Asia - South China Morning Post

North Korea has threatened military retaliation in response to joint drills by South Korea, the United States and Japan, with the powerful sister of ruler Kim Jong-un and a top military official issuing parallel statements.

Both denounced the ongoing drills and signalled that Pyongyang was prepared to answer with its own show of force.

“Reckless muscle-flexing by the US, Japan and South Korea in the wrong location, in the surrounding areas next to the DPRK, will definitely bring unfavourable...

Nearly a quarter of a million people were left without electricity over the weekend in Malaysia’s Sabah state after torrential rain triggered landslides that killed at least one person and took out a transmission tower that cut power across a large area.

Footage shared widely on social media showed the tower leaning precariously after it was hit by a landslide in the district of Penampang on the state’s west coast on Saturday evening.

The incident cut power supply to six districts in Sabah’s...

Australia and Papua New Guinea’s defence forces will be integrated under a new security pact that will be signed this week, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said.

Albanese said on Monday that he and his Papua New Guinean counterpart, James Marape, would sign the pact on Wednesday, a day after celebrating the South Pacific island nation’s 50th anniversary of independence from Australia.

US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau will also be in PNG capital, Port Moresby, for...

Authorities in Malaysia are hunting the suspect behind a blackmail attempt on at least 10 lawmakers who received emails demanding US$100,000 payments to avoid the release of deepfake sex videos using their likenesses.

Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil said the members of parliament were sent similar emails over the weekend demanding that they pay the ransom via a QR code or the clips would be released to the public.

The emails included screenshots of videos that the government believes were...

A suspected North Korean state-sponsored hacking group used ChatGPT to create a deepfake of a military ID document to attack a target in South Korea, according to cybersecurity researchers.

Attackers used the artificial intelligence tool to make a fake draft of a South Korean military identification card to create a realistic-looking image meant to make a phishing attempt seem more credible, said the research published on Sunday by Genians, a South Korean cybersecurity firm. Instead of including...

Australia will suffer extreme climate events more frequently – and often simultaneously – putting severe strain on health and emergency services, critical infrastructure and primary industries, according to a government report released on Monday.

No Australian community will be immune from climate risks that will be cascading, compounding and concurrent, the National Climate Risk Assessment report says, with the government warning that natural ecosystems and biodiversity will face major...

Komeito, the Buddhist-backed political partner of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), is grappling with what it calls an “existential crisis” after a bruising defeat in July’s Upper House election compounded internal fractures and exposed a growing disconnect with its traditional support base.

The party’s stark assessment was contained in a postmortem report, formally approved on Thursday, that acknowledged the scale of the setback. At a subsequent senior party meeting, Secretary...

US President Donald Trump said on Sunday that foreign workers sent to the United States were “welcome” and he did not want to “frighten off” investors, 10 days after hundreds of South Koreans were arrested at a work site in Georgia.

In a post on his Truth Social platform, the 79-year-old Republican wrote: “I don’t want to frighten off or disincentivize investment.”

Some 475 people, mostly South Korean nationals, were arrested at the construction site of an electric vehicle battery factory,...

Gaming giant Roblox Corp has agreed to curb the risk of adults grooming children on its platform in Australia, the country’s online watchdog said on Monday.

The popular site, which lets players build their own games, has committed to bringing in new measures by the end of 2025, said eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant.

Australia has been a leader in global efforts to prevent internet harm, introducing a ban on social media access to children under 16 and other measures focused on child...

The Indonesian government has allowed a nickel mining company to resume operations in an eastern archipelago, a minister said on Sunday, despite outcry over damage it could cause to the pristine islands.

The cluster of islands and shoals in Southwest Papua Province sits in the Coral Triangle and is thought to be one of the world’s most pristine reefs, while its clear blue waters make it a popular diving spot.

PT Gag Nikel, a subsidiary of state mining company Aneka Tambang, resumed operations on...