s government says more than 100 workers may still be alive and trapped inside tunnels at hydropower projects, with rescue efforts focused on the Trishuli 3A and 3B sites. Those trapped are among 933 hydropower workers missing since a wall of mud and debris swept down on...

A total of 39kg (85 lbs) of bread was recently dumped along a roadside in a national park in western Japan, prompting police to investigate who discarded it and why. The loaves were left near crash barriers in Daisen-Oki National Park in Tottori Prefecture between August 14 and 20. The incident has prompted the spread of fake images and videos attempting to link the dumping to a sharp increase in bear encounters in Japan over the past year. “When I first heard of the reports, my head was full of...

Singapore state investor Temasek, the ⁠majority shareholder of Singapore Airlines , on Saturday backed the airline’s investment in Air India, as scrutiny grows over its stake in the loss-making Indian carrier. Air India’s request for about US$1.5 billion in fresh equity from owners Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines was ‌first reported by Reuters this week. Singapore Airlines owns 25.1 per cent of India’s second-largest airline, with the rest owned by Tata. News of the funding request prompted...

Vietnam is seeking to end executions for drug trafficking under a draft revision to its Penal Code, a notable shift in a country with one of Southeast Asia’s toughest anti-drug regimes. The proposal, presented to lawmakers last week, would remove trafficking from Vietnam’s list of capital crimes. Last year, Hanoi kept the offence on the list during an earlier round of death penalty reforms. If passed, the revised law would leave capital punishment for four crimes: treason, murder, terrorism and...

A woman in her fifties has been fined for repeatedly banging on her ceiling with a backscratcher and contacting her upstairs neighbour over noise, with a South Korean court ruling that her actions amounted to stalking. The Chuncheon District Court fined the 55-year-old woman, identified only as A, 2 million won (US$1,400) for violating the Act on Punishment of Crimes of Stalking, according to legal sources on Saturday. The court also ordered her to complete 40 hours of a treatment programme for...

Seven words, spoken almost in passing on a recent afternoon in Srinagar, have set off a diplomatic tremor across South Asia. “This is an important part of India,” Sergio Gor told reporters on August 19, during the first visit by a US ambassador to Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir in six years. Within hours, Pakistan had summoned the top American diplomat in Islamabad, Natalie Baker, to deliver a formal protest. Kashmir, a disputed Himalayan region claimed in full by both India and Pakistan,...

More than 1,000 luxury items and 80 real estate properties forfeited in Singapore’s S$3 billion (US$2.4 billion) money laundering case would go under the hammer from September 7, audit firm Deloitte said on Saturday. The properties will be auctioned by SRI, Edmund Tie & Company and Knight Frank, while auction house Hotlotz will handle the luxury goods, comprising jewellery, watches and handbags. Some selected properties will also be offered for sale through an expression of interest process run...

Mukti Patel has huddled with family and friends at her parents’ Richmond, Virginia, home since her dad, sister and two other relatives went missing in the catastrophic flash floods along the Nepal-China border. She knows the hotel they were staying in was swept away. But as she shared memories of them on Friday, she caught herself. “I shouldn’t talk in past tense yet,” she said. “We don’t know anything.” As rescuers continued pulling survivors from the mud, family members of some of the more...

Seven Yemeni men were arrested in Malaysia after they allegedly performed dangerous stunts while travelling in two vehicles along Jalan Sungai Besi early on Friday. Kuala Lumpur Traffic Investigation and Enforcement Department chief Mohd Zamzuri Mohd Isa said the incident, which occurred at about 12.30am, came to light after a video of the incident went viral on social media. He said preliminary investigations found that both vehicles were travelling along Jalan Sungai Besi towards Jalan Bukit...

The Philippines spent years dismantling Chinese-linked gambling compounds in dramatic, headline-grabbing raids. But all the while, and with far less scrutiny, South Korean syndicates were building a parallel industry worth billions of US dollars – one that a spate of recent arrests suggests is still very much intact. The most recent involved a 29-year-old Korean woman named Kim Young-sun, who authorities allege ran a network of 23 illegal online betting websites out of offices in Pasay and...

