Asia - South China Morning Post

Singapore handbag brand Aupen and its founder Nicholas Tan have been issued correction directions under the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA) for allegations made about Singapore’s intellectual property authority.

Tan published multiple allegations about the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) on his Instagram account on September 9, 15 and 16. The September 15 post was also published on Aupen’s Instagram page.

These Instagram posts and stories contained...

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has responded positively to a recent overture by US President Donald Trump, even as analysts say the prospects for another summit between the two leaders remain slim due to their wide differences over denuclearisation.

Kim said he could meet Trump again, provided the US were to drop its insistence on North Korea’s denuclearisation, noting he had “good memory” of Trump, according to Pyongyang’s state media.

The comments by Kim followed a statement by Trump at his...

Donald Trump’s sticker shock on H-1B visas risks disrupting Indian tech firms’ US projects, and is forcing Prime Minister Narendra Modi to once again deal with the fallout from America First policies.

The US president’s order on Friday – which requires a US$100,000 fee for H-1B applications – will hurt margins of Indian outsourcers who use the programme to deploy engineers to client sites.

That is a blow to India’s US$280 billion IT services sector, which is already grappling with sluggish...

Malaysians will be able to buy even cheaper petrol – but only up to 300 litres (79 gallons) per month – from next Tuesday under a sweeping new fuel subsidy scheme announced on Monday, aimed at reducing the country’s bloated subsidy expenditure.

Fuel subsidies have long strained the budget, with nearly 20 billion ringgit (US$4.7 billion) spent annually in recent years – about 8 per cent of total expenditure.

Under the old system, all motorists enjoyed unlimited RON95 petrol at 2.05 ringgit (49 US...

The vast majority of Japanese do not want to live close to an American military base, according to a new poll, with people expressing concern about worsening crime, pollution, noise and the risk of the facility being targeted in a potential conflict.

Amid growing calls in Okinawa prefecture for some of the US facilities there to be relocated to other parts of Japan to ease the burden on the southern islands, the Asahi Shimbun published the results of its survey on September 13.

In response to...

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said he was open to future talks with the United States if Washington drops its demand that the country give up its nuclear weapons, state media said on Monday.

Kim also said he had “fond memories” of US President Donald Trump, who he met three times for high-profile summits during Trump’s first term, before talks collapsed in Hanoi in 2019 over what concessions Pyongyang was prepared to make.

“If the United States discards its delusional obsession with...

For decades, London’s property market has offered sanctuary to fortunes of murky origins, its red-brick mansions and gleaming office blocks standing as monuments to global impunity.

Now, as anti-corruption watchdogs from Malaysia to Bangladesh demand justice, Britain is once again forced to reckon with its role as the world’s premier laundromat for kleptocrats.

Malaysia’s investigators revealed earlier this month that they were investigating the alleged London-based assets of former prime...

Japan could soon see its first female prime minister, with Sanae Takaichi emerging among the front runners in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s leadership race, a significant achievement in a country where women leaders remain a rarity.

Hardline conservative Takaichi has consistently been a public favourite, along with Agriculture Minister Shinjiro Koizumi, ahead of the LDP’s leadership vote on October 4. Last year, Takaichi narrowly lost to outgoing Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba in the...

Optus, Australia’s second largest telecoms carrier, said on Sunday that a departure from regular processes on a network upgrade sparked a technical failure that disrupted emergency call services for 13 hours and has been linked to four deaths.

There has been growing outcry in Australia over the glitch, which Optus said occurred during a network firewall upgrade from 12.30am on Thursday until about 1.30pm and potentially impacted 600 customers.

The government on Friday said it would investigate...

Half a century after his father declared martial law, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr is confronting his own crisis: a corruption scandal of dizzying scale, coup rumours in the air and tens of thousands of Filipinos preparing to march on the streets of Manila.

Adding to the pressure, Beijing has signalled a readiness to cement its de facto control over the contested Scarborough Shoal – a move analysts warn could permanently alter the strategic map of the South China Sea.

“He’s...