Asia - South China Morning Post

As a political dispute between Beijing and Tokyo continues to inflame relations, Chinese media reports indicate some domestic airlines have cancelled flights on 12 of their routes to Japan – including paths to popular tourism destinations Kyoto and Osaka – with analysts predicting cancellations to rise within the week.

As of Monday morning, flights on these routes had been put on hold, according to a report from financial news outlet Yicai that cited Chinese aviation data platform DAST. Domestic...

A Singapore private-hire driver has denied responsibility for a vulgar anti-Chinese slur that was seen flashing across an LED panel on the back of his car, insisting the message was remotely altered by someone hacking into his display system.

The footage, filmed on Thursday along Woodlands Centre Road – a route leading to the checkpoint connecting Singapore and Malaysia – went viral after being posted by the SG Road Vigilante Facebook page.

The clip shows a Honda Stepwagon Spada repeatedly...

India’s hugely popular star Dharmendra was lovingly known as the “He-Man” of Bollywood, thanks to his roles in a string of action films that cemented his legacy spanning more than six decades and 250 films.

Born Dharam Singh Deol on December 8, 1935, in Punjab, he also served as a member of parliament and was honoured with one of India’s highest civilian awards.

He struck stardom after becoming the first Bollywood actor to bare his chest on screen, prompting a flood of love letters from female...

A Singapore court has cleared the way for a US$2.7 billion lawsuit against Standard Chartered Bank over its alleged role in 1MDB fraud, liquidators seeking to recover the funds said on Monday.

Singapore High Court dismissed an application by the bank to strike out a suit filed against it by liquidators, the liquidators said in a press release, calling it “a significant legal victory” allowing the case to continue.

Liquidators trying to recover money from Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund 1MDB...

Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced by deadly floods sweeping across Thailand and Vietnam, a crisis that has killed scores and stranded entire communities as meteorologists and climate analysts warn of heavier rains driven by La Nina and long-term warming.

The scale of the inundation has highlighted how a late-season monsoon surge, layered onto fragile flood-management systems, is overwhelming towns and cities from southern Thailand to Vietnam’s central coast, with Malaysia...

An Australian man who rushed at Wicked star Ariana Grande during a premiere in Singapore has been deported and barred from re-entering the country.

“Johnson Wen was deported to Australia on November 23, 2025 and has been barred from re-entering Singapore,” the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority said on Sunday.

The 26-year-old was on November 17 sentenced to nine days’ jail for public nuisance.

In sentencing, District Judge Christopher Goh told Wen that he was “attention-seeking” and that he...

A joint declaration at the Cop30 summit in Brazil – reached without United States participation after Washington again pulled out of the Paris climate pact – has kept fragile climate cooperation alive for the Global South, even as the talks fell short of a fossil fuel phase-out.

Observers said the outcome revealed both the limits of a strained multilateral system and the room that still existed for developing nations to influence the global energy transition, with several pointing to the UN...

Australian far-right senator Pauline Hanson wore a burka to parliament on Monday as a political prop in her push to ban the Muslim garment in public, sparking accusations of racism from Muslim senators over the stunt.

Hanson wore the burka shortly after she was denied permission to introduce a bill that would outlaw burkas and other full-face coverings in public places in Australia.

It was the second time Hanson had used the head garment, worn by some Muslim women, in parliament in an effort to...

More than two months after a mass poisoning at a Bali hostel left a young Chinese traveller dead and scores of guests violently ill, the incident remains mired in conflicting accounts and uncertainty.

Many of the lingering questions are due to the possibility of overlapping causes behind the tragedy, with medical experts pointing to an unusual mix of symptoms that could reflect severe food poisoning, mismanaged fumigation or both.

Amid the scrutiny, the hostel at the centre of the incident has...

Malaysia’s plan to bar children aged 16 and under from having social media accounts from next year has sparked a public backlash, as experts warn that enforcement gaps, privacy risks and vague guidelines could blunt the policy’s impact.

Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil said on Sunday that social media platforms would be required to implement electronic know-your-customer (eKYC) identity checks in 2026 under the Online Safety Act, which comes into force on January 1.

Users will have to verify...