When Kripa Vaidyanathan’s 27-year-old niece died in an Alaska car crash in 2024, her family in Chennai, India, felt shell-shocked. They questioned why this tragedy would befall them when they had such “immense faith in God”. Vaidyanathan, a yoga instructor, helped her grieving sister get face time with a high-profile guru whom she hoped would help. “But he told her this was the work of karma and she should use this opportunity to connect with her inner nature,” she said. “I understand how karma...

The Tokyo metropolitan government has unveiled a plan to use an underground facility near Tokyo Station as a shelter for residents and tourists in the event of a ballistic missile attack. Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike told a press conference earlier this month that a survey would begin in the current financial year through March in preparation for revamping Yaesu car park, which is located about two to 11 metres (six to 36 feet) underground. The alterations are expected to include setting up...

In the rush to build an AI future, semiconductors are the silicon rock stars that soak up all the applause. Yet behind the curtain, an unglamorous stagehand is doing much of the heavy lifting. Printed circuit boards (PCBs) are the copper-laced panels inside every mobile phone, car key fob, digital camera and data-centre server rack on Earth. Without them, even the most advanced AI chip would be useless, unable to process even a single line of code. This year alone, more than 1 million square...

Artificial intelligence (AI) poses risks that do not respect national borders, from cyberattacks and misinformation to system malfunction and potentially dangerous misuse. In a geopolitically charged world, does greater incompatibility between countries make AI safer? UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres offered a clear answer at the inaugural UN Global Dialogue on AI Governance: “When countries align on how to test systems, measure risk and assign responsibility, safety travels with the...

Rescuers pulled out survivors caked in dark brown mud and helicopters lifted stranded people to safety, as Nepal and China raced to respond to catastrophic flash floods that killed 676 people and left nearly 3,000 missing. The rescue efforts included a team that rappelled into a severely damaged checkpoint area on the Chinese side of the border between the two countries. Rescuers were on high alert for more flooding from a new lake that formed high up in the Himalayan mountains after the initial...

Malaysia sees an opening in the Gulf travel disruption caused by the Iran war, pitching itself as a Muslim-friendly destination for travellers seeking halal food, prayer facilities and family-focused holidays. But such gains could be limited because the conflict has not only weakened tourism within the Middle East, but also affected long-haul flight routes that Malaysia depends on to draw Muslim tourists, according to analysts. The push comes as the six-month-old war continues to disrupt travel...

For more than a month, Aaron* thought he and his wife were learning how to trade stocks. Only later would they realise the lessons were part of the trap. The Singaporean business owner had found a group of self-styled investment experts on Facebook, claiming to offer foolproof tips and guaranteed returns. Soon, he and his wife, who were dabbling in stocks for the first time, were spending about two hours every other day in a WhatsApp group chat with dozens of other participants, taking lessons...

Roblox has become a flashpoint in Southeast Asia’s debate over child safety online, as officials scrutinise whether young users are being exposed to harmful subcultures on the gaming platform. But analysts warn that it might just be a convenient scapegoat for wider failures in how children are protected online and offline. Most recently, Roblox has been linked to the August 18 school shooting in the southern Philippine city of Zamboanga, where a Grade 9 student brought two firearms to a private...

A 48-year-old Malaysian man is believed to have killed his wife and their two young children before taking his life at a Kuala Lumpur flat, in a case police said might have been linked to losses from an alleged online love scam purportedly involving the woman. Initial police investigations found a note left by the man, blaming his actions on the scam, which had left the family with US$61,000 in losses and debt, police said on Friday. The 48-year-old father wrote that he was distraught over his...

Japanese police will expand use of body-worn cameras nationwide from next financial year after trials showed they were effective in providing evidence and verifying that investigative procedures were followed appropriately, the National Police Agency said on Friday. The agency has requested about 170 million yen (US$1 million) for the year starting April 2027 to cover related costs for around 2,000 cameras. Trials began in September last year in 13 prefectural police departments, covering...

Helicopter rescue teams were working on Friday to rescue around 100 people trapped inside a tunnel at a hydropower project in Nepal swamped by a devastating flood two days earlier. “Our focus is in search and rescue of people … some people are trapped in the tunnel of Trishuli 3A hydropower project,” Nepal Army spokesman Raja Ram Basnet said. “Two helicopters have been dispatched but it is challenging because it is tough to even locate the entry points of the tunnel. Relief efforts are also...