Asia - South China Morning Post

Semiconductor manufacturers in Southeast Asia must shift production to the US or face punitive tariffs, Washington’s top trade official warned on Thursday, saying tariffs “are the solution” if trade talks with regional governments fail to deliver results.

US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer delivered the message in Kuala Lumpur, where he met with ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean).

Greer’s comments came as members of the regional bloc raced to secure better...

“We will move forwards together,” Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney declared in Mexico, where he pushed for a new era of bilateral cooperation between America’s two immediate neighbours.

Carney, who met Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, added: “I have full confidence, and so does the president, that we can find the adjustments needed to reinforce competition and competitiveness in our region.” This was the first visit in eight years by a Canadian leader to Mexico City, underscoring the...

The father of the crashed Air India flight’s captain said officials from India’s accident investigation bureau visited him last month and implied his son cut the fuel to the plane’s engines after take-off, correspondence obtained by Reuters showed.

Pushkar Raj Sabharwal, 91, emailed the Federation of Indian Pilots (FIP) last week to say that Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) officials had visited him at home on August 30 “under the pretext of offering condolences”, and implied his...

Hong Kong maintained its position as the world’s third-ranked financial hub, narrowing the gap with leading cities New York and London, according to the latest Global Financial Centres Index (GFCI) report on Thursday.

The report, which is published twice a year, said Hong Kong’s overall rating rose 4 points, just 1 point below London and 2 points behind top-ranked New York.

“This ranking is not an endpoint, but a validation of our strategy” said Benjamin Hung, chairman of the Financial Services...

A suspicious parcel delivered to a Singapore mosque in the northeast part of the city contained a piece of meat that “appears to be pork”, Minister for Home Affairs K Shanmugam said on Thursday.

Shanmugam, who is also Coordinating Minister for National Security, told reporters that checks are still being done to confirm the type of meat.

Regardless, he said it was “obviously inflammatory” to send it to a place of worship in this way.

“But if it is pork, and it’s sent to a mosque, you can see the...

The release of charges against Rodrigo Duterte by the International Criminal Court (ICC) has provided the most detailed public account yet of the killings tied to the former Philippine president’s bloody drug war, but the path to a full trial remains uncertain amid claims of his cognitive decline and his lawyers’ push to halt the case.

On Monday, the ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor released a heavily redacted document dated July 4 detailing the accusations against Duterte, who has been detained...

South Korea’s parliament passed a landmark bill on Thursday that would allow people to give tattoos without having a medical licence.

The country currently allows only people with medical licences to give tattoos, making it the only country in the industrialised world with such a restriction. Tens of thousands of tattoo artists have been working in the shadows in South Korea for decades.

The single-chamber National Assembly passed the Tattooist Act by a 195-0 vote. Seven lawmakers abstained from...

Contractors have been ordered to plug a giant sinkhole in a street in Thailand’s capital caused by the collapse of an under-construction train tunnel, as the city governor on Thursday described the disaster as “a test” for the capital, with fears mounting of fresh subsidence.

The hole – 30 metres (98 feet) wide and up to 50 metres (164 feet) deep – opened up on Wednesday morning close to a major public hospital in Bangkok’s historic old quarter, causing patients and nearby residents to be...

The most common pairing in mixed marriages in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta was between local women and American men in the past few years, according to data from the civil registry, reflecting growing acceptance among Indonesians to tie the knot with foreigners.

Among Indonesian men in the city, they preferred to be married to Asians, with Singaporean brides being the largest group.

From 2020 to August 2025, there were 158 marriages between US citizens and Indonesian women, Witri Yenny, the...

Not long ago, the yen was seen as a refuge in times of turmoil. Japanese companies had a reputation for repatriating overseas earnings when sentiment in global markets deteriorated sharply. Japan itself was seen as politically and economically stable, encouraging investors to buy the yen as a hedge against volatility.

Even today, Japan is one of the most attractive markets among the world’s leading economies. The results of Bank of America’s latest Asia Fund Manager Survey on September 16 showed...