Asia - South China Morning Post

A Singaporean teenager who made another teenager perform degrading acts, such as soaking his genitals in chilli oil and drinking his own urine, was given 21 months’ probation on Monday.

The 18-year-old male pretended to be a female to deceive the male victim, also 18, into believing that they were in a romantic relationship.

Both the accused and the victim, who were around 16 at the time of the offences, cannot be named due to a gag order protecting their identities. The gag order also covers...

Drug-laced drinks worth almost 1 million ringgit (US$246,000) have been seized after a Malaysian narcotics bust that saw the arrest of one dealer.

At a press conference on Monday, Kuala Lumpur police chief Fadil Marsus said that the bust was conducted on Wednesday in the capital city, where a 29-year-old man was arrested.

“Checks in his two vehicles and two residences led to the discovery of several drug packing and processing equipment alongside other drug seizures worth around 832,350...

A camping retreat marketed as “Glamping With Pride” has become Malaysia’s latest LGBTQ flashpoint after a poster for the event went viral, triggering outcry among Islamic authorities and a police investigation.

The dispute escalated on Monday after the Sultan of Selangor, Sharafuddin Idris Shah, ordered “firm action” against any activity linked to the retreat, according to a joint statement by the Selangor Islamic Religious Council (MAIS) and the Selangor mufti.

The statement said the Sultan had...

Meta Platforms said it has shut down almost 550,000 accounts in Australia to comply with the country’s landmark social media ban for children.

The social media giant has closed around 330,000 Instagram accounts, 173,000 Facebook accounts and almost 40,000 Threads accounts belonging to people believed to be under 16 years of age, it said in a blog post.

The law, which came into effect on December 10, mandates services such as ByteDance’s TikTok and Instagram keep under-16s off their platforms or...

For thousands of India’s technology professionals working in the United States, the Christmas break ended not with a smooth return to the office but with a bureaucratic cliffhanger.

Routine H‑1B visa renewals at US consular posts across India were abruptly pushed back as Washington ratcheted up its vetting of applicants’ online activity.

Interviews that many had expected to sail through were suddenly rescheduled for months later, leaving engineers stranded, projects disrupted and employers...

A Japanese mining ship departed on Monday for a remote coral atoll to probe mud rich in rare earths, part of Tokyo’s drive to curb its reliance on China for critical minerals as Beijing tightens supply.

The month-long mission of the test vessel Chikyu near Minamitori island some 1,900km (1,200 miles) southeast of Tokyo, will mark the world’s first attempt to continuously lift rare earth seabed sludge from 6km deep onto a ship.

Japan, like its Western allies, has been reducing its dependence on...

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s influential sister has delivered a scathing warning to the South’s government after drones were reportedly flown across the border earlier this month.

Kim Yo-jong, de facto spokeswoman for the ruling Workers’ Party, denounced South Korea’s leaders as a “gang of hooligans” and said the recent drone incidents had reinforced Pyongyang’s view that inter-Korean relations were fundamentally hostile.

In a statement released on Sunday via the official Korean Central...

A Philippine army colonel relieved for his anti-Marcos stance has “voluntarily” returned to his unit and will face charges and psychiatric evaluation, according to his superior.

Audie Mongao was on Friday discharged from command of the Armed Forces of the Philippines Training Support Group after he publicly withdrew support for President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr in a social media post, saying “it’s too much, enough already”.

Army spokesman Louie Dema-ala said Mongao was “put into attached/unassigned...

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz left for India on Sunday for a visit to bolster economic and security ties between the top EU economy and the Asian population giant.

Both Berlin and New Delhi face a turbulent world order and a set of economic and geopolitical challenges from the world’s two largest economies, the United States and China.

Merz’s visit from Monday – his first to an Asian country since he took office last May – comes two weeks ahead of a planned EU-India summit and as India and...

Malaysia suspended access to Elon Musk’s chatbot Grok over AI-generated pornographic content, the country’s tech regulator said on Sunday.

The decision follows global backlash after it emerged that Grok’s image creation feature allowed users to sexualise pictures of women and children using simple text prompts.

On Saturday, Indonesia became the first country to deny all access to the tool, which has been restricted to paying subscribers elsewhere.

The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia...