Asia - South China Morning Post

Myanmar’s pro-military party has a decisive lead in the first phase of junta-run elections, winning 90 per cent of the lower house seats announced so far, official results published in state media showed.

The military grabbed power in a 2021 putsch that triggered civil war, pitting pro-democracy rebels against junta forces for control of the country.

Myanmar’s junta opened voting in the phased month-long election a week ago, with its leaders pledging the poll would bring on democracy. However,...

A decade ago, Samantha Ong would go to the cinemas in Singapore twice a week. She now goes about once a month, opting instead to watch films on Netflix at home.

“Sometimes it doesn’t feel worth it to spend three hours on a movie, so it’s better to watch it at home where there is an option to fast-forward,” said Ong, 26. “I have to juggle working out and meeting up with friends in my free time, so I’ll go [to the cinema] only if I really want the full experience.”

Such shifts in viewing habits...

Across Japan, foreign workers are keeping factories, fisheries and workshops afloat. But as wages rise in neighbouring countries, many business owners worry that Japan may no longer be an attractive destination for this workforce.

In Choshi, home to a large fishing port in Chiba prefecture, east of Tokyo, one long-established cannery offers a glimpse into both Japan’s dependence on foreign workers and efforts being made to retain them.

Ho Thi Thuy Nhung, 38, begins work at 8am on the assembly...

For any party that wants to change Thailand, bitter experience has shown that winning an election and taking power are two entirely different things.

Conservatives hold the keys to government in the kingdom, where politicians, tycoons and generals serving the apex power of the monarchy allow elections, but conjure up coups and other political manoeuvres to take down winners perceived as a threat to their power.

But this time could be different, says Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut, the leader of the...

North Korea fired multiple ballistic missiles off its east coast on Sunday, Seoul’s military said, its first launch of the year just hours before South Korea’s leader heads to China for a summit.

Sunday’s launch follows a US military operation against Pyongyang’s socialist ally Venezuela that snatched President Nicolas Maduro out of his country – for decades a nightmare scenario for North Korea’s leadership, which has long accused Washington of seeking to remove it from power.

Seoul’s defence...

After 16 years of studying shoplifting in Japan and testing ways to curb the problem, academic Tomoo Okubo believes he has found the simplest and most effective deterrent: a friendly greeting from a member of staff.

Shoplifting has grown steadily worse in Japan in recent years – a trend accelerated by the coronavirus pandemic, according to Okubo, a professor of criminal psychology at Kagawa University. He says official case numbers reflect only a fraction of the real total.

“The prefecture where...

Cambodia said on Friday that Thai forces had taken control of a disputed border village, accusing Thailand of “annexing” the area after a truce halted deadly fighting along their contested frontier a week ago.

The decades-old border dispute between the Southeast Asian neighbours erupted into military clashes several times last year, with fighting in December killing dozens of people and displacing more than one million on both sides.

The two countries agreed a truce on December 27, pledging to...

Heavy snowfall caused a traffic jam to form on Friday on a highway in western Japan that stretched for up to 23km (14 miles) overnight, involving an estimated 3,000 vehicles, according to the highway operator and local firefighters.

Lanes were subsequently closed on the Sanyo Expressway between Hiroshima Prefecture, where the incident happened, and neighbouring Yamaguchi Prefecture, but they reopened on Saturday afternoon, West Nippon Expressway said.

The traffic jam hit as some drivers were...

India’s defence modernisation is on track even as it faces the challenges of ensuring that weapon systems are deployed quickly and boosting its military’s capabilities to counter external threats, according to analysts.

Last year, the Indian government approved three major defence packages totalling US$30 billion out of the country’s total defence budget of US$78.7 billion for the current financial year, which was ratified by parliament in February. The three packages were cleared in the second...

The top decision-making body of the Workers’ Party (WP) in Singapore has directed that a disciplinary panel be formed to determine if party chief Pritam Singh has contravened the WP’s constitution, following his recent court conviction for lying to a parliamentary committee.

In a media statement on Saturday, the WP said its central executive committee (CEC) met on Friday to discuss matters arising from Singh’s conviction after the High Court dismissed his appeal against it on December 4.

Party...