Asia - South China Morning Post

Nepal’s new leader vowed on Sunday to follow protesters’ demands to “end corruption” as she began work as interim prime minister after “Gen Z” youth demonstrations ousted her predecessor.

Sushila Karki, the 73-year-old former chief justice, has been tasked with restoring order and addressing protesters’ demands for a corruption-free future ahead of elections in six months.

Protests began on Monday, sparked by a ban on social media, which quickly escalated, with parliament and key government...

A top US diplomat expressed regret on Sunday over an immigration raid in the state of Georgia that detained hundreds of South Korean workers and proposed making the event a turning point to strengthen bilateral relations, South Korea said.

In a meeting in Seoul, First Vice Foreign Minister Park Yoon-joo urged Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau to push forward bilateral discussions on follow-up measures, including a new visa category, the foreign ministry said in a statement. Some 300...

The Trump administration’s widening immigration enforcement in the United States has led to gruelling grilling and mass deportations of Filipino seafarers over unproven child pornography accusations, sparking calls for transparency and justice from labour advocacy groups.

Marcelo Morales was resting in his cabin on the cruise ship Carnival Sunshine docked at Norfolk, Virginia, when two armed agents of the US Customs and Border Protection picked him up for an “interview” on June 28.

“I spent...

Over the past year, the US has moved to expand cooperation with Central Asian countries on critical minerals. This is being done in an effort to limit China’s chokehold on the resources that are critical to a range of industries where Beijing and Washington are locked in competition.

Yet, the United States is lagging behind China in Central Asia. Beijing has long developed an efficient strategy to position itself as a dominant actor in the region’s critical minerals sector. Uzbekistan is a key...

The toy market in Japan is on an upwards trend despite the country’s declining birth rate, boosted by robust demand from adults seeing gadgets as an affordable hobby and a means to connect with others via social media, a research firm said.

The market in the 2024 financial year grew 7.9 per cent from a year earlier to a record 1.1 trillion yen (US$7.4 billion), led by trading cards and character merchandise, expanding 36 per cent from 10 years ago, according to the Japan Toy Association.

Other...

A growing wave of anger in the Philippines over corruption-tainted flood control projects is spurring activism among university students and other Filipinos that observers say evokes the spirit of past political uprisings.

At the University of the Philippines’ main campus in Quezon City, over 3,000 students and lecturers left their classrooms to rally on Friday against what they described as systemic corruption.

The university has long been a cradle of student activism and political dissent. Its...

China has issued four travel advisories warning of risks in the Philippines since April, with analysts saying that two-way trade, investment and higher education exchanges could slow if they are heeded by Chinese citizens.

The latest notice, issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on August 30, described public security in the Philippines as “unstable” with “numerous crimes targeting Chinese citizens”. A similar advisory went out on April 1, and the Ministry of Education issued warnings in...

Manila has spent billions on modernising its armed forces, but a new report warns the Philippines still leans too heavily on American protection – a gamble fraught with risk as US President Donald Trump repeatedly questions the value of old alliances.

The Southeast Asian nation’s ability to counter China’s growing assertiveness remains in doubt, according to the assessment by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group think tank, which found that the Philippines’ security strategy is still...

Former Daegu mayor Hong Joon-pyo has described the recent arrests and detentions of South Korean workers in Georgia as an “intentional provocation” by the United States, calling for Seoul to consider its own nuclear weapons programme.

“The Georgia incident occurred right after the Korea-US summit. It cannot be dismissed as anything other than an intentional provocation,” Hong wrote on his social media account on Saturday.

“No matter how pro-China or pro-North Korea this administration may be,...

South Korea’s new restrictions on foreign homebuyers are likely to cool housing prices in Seoul and neighbouring cities, according to property agents, following a surge in the number of buyers from mainland China and Hong Kong who bought homes in the middle and high-end segments of the market.

Hongkongers and mainland Chinese had acquired 96,955 properties in South Korea as of May, a 78.5 per cent increase from the 54,320 real estate assets that they owned in 2020, according to a report by The...