Asia - South China Morning Post

Malaysia’s southern state of Johor is being transformed by a torrent of tech investment.

Global heavyweights – Microsoft, Nvidia, ByteDance – are pouring billions into vast data centres, the digital foundries that underpin the international AI industry and cloud economy.

For Malaysia’s government, these investments are nothing short of transformative, representing a once-in-a-generation opportunity to vault ahead in Southeast Asia’s technology race.

But for Johor residents like Muhammad Azrien...

India’s anti-terror investigating agency said on Sunday it arrested a man from Indian-controlled Kashmir on suspicion of conspiring with a suicide bomber to carry out a deadly car blast in the capital New Delhi.

The National Investigating Agency said in a statement that the car that exploded on Monday was registered to Amir Rashid Ali, who it alleged had travelled to New Delhi from Indian-controlled Kashmir to buy the car. It said Ali’s arrest was a “major breakthrough” in the case.

The...

Indian agricultural exporters are among the winners from US President Donald Trump’s exemption of dozens of food items from his reciprocal tariffs, which some analysts say could help revive lost demand.

Trump on Friday removed tariffs he had imposed on more than 200 food products, including beef, as consumer concerns mount over rising US grocery prices.

Unlike EU and Vietnamese suppliers facing 15-20 per cent duties, Indian exporters of tea, coffee, spices and cashew nuts were hit harder after...

When President Xi Jinping commissioned the Fujian on November 5, China became only the second nation to have an aircraft carrier with an electromagnetic catapult system. It is also notable that, last month, two navy aircraft from the USS Nimitz crashed into the South China Sea.

These events crystallise a strategic reality often obscured by aggregate force comparisons: the relevant naval balance is not between the 11 US aircraft carriers and China’s three, but between what the United States can...

Samsung Electronics, Hyundai Motor and other major South Korean manufacturers on Sunday unveiled domestic investment plans, as a US trade deal raised concerns that investment in the US could weaken manufacturing at home.

Samsung Electronics will add a chip production line at its plant in the South Korean city of Pyeongtaek to meet rising demand amid the global boom in artificial intelligence, as part of the parent group’s 450 trillion won (US$310.79 billion) investments at home over the next...

Bhutan is a nation that prides itself on happiness over productivity, being the only net negative emission country and reluctantly democratising only after its monarch introduced the system in a time of peace, but the tides are changing for the Land of the Thunder Dragon.

Amid high youth unemployment and an exodus of talent – especially to Australia – the landlocked kingdom of just under 800,000 people bordering giants India and China, is banking on a new “one country, two systems” special...

Thousands of members of an influential religious group started gathering in Manila on Sunday for a rally to call for accountability in the Philippine government over a widening corruption scandal.

Iglesia ni Cristo members, wearing white shirts, assembled in the historic Quirino Grandstand and nearby streets in Manila city. Police estimated the crowd at 14,500 as of 8am local time. Some camped out overnight for a programme expected to start late in the afternoon.

The Christian religious group...

A new Philippine commission tasked with investigating alleged corruption in thousands of public flood control projects has begun issuing its first findings, but analysts warn the body was designed with too little power and independence to deliver real accountability.

Created by President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr in response to mounting public anger over so-called ghost projects – flood control works that were paid for but either poorly built or did not exist at all – the Independent Commission for...

K-pop star Nana helped overpower a home intruder and is recovering in hospital after suffering injuries during the tussle, South Korean police said on Sunday.

The intruder, a man in his 30s, broke into the K-pop star’s home early on Saturday before being taken down by Nana with the help of her mother and arrested.

The 34-year-old celebrity and her mother, who suffered serious injuries and lost consciousness, are being treated in hospital, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported.

The intruder...

Indonesia’s newest sovereign wealth fund, Danantara, is making a bold entrance onto the world stage with ambitious plans ranging from bidding to construct a haj village in Mecca to launching one of the world’s largest waste-to-energy initiatives.

At the heart of these ambitions is Pandu Sjahrir, chief investment officer of the state-backed fund established by President Prabowo Subianto in February to manage strategic investments and improve governance across public assets.

In an interview with...