Asia - South China Morning Post

Malaysia’s Transport Minister Anthony Loke has expressed embarrassment and anger over yet another breakdown of the aerotrain service at Kuala Lumpur International Airport Terminal 1, which forced passengers to walk along the rail track in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

“Yes, I admit the incident was embarrassing. I felt ashamed watching passengers drag their luggage along the track. I am angry, and I share the disappointment expressed by members of this House,” Loke told parliament during...

Floods are becoming more severe across the Asia-Pacific, driven by the mounting effects of climate change. Nine of the 15 nations most affected by extreme weather are in this region.

According to a study commissioned by the Asia Development Bank in 2012, up to 410 million urban dwellers and 341 million inland residents are at risk of coastal flooding in Asia. Sudden-onset events like flash floods are especially frequent in densely populated cities, where impermeable surfaces, constrained...

When Sanae Takaichi welcomed Donald Trump to Tokyo this week, she did so with a blend of deference and purpose that has divided opinion in Japan.

While detractors derided her overzealous flattery of the US president and warned against pandering to power, many at home saw a Japanese prime minister deftly securing her nation’s interests amid Trump’s unpredictability.

“Takaichi’s strategy was clear from the outset,” said Tsutomu Harada, a retired businessman from Tokyo. “It was to make use of the...

The United States will share closely held technology to allow South Korea to build a nuclear-powered submarine, US President Donald Trump said on Thursday after talks with the country’s leader.

“I have given them approval to build a Nuclear Powered Submarine, rather than the old fashioned, and far less nimble, diesel powered Submarines that they have now,” he said in a social media.

President Lee Jae-myung stressed to Trump in their Wednesday meeting that the goal was to modernise the alliance...

South Korea and the United States reached a comprehensive trade deal on Wednesday, ranging from tariffs and investment to shipbuilding, at the summit in Gyeongju between President Lee Jae-myung and his American counterpart, Donald Trump.

“We reached a deal. We did a lot of different things. Great session,” Trump said.

The two countries agreed to maintain tariffs at 15 per cent following a preliminary deal reached earlier this year, Chief Presidential Secretary for Policy Kim Yong-beom told...

Messages in a bottle written by two Australian soldiers a few days into their voyage to the battlefields of France during World War I have been found more than a century later on Australia’s coast.

The Brown family found the bottle just above the waterline at Wharton Beach near Esperance in Western Australia state on October 9, Deb Brown said on Tuesday.

Her husband Peter and daughter Felicity made the find during one of the family’s regular quad bike expeditions to clear the beach of...

The now-delayed meeting between US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Budapest, Hungary, could have been a turning point towards peace in Ukraine. Instead, it has revealed a deeper fault line.

However, it is one that can be overcome. Even the Kremlin’s special envoy for investment and economic cooperation, Kirill Dmitriev, believes that the parties are close to an end to the war.

The global community should offer an off-ramp and seek a middle ground amenable to...

One of Myanmar’s most powerful ethnic armed opposition factions has agreed to a China-brokered withdrawal from a lucrative ruby mining hub, the group said on Wednesday.

Myanmar has been mired in a civil war since the military grabbed power in a 2021 coup, with the junta fighting an array of pro-democracy guerrillas and powerful ethnic minority armed groups.

The ragtag opposition initially struggled to make headway before organising a combined offensive in late 2023 that seized huge swathes of...

Rodrigo Duterte, the former president of the Philippines, has appealed last week’s decision by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to continue its case against him and is seeking his release, court documents showed on Wednesday.

Last week, ICC judges ruled that the court had jurisdiction over Duterte’s case, despite his team’s contention that the court did not open a full-fledged investigation into alleged crimes in the Philippines until after the country had withdrawn from the ICC in...

US President Donald Trump has signed a series of critical mineral agreements during his visit to Asia, in a bid to secure rare earth supplies and reduce dependence on China.

Here, the Post examines how these deals differ in scale, scope and potential impact.

What does the US-Japan framework cover?

On Tuesday, the two countries signed an agreement to “support the supply of raw and processed critical minerals and rare earths crucial to the domestic industries of the United States and Japan”.

While...