Asia - South China Morning Post

The Philippine government is exploring ways to cap doctors’ professional fees following public complaints about soaring hospital bills, a move that has drawn resistance from physicians who say they are being unfairly blamed for deeper failures in health financing.

The Department of Health (DOH) said it was studying possible standards for doctors’ fees after patients took to social media to report unexpectedly high out-of-pocket expenses. But doctors’ groups argue that the real culprit is...

Authorities in Australia declared a state of disaster on Saturday after bushfires destroyed houses and razed vast belts of forest in the country’s southeast.

Temperatures soared past 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) as a heatwave blanketed the state of Victoria this week, with hot winds fanning some of the most dangerous fire weather since the “Black Summer” bushfires of 2019 to 2020.

One of the most destructive bushfires ripped through almost 150,000 hectares (370,000 acres) near...

Firdaus Hashim has spent nearly two decades breathing life into the impossible. The Malaysian visual effects (VFX) artist has won multiple accolades for his painstaking, frame-by-frame artistry and even contributed to an Oscar-winning film.

But today, the 39-year-old finds himself confronted by a force shaking the very foundations of his craft: artificial intelligence.

Since starting out in 2009, Firdaus has honed his skills through the laborious sketching of individual frames, developing an eye...

North Korea’s latest accusations that South Korean drones violated its airspace appear aimed at painting Seoul as a permanent enemy ahead of a key party congress, rather than addressing an actual security breach, analysts say.

By reviving claims of cross-border incursions and threatening retaliation, the North is reinforcing its portrayal of inter-Korean relations as irreversibly hostile – just as South Korea’s President Lee Jae Myung seeks to reopen channels of communication.

Lee, who took...

A calico cat named Yontama was formally appointed stationmaster at Kishi Station in western Japan this week, stepping into a role that is at once whimsical and ceremonial but also important to the survival of a rural railway line.

The appointment ceremony on Wednesday drew fans, photographers and local officials to the station in Kinokawa, Wakayama prefecture, where Wakayama Electric Railway President Mitsunobu Kojima placed a medal around Yontama’s neck as the crowd applauded.

Yontama is the...

A lone body discovered on a cold Japanese beach and a shattered wooden boat coated in black tar have stirred memories of the “ghost ships” that in past winters drifted across to Japan from North Korea.

The body washed ashore on Wednesday in Ishikawa prefecture, while a Japan Coast Guard vessel later recovered the capsized boat nearby, local media reported.

Authorities have yet to identify the man and are investigating whether he was linked to the vessel, which bore Korean characters and numbers....

India ushered in the new year with a symbolic triumph as its economy edged past Japan’s to become the world’s fourth largest by nominal gross domestic product.

The achievement unleashed a wave of national pride in New Delhi and among business leaders, but behind the celebrations lingers a question: can the world’s fastest-growing economy turn rapid growth into widespread prosperity?

Economists warn that GDP figures alone cannot create jobs, lift incomes or bridge yawning inequality in a nation...

The United Malays National Organisation (Umno), which for decades dominated Malaysian politics and remains a key member of the ruling coalition, is set to renew a push for the release of jailed former prime minister Najib Razak next week, even as it steps back from threats to quit the government.

Resolutions pushing for a full pardon and demanding justice for Najib were the “hottest topic” submitted by the party’s 191 divisions ahead of its annual assembly, Secretary General Asyraf Wajdi Dusuki...

An avalanche of garbage and debris buried or trapped workers in low-slung buildings at a landfill in the Philippines, killing one person, injuring a dozen and leaving 38 others missing, officials said on Friday.

Dozens of rescuers retrieved 13 people alive overnight and were searching for the missing still trapped after the mountain of garbage, earth and debris collapsed on them on Thursday afternoon in the village of Binaliw in Cebu City, officials and police said.

Landfill workers were among...

In an unprecedented move in Singapore, Workers’ Party (WP) chief Pritam Singh could be stripped of his title as Leader of Opposition and lose his privileges when Singapore’s parliamentarians debate his suitability for the role next week, legal experts say.

Singh was the first to be appointed to the official role in 2020 by then prime minister Lee Hsien Loong after the general election that year, when the WP won a record 10 out of 93 seats.

On Friday, Leader of the House Indranee Rajah tabled a...