Asia - South China Morning Post

A fire that ripped through an Indian nightclub in the popular tourist resort region of Goa killed 25 people, the state’s chief minister said on Sunday.

Tourists were among the dead in the blaze, which broke out at about midnight at a club in Arpora in the north of the coastal state.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a statement that the deaths were “deeply saddening”.

Modi added that his office would offer compensation of up to 200,000 rupees (US$2,200) to each family of the victims and...

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s pledge to revive visits by former residents to the Russia-controlled islands off Japan’s far north has reignited debate over whether humanitarian exchanges can survive the deep freeze in Tokyo–Moscow relations.

Analysts say the political climate has turned far more hostile since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, leaving “no chance” of such visits resuming while Japan supports Kyiv and Moscow deepens its strategic alignment with Beijing.

Takaichi made the...

Japan’s struggle to accept outsiders has been exposed once again after a video of a right-wing lawmaker arguing against Muslim burials went viral.

The video showed Mizuho Umemura, a House of Councillors member from the populist Sanseito party, objecting to the burial of Muslim residents during a parliamentary debate late last month.

She argued that cremation was a vital national custom practised by more than 99 per cent of Japanese people and said that approving new burial grounds for Muslims...

Cop30 concluded with confident declarations from global fashion brands: upgraded net-zero road maps, new partnerships under the UN Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Action and bold promises to “accelerate supply-chain decarbonisation”.

However, the summit revealed something the industry continues to avoid. Fashion’s climate ambition is still being shaped in the West, while the responsibility for delivering it falls almost entirely on Asia.

This imbalance has not shifted. Instead, the UN...

Eighteen people were killed in an air strike on a town in central Myanmar, according to a local official, a rescue worker and two residents who spoke to Agence France-Presse on Saturday.

Myanmar has been rocked by civil war since the military snatched power in a 2021 coup, and its battles with numerous anti-coup fighters have brought frequent air strikes that often kill civilians.

Two bombs were dropped on Tabayin township in Sagaing region on Friday evening, with one hitting a busy teashop,...

Two years after Thai worker Sudthisak Rinthalak was killed by Hamas militants, his family in northeastern Thailand is preparing to welcome his remains home and hold a Buddhist ceremony they believe will bring his spirit peace.

Sudthisak was among 47 hostages whose bodies Hamas has returned under the current ceasefire agreement. The handover of deceased hostages was a key condition of the initial phase of the deal aimed at ending the war in Gaza.

Sudthisak’s elder brother Thepporn has spent the...

An overnight exchange of gunfire and shelling at a major Pakistan-Afghanistan border crossing killed four civilians and one soldier, Afghan officials said on Saturday, the latest flare-up of fighting between the two countries despite a ceasefire since deadly clashes in October.

Five other civilians were wounded, an Afghan government spokesman, Hamdullah Fitrat, said in a video statement.

The local hospital at the Pakistani border town of Chaman said three people suffered minor injuries during...

India capped airfares on Saturday as hundreds of passengers gathered outside Bengaluru and Mumbai airports after IndiGo cancelled 385 flights on the fifth day of a crisis at the country’s biggest airline that has crippled air travel.

IndiGo has cancelled thousands of flights this week due to a shortage of pilots after it failed to plan adequately for new rules limiting pilots’ work hours.

The government responded on Friday, announcing special relief for the carrier and the operation of...

Funds siphoned off from the Philippines’ flood control projects and converted into cryptocurrency may be linked to online scam syndicates run by offshore gaming operators, an official from the country’s cybercrime unit has revealed.

Renato Paraiso, acting executive director of the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Centre, told This Week in Asia that investigators had uncovered a “definite link” between digital assets tied to the multibillion-peso flood control scandal and cryptocurrency...

Indonesia’s disaster agency on Saturday reported a rise in the death toll from floods and landslides on the island of Sumatra, saying at least 908 people had been confirmed dead while 410 were missing.

The National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) said the figures covered three provinces – Aceh, North Sumatra and West Sumatra – which had been hit by days of intense rainfall that triggered overflowing rivers, landslides and severe damage to transport infrastructure.

A chain of tropical storms...