Asia - South China Morning Post

A fire that broke out at a primary school in Tokyo on Friday, injuring eight pupils and two teachers before being extinguished, authorities said.

The fire was reported around 11am, according to the local fire department. It started in a room next to the music room on the top floor of Takinogawa Dai-san Elementary School in the Kita area of the Japanese capital.

It was extinguished at around 1.45pm, with 75 fire engines and dozens of firefighters at the scene.

Most of the injured suffered from...

Filipinos are losing faith in the news faster than audiences almost anywhere else in the world, as analysts attribute the decline to years of sustained attacks on the Philippine media industry and the growing reach of influence operations on social media.

Only 28 per cent of Filipinos said they trusted news most of the time, down from 38 per cent in 2025, according to the latest Reuters Institute Digital News Report – the steepest decline among respondents across 48 markets.

The figure placed...

Ghost nets and plastic pollution plague Indonesia’s Anambas Islands, harming marine life and exposing the gap between regional pledges and enforcement. This environmental crisis is further worsened by rapidly surging growth-driven consumption, campaigners say.

Devina Mariskova, head of Yayasan Anambas, said the nets are often thrown from vessels off the coasts of surrounding countries, largely placing the burden of collecting them on the small island chain’s coastal communities and...

Malaysian police arrested 58 people and seized more than half a million ringgit (US$124,000) in illicit proceeds in a World Cup gambling sweep as authorities in Southeast Asia crack down on illegal football betting during the tournament.

Malaysia, where unlicensed betting is a criminal offence, has been bracing for a rise in illegal sports wagers, with the quadrennial spectacle attracting punters to betting sites and apps.

Bukit Aman Criminal Investigation Department director M. Kumar said...

Foreign trawlers slip into waters off the Malaysian state of Terengganu under cover of darkness, local fishermen say, working near Pulau Redang and Pulau Bidong before leaving by dawn to avoid detection.

The incursions have become a recurring problem for fishermen along the eastern coast of Peninsular Malaysia, where the South China Sea separates Malaysia from Vietnam by just hundreds of kilometres.

Alias Yahya, who sits on the board of the Terengganu fishermen’s group Penentu, said members had...

Yusran first learned of the danger facing his teenage cousin, Elmi Febrianti, at an Indonesian tourist attraction in South Sulawesi when he received a frantic phone call from a family member.

Elmi, a 17-year-old Indonesian student, had been at a popular photo spot in Apparalang, Bulukumba regency, when she fell into the sea on the afternoon of June 7 while taking a selfie on the area’s picturesque limestone cliffs.

A friend who had been with the teenager at the time called her family, one of...

South Korean police have taken the rare step of placing three 12-year-old boys in juvenile facilities after they allegedly stole cars and drove without licences in two separate incidents within a week, underscoring growing concern over serious offences committed by children too young to face criminal prosecution.

Police in Cheonan, a city about 90km south of Seoul, said on June 17 that the boys had been placed in juvenile protection facilities following a series of car thefts in May.

“These...

A recent survey in Japan and South Korea has revealed that strategic elites in both countries remain sceptical about developing nuclear weapons.

However, should one of the two countries take the lead in acquiring nuclear weapons, support for such a move in the other country could rise rapidly, according to the survey published on Thursday by Washington-based think tank the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

The impact of such a move could potentially exceed that of a...

North Korea’s Kim ⁠Yo-jong, the powerful sister of leader Kim Jong-un, condemned a G7 call for the country’s denuclearisation as a violation of its constitution and an infringement of ‌sovereignty, state media KCNA said on Thursday.

Kim said denuclearisation was an “irreversibly finalised agenda” that could never be realised, and that nuclear possession was North Korea’s core interest and an irreversible line, the statement carried by KCNA said.

“Denuclearisation is the line ⁠of no retreat that...

A Vietnamese police operation rescued about 400 pet cats destined for the dinner plate, uncovering a nationwide racket fuelling the country’s rampant pet meat trade that uses a criminal corridor running from the south to the north.

Hundreds of desperate cat owners rushed to a Ho Chi Minh police headquarters over the weekend to see if their lost pet was among the cats rescued from traffickers by police.

In what is believed to be one of the largest busts of its kind, police said the cats were...