Asia - South China Morning Post

Indonesian authorities are widening their investigation into a case of suspected identity and research fraud at an overseas medical conference, which has exposed gaps in academic oversight and revived concerns about abuses in the nation’s system of publication-driven promotion for academia.

The Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology has set up a team to examine papers previously published by the alleged perpetrators, saying action would be taken if they were found to have used...

Malaysian Transport Minister Anthony Loke says success in Johor’s state polls will be measured by how many seats can be clawed away from Barisan Nasional (BN), imploring voters to seek a better power balance if they want a surer footing with Singapore, the economic powerhouse across the causeway that has soaked up its workers and industry.

Loke leads the Chinese-majority Democratic Action Party (DAP), a small but punchy partner in Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition...

South Korea may have lost Canada’s multibillion-dollar submarine order, but analysts say its close-run contest with Germany has handed Seoul a different prize: proof that it can challenge one of the world’s traditional undersea warfare powers on a stage watched closely by defence buyers.

Canada chose Germany’s Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems (TKMS) as the preferred bidder for a programme worth about US$40 billion to build up to 12 diesel-electric submarines, along with long-term maintenance and...

Singapore and Indonesia’s latest push to trade low-carbon electricity could become more than a bilateral energy deal, with analysts saying it might offer Southeast Asia a practical test case for a regional power grid that has long struggled to move from ambition to implementation.

The cooperation, centred on electricity-import deals and cross-border interconnector projects, is also expected to strengthen Singapore’s energy security and help the city state reach its sustainability goals, while...

India will supply Indonesia with long-range missiles, an Indian official said on Tuesday as their leaders agreed to deepen ties in defence, critical minerals and other areas.

President Prabowo Subianto is hosting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Jakarta during a three-day state visit, with a deal on the BrahMos missile system topping the agenda.

An agreement for “cooperation on BrahMos system” was struck during the visit, Indian foreign ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said in a post on...

India’s wildly popular digital payments system, which began as a way for people to send money instantly by phone, could help the country turn one of its biggest domestic technology successes into a tool of diplomacy, analysts say.

That opportunity is coming into focus in Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest economy, where officials are studying whether India’s low-cost digital systems can be adapted to their own needs.

The talks centre on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), India’s instant...

Malaysia’s former economy minister Rafizi Ramli and his breakaway party, Bersama, are unlikely to emerge as a credible third force in the country’s political landscape, but they could still siphon votes away from the reformist Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition led by Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.

Bersama’s first electoral test, in Johor on Saturday, will be watched less for the number of seats it wins than for the votes it might peel away from PH in multi-cornered contests, where analysts warn...

Sri Lanka launched an investigation on Tuesday into its deadliest prison riot in years, as the death toll from clashes between rival drug gangs rose to 27.

Armed police and commandos were not sent into the prison but were deployed to guard the perimeter of Negombo prison, as authorities tightened security following the clashes on Monday that also wounded more than 100.

Justice Minister Harshana Nanayakkara told parliament on Tuesday that a criminal investigation had begun alongside a...

Last week, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi led a business delegation to New Delhi for the 16th India-Japan annual summit. During last year’s summit in Tokyo, Takaichi’s predecessor, Shigeru Ishiba, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi outlined the Japan-India Joint Vision for the next decade – during which period India may see up to 10 trillion yen (US$62 billion) in investment from Japan.

Some of Japan’s most notable investments in India have been in the financial sector. Japanese...

South Korea’s Incheon International Airport achieved a historic milestone in global aviation by recording 1 billion cumulative passengers in the shortest period among the world’s major hub airports, the airport operator said on Tuesday.

According to Incheon International Airport Corp (IIAC), the airport crossed the 1 billion passenger mark just 25 years and three months after its opening in March 2001, outpacing all historic rival global hubs.

Germany’s Munich Airport required 33 years and 10...