Asia - South China Morning Post

Indonesian police found possible explosive powder as they investigated explosions at a mosque in the capital of Jakarta, and the suspected perpetrator was recovering, the police chief said on Saturday.

Explosions that injured nearly 100 people during Friday prayers could have been an attack, officials said, with a 17-year-old student the suspected perpetrator.

“Several pieces of supporting evidence were found,” police chief Listyo Sigit Prabowo told a press conference after visiting the victims...

The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Philippine Senator Ronald Dela Rosa, who oversaw then-president Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs, according to the nation’s ombudsman, although the ICC denied the assertion.

Duterte, in office from 2016 to 2022, was arrested and taken to The Hague in March on a warrant linking him to murders committed during his war on drugs, in which thousands of alleged narcotics peddlers and users were killed.

“The ICC has issued a warrant...

Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s public approval rating is steady at 78 per cent a year after he took office, a survey showed on Saturday, despite a challenging first year in office marked by deadly student protests.

Prabowo’s approval is little changed from 80.9 per cent in the previous poll, released in January.

He took office in October last year after sweeping a general election, but his government has had to deal with a number of economic and social challenges, including the protests...

Afghanistan’s Taliban government said on Saturday its ceasefire with Pakistan would remain even though their latest talks failed, blaming Islamabad’s “irresponsible and uncooperative” approach.

The two sides met on Thursday in Turkey to finalise a truce agreed on October 19 in Qatar, following deadly clashes between the South Asian neighbours.

Both have remained tight-lipped on the content of the discussions, which are known only to have addressed long-standing security issues.

“During the...

A civic group in South Korea has raised concerns over reports that some Korean men are engaging in organised sex tourism in Laos, with some even reportedly renting long-term housing in major cities to facilitate the purchase of sex.

Activists warn that the trend has become so widespread that it is pushing up local rents.

Lee Hyun-sook, head of the civic group Tacteen Naeil, which works to prevent sexual crimes against minors, revealed the findings during a CBS Radio interview on Thursday. Her...

A new study by researchers in Japan has found a stronger correlation between nose length and penis size than with hand or foot size.

Researchers at Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine analysed autopsy data from 124 men, measuring various body parts and comparing them to each man’s “stretched penile length” – the length of the penis when gently pulled while flaccid.

Their findings, published in the journal Basic and Clinical Andrology, suggest that nose size may indeed be a more reliable...

Under the floodlights of a street football pitch dotted with cement-covered potholes, 69-year-old retiree Lilian Sek beams as she whacks a hollow orange plastic ball through the night sky in the southern neighbourhood of Telok Blangah in Singapore.

Behind her, a laminated sign on the back of the court reads “Please lower your volume” and reminds players of the quiet hours between 10.30pm and 7am for those living in the public housing flats that overlook the court.

Sek, a former administrative...

US President Donald Trump has said he will visit India at the urging of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the latest sign of a possible thaw in a trade dispute that has soured the two countries’ relationship.

“He’s a friend of mine, and we speak, and he wants me to go there, and we’ll figure that out, I’ll go,” Trump told reporters on Thursday, calling Modi a “great man”.

Trump said the visit “could be” next year but otherwise declined to provide a timeline for a trip.

“I do not have anything on...

Bears have killed a record 13 people across Japan since April, with a steady flow of reports of the animals entering homes, roaming near schools and rampaging in supermarkets.

Hajime Nakae, the country’s leading medical expert in treating bear attack victims, knows all too well the damage that the powerful animals can inflict on humans.

Here, the professor of emergency and critical medicine at Akita University Hospital advises what to do in the event of a bear encounter.

1. Keep facing the...

Japan’s new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is under growing pressure from nationalist conservatives to make a high-profile visit to Tokyo’s controversial Yasukuni Shrine, a symbolic move that analysts warn could embolden the country’s far-right and strain relations with neighbours.

While Takaichi has long championed visits to the shrine, which honours Japan’s war dead including 14 convicted Class A war criminals, she has so far held off as leader – opting instead to send a ritual offering during...