Asia - South China Morning Post

In an industry built on going global, K-pop’s freshest phenomenon has succeeded by doing the exact opposite: staying home.

Rescene, a five-member girl group from little-known agency The Muze Entertainment, debuted in 2024 but largely flew under the radar until recently.

Now, they are the talk of the town – chart-toppers, brand ambassadors and a name that is suddenly inescapable across South Korea.

No stadium tours preceded their rapid ascent from relative obscurity. No Hybe-scale marketing...

Japan’s tourism boom has packed the streets of Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka with foreign visitors, but one of the country’s most scenic regions is still struggling to draw them north.

Tohoku, the northern region of Japan’s main island of Honshu, comprises Aomori, Iwate, Miyagi, Akita, Yamagata and Fukushima prefectures – an area known for mountains, hot springs, skiing, festivals and a slower rural pace of life.

Of the record 42.7 million foreign visitors to Japan last year, just 2.57 million –...

Bali has “aura” and political titan Luhut Pandjaitan wants to channel it to transform Indonesia’s famed resort island into an international financial centre.

But President Prabowo Subianto’s special adviser and economic tsar is not relying on subtle nods to Gen Z slang to sell paradise. Instead, he conjures up a striking image to make his case.

A friend recently sent him a photograph of kamikaze drones lighting up the skies over Abu Dhabi, accompanied by a plea: help us get out.

Indonesia,...

India’s Akasa Air and Malaysia’s AirBorneo are pressing ahead with expansion plans despite soaring jet fuel prices and disruption from the US-Israel war on Iran, in a development analysts say shows smaller Asian carriers finding room to grow while larger airlines grapple with capacity constraints.

Akasa Air, India’s youngest airline, said last week that it was seeking to raise 10.5 billion rupees (US$110 million) through equity and debt, including loans from state-run banks, to fund its...

A tornado tore through an industrial site in Batam, Indonesia, ripping roofing from workshop facilities and sending helmeted workers running for cover as weather officials warned that unstable conditions could trigger further sudden storms.

The short-lived wind vortex, described locally as a puting beliung, struck VME Process in Tanjung Sengkuang, Batu Ampar, at about 10am on Wednesday, damaging workers’ shelters and scattering construction materials across the site, according to Indonesian...

Southeast Asia’s governments have spent months trying to blunt the effects of war-driven energy shocks from the Middle East, but renewed fighting between the United States and Iran has exposed how limited those defences are, analysts have warned.

The latest flare-up has revived fears of a second round of fuel disruption across the region, where many economies remain heavily dependent on imported oil and shipping routes linked to the Gulf.

Southeast Asian leaders expressed “grave concern” over...

Malaysia has ordered the UN refugee agency to stop registering new refugees while it builds a biometric identification system that officials say will give them greater control over a population of more than 215,000 displaced people.

But rights advocates warn the freeze risks leaving newly arrived asylum seekers with no way to prove they need protection, opening a dangerous gap in a country that does not accord them formal legal status.

The cabinet ordered the United Nations High Commissioner for...

Japan’s move to establish a new bureau to boost defence cooperation with allies is part of Tokyo’s wider policy to deepen deterrence against China, analysts say, adding that the internal reform was also long overdue for the government.

The new unit will be under the defence ministry to oversee international coordination with like-minded countries, according to government and political sources cited by local media earlier this month.

The move is said to be aimed at strengthening the ministry’s...

First, the US-Israeli war on Iran sparked a Diet Coke shortage in India by squeezing supplies of aluminium cans, triggering an unusual wave of “Diet Coke parties” in one of the world’s largest consumer markets.

But now, the fizzy drink is getting pricier.

Across India, Coca-Cola has hiked prices of ‌Diet Coke – sold predominantly in aluminium cans in the country – by more than 10 per cent due to the ongoing Middle East conflict, which has choked its supply chain. As a result, the company had...

A ⁠South ⁠Korean court ⁠on Friday ordered SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won to pay his former ‌wife Roh Soh-yeong 944 billion won (US$644 million) in a divorce-related property division case, lower than a previous 1.38 trillion won ⁠award that had drawn scrutiny of his stake in the group’s holding company.

If finalised, the ruling from the Seoul High Court would be South Korea’s most expensive divorce ever. Chey is worth about US$5.6 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with his...