Asia - South China Morning Post

New Zealand and India announced on Saturday the creation of a strategic partnership encompassing defence and security, during a landmark visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon feted his guest with an indigenous Maori welcome and a guard of honour, seeking to expand relations after signing a free-trade pact in April that he has touted as an economic boon. Modi’s vis...

The brave new world of artificial intelligence (AI) is going to be a mixed and divisive blessing for governments – not least those of key Asian countries – as well as for financial markets. The AI revolution points to higher economic growth for economies linked to the tech supply chain, with others being left behind. It also signals the potential for financial crises. Balancing these risks will be...

Pan Sok still remembers his relative screaming as a tiger dragged him away one night, deep inside the Cambodian rainforest where they were tapping trees for resin. So he is “not happy” about a plan to reintroduce the big cats, a decade after they were declared extinct in Cambodia. “I saw the tiger take him with my own eyes,” he said, describing the attack that took place over 30 years ago. “He was...

Footage of the punishment quickly went viral: an unmarried couple each receiving 21 lashes of the cane in Indonesia’s Aceh province after being accused of kissing in a car and live-streaming it on TikTok. As each blow landed on their backs, the unnamed man, 22, and woman, 25, visibly grimaced. The woman later burst into tears, wailing in pain as the public punishment continued. The caning was carr...

For a man sanctioned by Beijing, barred from visiting China and accused of damaging bilateral ties, Gilberto Teodoro Jnr sounded remarkably composed. Composed, that is, until the conversation turned to the South China Sea – the very subject that landed him in hot water in the first place. In an interview this week, the Philippines’ defence chief said that Manila would keep only limited military co...

Polling stations across Malaysia’s Johor state closed at 6pm on Saturday, with the voter turnout nearing the expected 70 per cent of a more than 2.7 million electorate. All eyes are now on the results – set to determine the stability of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s coalition government. Johor has become a battleground between federal partners – Pakatan Harapan (PH), led by Anwar, and Barisan Nas...

There is a bogus version of Singapore’s prime minister that exists only to steal money. It connected to a Zoom call, thanked a stranger for his time and helped relieve him of US$3.8 million – with the real Lawrence Wong, for a time, none the wiser about what had happened. The victim had received a WhatsApp message purporting to be from the secretary to the cabinet, inviting him to a private meetin...

After a rendition of My Way and a saxophone accompaniment that felt closer to crooning uncles at a wedding party than high-stakes diplomacy, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and his Thai counterpart Anutin Charnvirakul announced the serious business of squashing a damaging trade row and bringing greater security to the porous border between the nations. The pair, long-standing friends, also...

India’s struggle to replenish its depleted fighter fleet has led one of the world’s largest defence spenders to seek spare parts from decommissioned aircraft. New Delhi recently secured nine retired British-built Jaguar ground-attack jets, which will not enter service with the Indian Air Force (IAF) but will be dismantled to help sustain its six operational Jaguar strike squadrons of about 120 air...

Voters in Malaysia’s southern state of Johor will cast their ballots on Saturday in a high-stakes election that is expected to bring Barisan Nasional (BN) back to power, exposing deeper cracks in Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s administration. BN is part of Anwar’s unity government but will go head to head against federal partner Pakatan Harapan (PH) in a state long regarded as a BN stronghold. The...

The United States is set to resume military sales to Turkey, Nato’s second-largest military power, after President Donald Trump said sanctions imposed against Ankara over its procurement of Russian air defence systems seven years ago would soon be lifted. “We don’t want to sanction friends,” Trump told journalists at the Nato summit in the Turkish capital on Wednesday, while emphasising his “good...

As US President Donald Trump flew home from a fractious Nato summit in Turkey, he was poised to resume the war with Iran, whose leaders he labelled “sick” and “scum”. Trump also complained about European leaders’ failure to spend enough on arms, support him in Iran and recognise the need for the US to take control of Greenland. The sense of rising global conflict has been palpable this week. What...

A large and powerful typhoon approached a remote chain of islands in Japan’s southwest on Friday, prompting authorities to warn of violent winds, torrential rain, landslides and flooding in what could be the region’s most destructive storm in years. Super Typhoon Bavi is expected to pass very close to Japan’s Sakishima Islands, a remote island chain that is part of Okinawa prefecture, early on ‌Sa...

