Asia - South China Morning Post

North Korea is expected to showcase a new generation of strategic missiles and advanced weapons systems at a massive military parade this week, in what observers say is an attempt to project its growing ability to strike US and South Korean targets.

Analysts predict that the parade will centre on a new solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile and a series of hypersonic weapons designed to threaten US naval forces in the region. The new ICBM, which reportedly has a high-thrust solid-fuel...

Australian healthcare technology start-up Heidi has secured US$65 million in a new funding round, as it aims to expand its workforce and establish offices in Hong Kong and Singapore to capitalise on the growing demand for medical artificial intelligence technology in the region.

The company is valued at US$465 million following its series B round announced on Monday, led by Point72 Private Investments, a global alternative asset manager.

The six-year-old start-up planned to build a team of about...

The death toll from the collapse of a school in Indonesia last week has climbed to 54 people as rescuers have cleared nearly all of the debris, rescue authorities said on Monday, in the country’s deadliest disaster this year.

Piles of concrete caved in on hundreds of mostly teenage boys after the collapse of the Al Khoziny Islamic Boarding School in the Indonesian town of Sidoarjo, in East Java province, trapping and later killing them.

Using excavators, rescuers late on Sunday cleared 80 per...

New Zealand’s government said on Monday it had agreed to pay 10 million tala (US$3.6 million) in compensation to Samoa’s government, a year after New Zealand sailors drove a navy ship aground on a reef off the Pacific Island nation.

All 75 people on board evacuated to safety as the boat foundered about 1.6km (one mile) off the coast of Upolu, Samoa’s second largest island, before it caught fire and sank.

The wreck of HMNZS Manawanui remains at the site of the sinking on October 6, last year, and...

A 60-year-old man was in custody in Australia on Monday after police said he shot up to 50 bullets into a busy Sydney street, wounding more than a dozen people.

Police were called on Sunday evening to the city’s Inner West, where the alleged gunman was firing from his property randomly at passing cars and police.

A large contingent of police swarmed the area and locked down the street, before entering the property above a business and arresting the man. They seized a rifle from the scene.

Office...

From tigers and leopards to bears, otters and deer, North Korea’s forests are falling silent. Almost every large mammal is being hunted to the edge of eradication in a collapse driven by economic desperation, black markets and state-backed exploitation, new research warns.

The study, co-authored by the British conservationist Joshua Elves-Powell and published in Biological Conservation in August, paints a grim picture of rapid ecological decline in a country with some of East Asia’s richest and...

Rescuers in Nepal and India on Monday scrambled to deliver emergency aid after days of torrential rain triggered landslides and floods that have killed more than 70 people, officials said.

The downpours, which began on Friday, have now eased, but rescue teams are still struggling to reach several cut-off areas with roads blocked and bridges washed away.

Monsoon rains, usually from June to September, bring widespread death and destruction every year across South Asia, but the number of fatal...

The United States is deepening its military presence in the Philippines with a planned upgrade to a naval base in Palawan, a strategically vital island facing the South China Sea that already hosts American-funded boat hubs and airstrips.

While some observers view the growing American presence as a pragmatic move to enhance the Philippines’ defence capabilities, others caution that the strategy risks creating a precarious dependency under a transactional US administration and leaves Manila...

With a few taps on her phone, Riana J. Saman moved pieces of furniture around her master bedroom, then pinched the screen to shrink a bedside table so it would fit snugly between her bed and wardrobe.

The 35-year-old dance instructor was not using a tape measure or design manual – she was relying entirely on Planner 5D, an artificial intelligence-powered interior design app, to decorate her family’s new four-room, 93 square metre (1,001 sq ft) flat in Singapore.

“It’s so easy, I wish more people...

Malaysian activists detained by Israel while on a humanitarian aid mission to Gaza have been released and deported to Turkey.

“All 23 of our heroes have safely arrived in Istanbul, Turkey,” Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said in a social media post on Saturday, after days of efforts to secure their release. Malaysia and Israel do not have diplomatic relations.

The prime minister said that the released individuals, who were detained last week, would undergo health assessments before...