Asia - South China Morning Post

New Zealand’s interest in joining a newly signed defence pact between Australia and Fiji may mark the start of a broader hard security alliance covering the South Pacific, but analysts warn smaller states’ concerns are likely to go unaddressed.

The Ocean of Peace Alliance, signed by Australia and Fiji on July 6, binds Canberra and Suva to come to each other’s defence if attacked.

Days later, New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon welcomed the pact and signalled Wellington’s interest in...

A plan to cut the cost of domestic flights for foreign visitors to Nepal could end up making them more expensive for citizens, according to airline operators that warn against scrapping one of the country’s most contentious tourism pricing policies.

Under Nepal’s two-tier airfare system, foreign passengers must pay in US dollars for domestic flights, with prices usually two to three times higher than for Nepalis and sometimes even more, depending on the route and season.

In April, Minister for...

Phu Nhuan Jewellery, Vietnam’s largest listed jeweller, is facing a crisis of confidence after police detained the former head of its gem certification subsidiary over his alleged links to a transnational diamond-smuggling ring.

Shares in PNJ, as the company is known, have plummeted more than 25 per cent since news of the investigation broke in early July.

Police accuse Dang Ngoc Thao, the former director of wholly owned unit PNJ Laboratory, of involvement in a criminal network that allegedly...

A pilot of the major Japanese airline All Nippon Airways was sentenced to 20 months in prison on Tuesday for abusing his power to grope a female flight attendant after work.

The Tokyo District Court ruled that Ryota Mise, 44, acted in a “mean and persistent manner” towards the victim when he took advantage of his position as a captain and touched her genitals at various locations in Takamatsu, Kagawa prefecture, in October 2023.

The defendant had pleaded not guilty, with the defence arguing that...

Malaysia’s navy is preparing to take delivery of a warship fully equipped for anti-submarine, anti-air and electronic warfare – everything, that is, except a way to sink an enemy ship.

After nearly a decade of delays, financial scandal and shipyard mismanagement the Royal Malaysian Navy’s first littoral combat ship is finally due in December. But it will arrive missing any anti-ship missiles.

Norway’s decision to revoke the export licence for the planned Naval Strike Missile system has left...

Connectivity can be an ambiguous term. Different states use it in different ways at different times. In Southeast Asia, as in other regions where regional diplomacy exists in the backdrop of ever-stronger great power disputes, connectivity lies in the conflux of economics, trade necessities and the unyielding pressure of geopolitics.

In few countries is this more evident than in Cambodia, where investment in transport logistics has been a political and diplomatic fixture for at least two...

Singapore’s Home Affairs and Law Minister K. Shanmugam and Manpower Minister Tan See Leng said on Tuesday they would donate to charity the damages awarded to them in their defamation suit against Bloomberg.

In separate social media posts published on Tuesday night, hours after the High Court delivered its judgment, the ministers reiterated that the lawsuit was about protecting their integrity and reputations, as well as the standing of their ministerial offices.

Earlier on Tuesday, the High...

Thousands of Indonesian free meals kitchens complained on Tuesday they had ⁠been left in the lurch ⁠by the government’s move to scale ⁠down President Prabowo Subianto’s flagship free meals programme to save money.

Jakarta is considering a potential budget cut of more than US$2 billion with reductions in the number of beneficiaries and kitchen operators.

There are currently nearly 28,000 kitchens ‌and the National Nutrition Agency (NNA) plans to temporarily halt the addition of 13,000 new...

An American marine biologist was shot and killed by three men who barged into his house in the central Philippines over the weekend and efforts were underway to apprehend the suspects, police said on Tuesday.

Police said Kent Carpenter, 73, was with his Filipino companion in a house in the coastal town of Sibulan in Negros Oriental province on Sunday night when three men, whose faces were covered, forced their way in.

One drew a gun and shot Carpenter in the head, killing him instantly, police...

Indonesia’s Ministry of Religious Affairs is drafting educational material aimed at discouraging what officials call the spread of “LGBT culture”, after a presidential regulation listed the issue among the country’s non-military security threats.

Officials said the content, which was still under discussion, could be included in religious education in regular and Islamic schools, as well as Friday prayer sermons, family development programmes and other religious events.

The government has said...