Asia - South China Morning Post

Malaysia’s Johor election has opened a new front in the country’s long-running racial politics, after former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad and Islamist party PAS urged voters to put “Malay-Muslim political power” ahead of party loyalty in one of the country’s most closely watched state polls.

The southern state, which borders Singapore and sits at the centre of Malaysia’s cross-border growth plans, is also a stronghold for the United Malays National Organisation.

The Barisan Nasional (BN)...

Just days after she last saw a girl, known to her friends as Cake, on Pattaya Beach, Ning began to realise the unfolding horrors that shocked Thailand.

Ning said she regularly saw the teenager at the beach, where many young women gathered daily, drawn to the Thai resort city’s neon-lit nightlife as an escape from unemployment.

On Saturday, the 17-year-old was found dead, her body placed inside a black suitcase and dumped in scrubland beside a railway track.

“I would see her often. I didn’t...

Singapore authorities have seized a so-called Good Class Bungalow (GCB) valued at around S$55 million (US$42.4 million) and around S$1 million (US$770,000) of funds in connection with a fraud conspiracy, the police said on Wednesday.

The case has been linked to the movement of Nvidia chips in contravention of US export controls.

GCBs are among the most prestigious type of housing in Singapore, with authorities imposing key planning constraints.

It is understood that the seized GCB is located at...

The chief executive of Singapore’s largest and oldest telecommunications company took a pay cut last year despite the company posting a sharp rise in profits, after a series of network failures dented its operational record.

Singtel CEO Yuen Kuan Moon received S$6.8 million (US$5.3 million) for the financial year ended March 31, down 16.9 per cent from S$8.2 million a year earlier, according to the company’s annual report released on Tuesday and first reported by The Straits Times.

The pay cut...

One year after lifting its long-standing two-child limit, Vietnam is offering incentives for people to have more babies as the communist country risks getting old before it gets rich.

A new population law and regulations coming into effect on Wednesday extend maternity leave from six to seven months for mothers having a second child as well as offering financial help.

If Hanoi residents Nguyen Kim Bich and her husband have a second child, she will get an extra month of maternity leave, free...

Oman Air is looking to capitalise ⁠on the Gulf ⁠state’s appeal as a largely ⁠untapped tourism destination as it launches flights from Muscat to Singapore on Thursday and considers an expansion to North Asia over the next year.

The new nonstop Singapore service was underpinned by a lower cost ‌base and the airline’s year-old membership in the Oneworld alliance to aid with connections, as serving the city state with a stopover in Kuala Lumpur failed nine years ago, Oman Air CEO Con Korfiatis said...

Norman Wong sold his Hong Kong flat and relocated to a rented home in Malaysia after concluding the city no longer offered the quality of life he expected for the price.

“What am I actually getting for this money in terms of quality of life?” asked Wong, a healthcare professional from Kowloon.

“Space is at a premium in Hong Kong that most of us have simply accepted as the norm. When I started seriously looking at Malaysia, I realised I didn’t have to accept that any more.”

Wong is part of a...

In a tiny Tokyo restaurant filled with the smell of Nepalese dumplings, Budhathoki Samjhana surveys the business she built from scratch but may now have to give up as Japan tightens visa rules.

Even though Japan has a rapidly ageing population and is suffering labour shortages in many sectors, opposition to immigration is growing and the new rules for business manager visas were introduced by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party in late 2025.

Nepalese national Budhathoki, who spent a decade away...

An investigation into alleged financial irregularities at a Hindu temple closely associated with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is threatening to tarnish one of his party’s signature projects.

Two office bearers at the Ram Temple in Ayodhya have resigned, while police arrested eight officials of the trust managing the site after allegations of embezzlement surfaced earlier this month, a person familiar with the matter said, who asked not to be identified because the investigation was...

A viral YouTube video, a one-star review on a delivery app, a heated post on a parenting community – all of these will fall under the same legal standard in South Korea starting next Tuesday.

The revised Information and Communications Network Act, widely known as the “fake news” law, introduces punitive damages for YouTubers with more than 100,000 subscribers and high-traffic TikTok accounts if they display what authorities define as “unlawful” content. Platforms such as Naver, Kakao, Google and...