Asia - South China Morning Post

Energy exploration has picked up sharply in Australia, driven ⁠by growing Asian gas demand, technological advances and an improved investment climate, with the Iran war ⁠underscoring the urgency to develop supply after years of sluggish spending.

Quarterly oil and gas exploration spending in Australia, the world’s No 2 liquefied natural gas producer, hit a 10-year high of A$471 million (US$324 million) in the March quarter, government data released in June showed.

Energy investment sentiment has...

Victor Lee is not the kind of man to leave behind his family without a reason, but the 34-year-old Filipino has done the sums and decided where life must take him next: Lithuania.

His wife does not want him to go. She will be left to care for their child, with a video call standing in for a husband, while Lee hauls cargo through the seaports of the Baltic. His paperwork is nearly done. He has finished his training as a heavy transport operator. He is going.

“It’s getting harder and harder to...

Turkish police on Sunday detained at least 50 people, including a journalist, during a Gay Pride event in Istanbul that went ahead despite a ban by local authorities and the lockdown of the city’s main gathering point, organisers said.

Police stepped up security around Istanbul’s famed Taksim Square, erecting iron barriers, while local officials banned demonstrations in key rallying areas, including the Asian-side district of Kadikoy. The governor’s office also restricted subway transport in...

In his greatest test since taking the helm of the Workers’ Party (WP) in 2018, secretary general Pritam Singh has survived by a landslide a vote of no confidence within his party, inside sources have confirmed.

The Aljunied MP, who leads Singapore’s most prominent opposition party, faced a special conference on Sunday morning called by 25 cadre members who were pushing for him to step down for breaching the WP’s constitution.

Sources confirmed that about 79 per cent of the 107 cadres present...

The family of a 17-year-old Thai ⁠girl whose body ⁠was found in a suitcase ⁠in Pattaya said they were devastated by her death, for which an Australian man has been arrested and charged with murder.

Thai police said they arrested an Australian man in his 40s at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport ‌early on Saturday in connection with the killing in Pattaya, about 150km (93 miles) east of Bangkok.

The suspect, identified as Simon Peter Carman, faces charges of murder, concealment of a body, moving or...

It has been 25 years since Indonesia’s Liberal Islam Network (Jaringan Islam Liberal or JIL) was established in March 2001, just three years after Reformasi.

The intellectual network has been in disarray for much of the past decade, reflecting the current state of Indonesia’s broader liberal and progressive Islamic movement. The old guard, represented by the establishments within Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah, faces elite co-option as they seek access to state resources while also...

For a growing number of Singaporeans, furnishing a new home has become reason enough to book a holiday.

Not the sort involving beach clubs or Michelin-starred restaurants. Instead, these design-savvy travellers are flying to China armed with camera rolls full of sofa and cabinetry photos, meticulously curated Pinterest boards and floor plans marked with dimensions down to the centimetre, all in pursuit of custom-made furnishings for their homes.

Blame it on our collective obsession with our...

The last time Pakistan’s navy operated a submarine in the Bay of Bengal, India sank it. That was 1971. Fifty-five years on, Islamabad is signalling its intent to go back.

The vessel delivering that message, PNS Hangor, arrived in Karachi on June 11, the first of a class of eight attack submarines – four built in China, with the remainder to be constructed in Pakistan to develop its shipbuilding capacity.

PNS Hangor is named after an earlier Daphne-class submarine that sank the Indian frigate INS...

Chadchart Sittipunt cruised back into Bangkok’s governor’s office late on Sunday after residents overwhelmingly backed him for a second term running the Southeast Asian megacity, despite its unresolved problems of floods, traffic and pollution.

In an election contest that had become a procession by late Sunday, exit polls put Chadchart on between 53 and 75 per cent of the vote, as early live counts in district after district showed the former transport minister with virtually unassailable leads...

A recent apology by the Dutch prime minister to the Netherlands’ Malukan community for systemic mistreatment by the state has met with mixed responses; some welcomed the remorse while others demanded concrete action over symbolic words.

On June 21, Rob Jetten formally apologised to members of the 75,000-strong Malukan community for the state’s mistreatment of the first generation of Malukans who arrived in Europe 75 years ago from the Maluku Islands in Indonesia, historically known as the Spice...