Asia - South China Morning Post

Muhammad Syafiq, a 25-year-old banker from Kuala Lumpur, has started noticing something recently that felt like “real politics” compared with the soft sell of an election campaign poster at train stations in the Malaysian capital.

“One government programme I think is pretty solid is the People’s Income Initiative, or IPR [Inisiatif Pendapatan Rakyat], where small vendors use vending machines to sell food and drinks,” he told This Week in Asia, pointing to what he described as affordable...

A Japanese start-up is expanding a “granny business” that turns seniors’ lifetime skills into paid work through cafes, food stalls and community festivals, placing elderly women – including those with dementia – at the centre of local economies.

Based in the Fukuoka prefecture city of Ukiha, Ukiha no Takara, or Ukiha’s Treasure, draws on cooking, hospitality and fashion skills accumulated over decades, offering paid employment rather than volunteer roles.

The initiative aims to reduce isolation...

China has plans to increase its investments in Nepal to take advantage of the country’s rich hydropower resources, according to a Nepalese official.

Nepal’s hydropower sector is particularly attractive to Chinese investors because there is potential to sell some of the power generated to India, said Hong Kong-based Consul General Bindeswar Prasad Lekhak.

The Himalayan nation, which borders China and India, has vast untapped hydropower resources and it is keen to attract more foreign investment...

On a lively weekend afternoon beneath Marina Bay Sands, there is no stage, no spotlight and no audience in the conventional sense. Still, familiar music fills the underground concourse.

A group of teenage girls moves in sync to rookie K-pop girl group Hearts2Hearts’ “Focus”, counting beats under their breath. A few meters away, another dance team rehearses choreography to Twice’s “Feel Special”, adjusting their formation as shoppers pass by. No one appears surprised.

Scenes like this now unfold...

North Korea is set to use its coming Workers’ Party congress to signal an escalation towards carrying out large-scale nuclear retaliation in the event of a conflict with the US, with analysts expecting Pyongyang to unveil plans centred on intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) capable of striking American cities.

The move was foreshadowed by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Tuesday, when he said he would announce next-phase plans to further strengthen the country’s “nuclear war deterrence...

It was a policy meant to ignite a golden age of infrastructure development and put Thailand at the heart of Southeast Asia’s trade and investment for decades to come.

Three years – and three prime ministers – after it was first proposed, a multibillion-dollar “landbridge” across Thailand’s southern neck to slash transport times between Asia’s main shipping lanes has now hit a dead end, entangled in the kingdom’s intractable political crisis.

As Thais prepare to vote on February 8 for yet another...

Japanese Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi and his South Korean counterpart Ahn Gyu Back decided on Friday to step up personnel exchanges between their forces amid mounting regional security challenges.

At the Maritime Self-Defense Force’s (MSDF) base in Koizumi’s hometown of Yokosuka, near Tokyo, the two agreed to hold annual reciprocal visits, as ties between the Asian neighbours have continued to improve in recent years.

“We opened the door for a new level of defence exchanges between Japan...

Remarks by a prominent economist about India’s air quality have raised a debate on whether New Delhi should prioritise tackling pollution over tariff talks, as the country continues to transition towards a green economy.

Former International Monetary Fund chief economist Gita Gopinath made the comments at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, arguing that investors considering India would have to factor its environment because it “is going to be consequential for health”.

India has been...

Wang Gungwu is widely regarded as a pre-eminent expert on the ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia and the history of China, but at 95, he writes in his latest memoir that he is no longer able to call himself a historian.

In No Borders: Journeys Across Islands and Continents, launched in Singapore on Thursday, Wang writes that while a historian today has the objective of reconstructing the past as it actually happened, the Australian sinologist is no longer interested in this.

Through his studies...