Asia - South China Morning Post

Barely had the ink dried on a long-awaited trade pact between the European Union and Indonesia before Brussels proposed another one-year delay to its long-awaited anti-deforestation law.

The move drew fierce criticism from environmental groups, who see the move as a capitulation to global trade interests.

On September 23, the Indonesia-European Union Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (IEU-CEPA), set to take effect in 2027, was concluded after nearly a decade of negotiation.

The...

With Singapore’s population at a high of more than 6.1 million, fuelled by foreign worker influx, more assurance should be given to locals on public infrastructure integrity and that they will remain the core of the labour market, according to analysts.

On Monday, the National Population and Talent Division released its annual report stating that the city state’s population grew by 1.2 per cent in the past year to 6.11 million as of June, with the increase driven by growth in the non-resident...

A two-year-old girl chosen as Nepal’s new living goddess was carried by family members from their home in an alley in Kathmandu to a temple palace on Tuesday during the country’s longest and most significant Hindu festival.

Aryatara Shakya, at 2 years and 8 months, was chosen as the new Kumari or “virgin goddess,” replacing the incumbent who is considered by tradition to become a mere mortal upon reaching puberty.

Living goddesses are worshipped by both Hindus and Buddhists. The girls are...

Life-saving treatments for newborns suffering from sepsis are becoming dangerously ineffective across Southeast Asia, according to new research, with experts warning that drug-resistant bacteria are putting thousands of infants at risk.

A study led by the University of Sydney and published in The Lancet this month warns that drug-resistant bacteria are behind nearly 80 per cent of sepsis cases in newborns across five Asian countries: Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines and Sri...

Bangladesh is navigating a morass of political hurdles in the lead-up to its election set for early next year, including conflicting demands over proportional representation in parliament.

Both the country’s largest Islamist political party, Jamaat-e-Islami, and the newly formed National Citizen Party (NCP), which draws support from student leaders who toppled the previous regime of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, have demanded that the coming poll be conducted on the basis of the new...

On a visit to New Zealand, FBI Director Kash Patel gave the country’s police and spy bosses gifts of inoperable pistols that were illegal to possess under local gun laws and had to be destroyed, New Zealand law enforcement agencies said.

The plastic 3D-printed replica pistols formed part of display stands Patel presented to at least three senior New Zealand security officials in July. Patel, the most senior Trump administration official to visit the country so far, was in Wellington to open the...

Nine young men have been arrested in Malaysia after a viral video showed a mob of motorcyclists surrounding a car, punching its windows and kicking its doors in a predawn road rage incident near Kuala Lumpur.

Serdang district police chief Muhamad Farid Ahmad said the men, aged 17 to 21, were detained early on Tuesday in raids across Puchong and Shah Alam. Police also seized three motorcycles believed to have been used in the incident.

All nine suspects have been remanded for four days while...

Malaysia has rolled out a targeted fuel subsidy scheme that limits each citizen to 300 litres of discounted petrol per month, replacing a decades-old blanket subsidy that had become a political flashpoint and a fiscal drain.

The new measure, launched on Tuesday, marks a significant policy shift by Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s administration, which hopes it will curb rampant fuel smuggling to neighbouring countries, misuse by foreigners and excessive consumption by wealthy Malaysians with...

A Vietnamese court convicted a former top-ranking gold executive and 15 others in a case that spotlighted shortcomings in the state’s monopoly on gold trading, which is now being scrapped in favour of a more market-oriented approach.

Le Thuy Hang, the ex-CEO of Saigon Jewelry Company, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for embezzlement and the abuse of power for taking advantage of government policies related to precious metals on Monday, VnExpress reported. SJC, as the firm is known, was the...

Southeast Asia is set to be the region hardest hit by American tariffs, according to a new UN report, with observers saying the fallout could push Asean deeper into China’s orbit as the US raises the price of entry to its vast consumer market.

The report from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) forecasts a 6.4 per cent slump in exports to the United States from the wider Asia-Pacific, driven by price increases from tariffs.

But for Southeast Asia – a linchpin in global supply chains...