When Karasi Chandramogan’s father died four years ago, the 35-year-old Singaporean was left with the overwhelming responsibility of being the sole carer for her brother, who has autism, and mother, an amputee. “Me and my dad were a tag team,” the freelance behavioural therapist said. “When he passed on, I couldn’t mourn too much because I had to handle the funeral situation as well as my mum and b...

A decision by a city near Tokyo to bar a mosque from holding a long-standing outdoor prayer session in one of its parks has triggered debate over multicultural coexistence in Japan, with questions raised over whether officials had sufficient grounds for the move. The dispute began in May when a mosque in Ichikawa, Chiba prefecture, was denied permission to hold a group prayer in the public park, l...

The Philippines still lags behind its neighbours in attracting foreign direct investment, with inflows stagnating in 2025 even as a financing influx swept the region. This shortfall has cast a spotlight on a corruption scandal that has roiled the country and dented investor confidence, analysts say, compounding long-standing systemic issues. Manila ranked sixth in Southeast Asia for FDI last year,...

Malaysia’s Barisan Nasional (BN), the dominant political coalition in Johor, might have expected to cruise to an easy victory come Saturday when the southern state goes to the polls – until a single remark from the son of jailed former prime minister Najib Razak suddenly gave its rivals political ammunition. On July 3, Nazifuddin Najib, who heads BN in Langkawi, suggested that a strong showing by...

The Hong Kong stock exchange is drawing a growing number of foreign companies from across Asia and North America that are seeking international capital, as the bourse marks progress in its ambition to be a global magnet for fundraising. The latest firm seeking to join the cohort is Kazakhstan Temir Zholy, the Central Asian nation’s railway operator and owner of the country’s largest fleet of locom...

Koo can see Johor changing around him, even if the promised wealth has not reached his bank account. The 30-year-old service worker has lived for 25 years in Skudai, a busy Johor Bahru suburb anchored by universities, older housing estates and the kind of Chinese shoplot economy that helped make the Democratic Action Party (DAP) a force in Malaysia’s southern state. He sees cranes, rail works and...

Falling durian prices have done little to deter thieves in Malaysia, with a Penang trader losing baskets of prized Black Thorn variety in two break-ins just days apart. Wenny Ooi, 27, said thieves targeted her family’s stall twice on June 25 and June 29, marking the first break-ins since they started the business six years ago. In the first incident, two baskets of Black Thorn, also known as Or Ch...

The Philippines is preparing to create a military space centre by 2028, a move that could help Manila strengthen surveillance, communications and command across its archipelago and in contested areas of the South China Sea. But analysts said the ambition would be constrained by the technical, financial and personnel hurdles of turning space assets into military capability. Philippine military chie...

A Singaporean man, hired by his aunt to tutor primary school pupils, instead beat them with a clothes hanger, forced them to hold push-up positions for long periods, punched and starved them. One of the children, a six-year-old Chinese national, was abused for 18 hours and forced to drink his own urine. On Thursday, the 31-year-old pleaded guilty to two counts of child abuse, one count of voluntar...

Reports of sweeping lay-offs at Tokopedia, the Indonesian e-commerce giant majority-owned by China’s ByteDance, have renewed concerns about Southeast Asia’s largest digital economy as analysts warn the country’s tech winter shows few signs of easing. The cuts have also raised questions over the future of one of Indonesia’s best-known home-grown digital champions, with analysts saying Tokopedia’s d...

Indonesia’s attempt to keep children aged under 16 off social media platforms deemed high risk has quickly become one of the world’s biggest tests of online safety regulation, with more than 4.8 million suspected underage accounts removed or deactivated in the first three months of enforcement. For President Prabowo Subianto’s government, the figures are an early sign that major platforms are fall...

Why are global investors so bearish on the yen? There are good reasons Japan’s currency should be gaining in value. Last month, the Bank of Japan (BOJ) raised interest rates to a 31-year high of 1 per cent and signalled it would continue increasing borrowing costs. Bond markets are currently pricing in a nearly 90 per cent probability of another increase by December. Nominal wages in Japan have ri...