Asia - South China Morning Post

Daniel Ho’s clients want the best money can buy: branded residences and glass-wrapped penthouses complete with panoramic views and high-rise parking spots fit for supercars in the elite enclaves of Bangkok, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur and Manila.

A world away, or so it seems, mid-level asset manager Charoen Kijvekin sees a very different reality playing out. His clients are debt-stricken Thais trying to claw back repossessed homes from auction and families on the bottom rung of the property ladder...

When high school students in the West Hartford Public Schools district study World War II in the coming year, they will learn about more than just the typical hallmarks like Japanese-American detention camps.

They will also hear about Sadao Munemori, a soldier who died protecting comrades from a grenade. The 22-year-old posthumously became the first Japanese-American awarded the Medal of Honour.

Lessons like this that delve beyond places have left teachers “humbled”, said Jessica Blitzer, the...

Former National Basketball Association (NBA) centre Jason Collins, who has a deadly form of brain cancer, is undergoing an experimental treatment in Singapore, with those involved in the trial hailing the city state’s reputation as a medical innovation hub.

Collins, the first openly gay man to play in a major US professional sports league, said on Thursday in an ESPN interview that he had stage 4 glioblastoma and was pursuing innovative treatment in a clinic in Singapore, where he got approval...

During a trip home, I took my daughters to the Nanking massacre memorial hall. It is not an easy place to visit. In shadowy rooms, photographs of victims line the walls. The names of the dead stretch across black stone. In glass cases lie bones unearthed from mass graves.

I wanted my children to learn history honestly, to understand what war does to people. I shared stories my grandma had told me: as she fled town, a bomb fell on a nearby street. One neighbour vanished. Only bits of her remained...

Cambodia suspended all of its border crossings with Thailand on Saturday, as the two countries remained locked in a deadly military conflict.

“The Royal Government of Cambodia has decided to fully suspend all entry and exit movements at all Cambodia-Thailand border crossings, effective immediately and until further notice,” Cambodia’s interior ministry said in a statement.

A spokesman justified the move with the protection of the country.

Fighting between the two nations along their shared...

Singapore’s government on Friday gazetted as a national monument the former home of founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, a site long at the centre of a bitter family dispute among his children.

The action marks a pivotal moment in the saga that has gripped the city state since Lee’s death in 2015, when his children publicly clashed over whether the bungalow at 38 Oxley Road should be preserved or torn down.

Lee’s oldest son, and former prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong, favoured preserving the...

Tom Barrack, the United States special envoy for Syria, recently made waves at an international forum in Doha, Qatar, by suggesting that “benevolent monarchies” might be the most effective form of government for the Middle East. He also suggested that Israel was not a democracy.

His remarks were probably welcomed in some parts of the region, but probably less well received by the US and other Western media, which all but consider themselves guardians of proper world opinion.

Barrack was just...

Hongkong Land is set to launch what it expects to be the largest private real estate fund in Singapore, with more than S$8 billion (US$6.2 billion) in assets under management, including prime commercial projects in the waterfront Marina Bay district.

At inception, the Singapore Central Private Real Estate Fund (SCPREF) would include one-third stakes in One Raffles Quay and Marina Bay Financial Centre Towers 1 and 2, the Hong Kong-based commercial landlord and developer said in a statement on...

Indonesia should tread carefully before deepening ties with Russia, analysts said, after President Prabowo Subianto made an unplanned visit to Moscow this week, raising questions about the diplomatic and economic costs of closer engagement – including how Washington could respond.

Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomed Prabowo on Wednesday, hailing 75 years of what the Kremlin described as “solid and steady” diplomatic relations between the two countries.

The visit was Prabowo’s second to...

A Japanese #MeToo campaigner’s documentary premiered in her homeland on Friday after months of delays, with one audience member saying she hoped it triggered a change in society.

Shiori Ito won a landmark 2019 civil case against a Japanese TV reporter accused of raping her – a charge he denies – and turned her ordeal into a film released last year and screened worldwide.

But some segments of Black Box Diaries contained video and audio that had been clandestinely shot or meant only for use in...