Asia - South China Morning Post

A Philippine court has found a former mayor guilty of human trafficking and sentenced her to life imprisonment over her role in setting up a scam centre, as Manila and other Southeast Asian governments vow to fight transnational criminal syndicates.

“Alice [Guo] was convicted and seven others, and it’s life sentence,” Deputy State Prosecutor Olivia Torrevillas told reporters outside the court hall in the capital on Thursday. Guo, who has been detained in a Manila jail since last year, appeared...

Malaysia’s border control agency clarified on Thursday that about 43 kilograms of cannabis buds were found in the suitcases of three Japanese men detained at Kuala Lumpur International Airport two days ago, correcting an earlier statement that said they had found 12kg of cocaine.

In correcting its previous day’s statement, the Border Control and Protection Agency offered no explanation for how the initial error occurred.

The men arrived from Bangkok by plane on Tuesday. “Suspicious images” were...

Turkey will host next year’s UN climate summit while Australia will lead the conference’s negotiations among governments under a compromise deal taking shape in talks in Brazil, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Thursday.

The annual Cop conferences are the world’s main forum for driving climate action. The compromise would resolve a stand-off between Australia and Turkey over who would stage Cop31. Both bid in 2022 to host it and refused to stand down.

The two sides were now...

Indonesia has launched emergency vaccination drives after measles outbreaks killed more than 20 children in two provinces, stoking fears of a wider epidemic amid a global resurgence of the virus.

The scale and speed of the outbreaks have alarmed health experts, who warn the crisis is not simply the result of faltering immunisation coverage, but also a symptom of growing vaccine hesitancy – fuelled by online misinformation, religious concerns and a legacy of public distrust.

This erosion of...

Kim Sung-ho, 38, an office worker, said he is increasingly open to the idea of raising the retirement age in South Korea.

“A few years ago, I opposed extending the retirement age,” he said. “But now, living costs and housing prices are getting higher. I worry more about my own future. I think I will need a stable source of income until I get older. Extending retirement age isn’t about the older generation any more. It’s about preparing for the future for my generation too.”

Similarly, An...

All 267 people on board a South Korean passenger ferry that ran aground off the southwestern tip of the Korean peninsula on Wednesday were rescued, in an incident that revived memories of the major ferry disaster in 2014 in which 300 people died.

Passengers and crew were taken from the stricken vessel, the coastguard said in a statement, and 27 sustained minor injuries.

Most will be transported to the coastal city of Mokpo while 21 crew members will remain on the ship.

A mistake by the captain...

Singapore’s Prime Minister Lawrence Wong has voiced hope that China and Japan can de-escalate tensions, following a row sparked by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comments on the Taiwan Strait.

At the Bloomberg New Economy Forum on Wednesday, Wong said Singapore and fellow Southeast Asian states supported Tokyo stepping into a bigger role in the region, including on the security front, for greater stability.

Takaichi earlier this month said Japan could deploy its military in the event...

Singapore’s top diplomat said on Wednesday that United States President Donald Trump had held the same views on free trade and immigration for decades, despite being widely seen as erratic and among the most unpredictable of American leaders.

Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan was responding at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum to a question on how his country would navigate Trump’s less consistent, more freewheeling and unilateralist approach.

Balakrishnan pointed to a 1988 interview with...

Amid a heated diplomatic row between Beijing and Tokyo which has shown no signs of cooling off, several employees of China’s state-owned enterprises have been advised to scrap their immediate travel plans to Japan, they told the Post on condition of anonymity.

One of them, an engineer at a state-owned firm in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, received an unexpected phone call on Tuesday. It was his company’s administrative office, urging him to cancel his coming holiday.

Like employees at many...

Indonesia’s free meals programme has come under fresh scrutiny following reports that Chinese-made food trays used in the scheme may have carried falsified safety and halal labels.

The tray controversy is the latest in a series of challenges to confront President Prabowo Subianto’s ambitious flagship policy, which aims to provide nutritious meals to more than 82 million Indonesian children, pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers.

Observers say the programme’s rapid scale-up has revealed...