Asia - South China Morning Post

Homes in New Zealand’s capital were flooded with faeces and sanitary products on Friday after an overnight storm blocked waste water pipes, the city’s utilities company said.

Wellington Water said the waste water overflow in the picturesque suburb of Island Bay was the result of a blocked main.

It said five properties were affected by the overflow and its crews were working to remove the faeces and sanitary products and disinfect the homes.

“There is a suction truck on-site at the overflow,”...

A revision to Malaysia’s public university admissions rules has reopened one of the multicultural country’s most sensitive political debates: how far its national education system should accommodate Chinese-language schooling.

Malaysia’s government on May 15 said students from Chinese independent secondary schools could apply to public universities through specified pathways using the Unified Examination Certificate (UEC), the school-leaving qualification used by those institutions.

The decision...

Asia-Pacific is expected to drive global retail sales over the next five years, even as the Middle East conflict is hurting consumer confidence, according to business analysts.

The war could continue to weigh on consumer and business sentiment for now due to higher energy prices and supply chain disruption, Anand Ramanathan, Deloitte Asia-Pacific’s retail and consumer products sector leader, said in an interview.

“As borrowing costs rise and financial conditions tighten, consumers and businesses...

South Korea’s Ministry of Justice on Tuesday sought to defuse criticism over a 1.2 billion won (US$779,162) plan to install air conditioning in prisons, clarifying the equipment will cool corridors, not inmates’ cells.

The ministry framed the installation as a minimal measure to protect vulnerable inmates and correctional officers from extreme heat, while online critics condemned the taxpayer-funded project as an unfair convenience for criminals.

The ministry said the equipment will be installed...

The recent deaths of two men from crocodile attacks in North Sumatra have put a spotlight on Indonesia’s record as the country with the world’s highest number of such killings annually, raising questions over whether habitat destruction is pushing people and wildlife into increasingly dangerous contact.

Environmental groups said the deaths reflected a wider pattern across the archipelago, where logging, plantations and other land-use changes had destabilised ecosystems.

The first incident was on...

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is considering visiting India early next month to meet with her counterpart Narendra Modi to discuss cooperation on strengthening supply chains of critical goods given concerns about China’s economic coercion, government sources said on Thursday.

Takaichi aims to deepen bilateral collaboration in a wide range of fields covering defence, economic issues and cutting-edge technologies such as semiconductors and artificial intelligence, according to the...

A new India-US pact on critical minerals has put the spotlight on New Delhi’s potential as an alternative to China, but analysts say despite the country’s significant resources, it is unlikely to dent Beijing’s dominance in the sector any time soon.

Delhi and Washington signed a framework agreement on May 26 during US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s visit to India to secure supplies of critical minerals and rare earths, including their mining and processing.

According to a US embassy statement,...

A ⁠dozen people ⁠have died in a fire at a home for older people in ‌Sri Lanka, police said on Thursday, while another eight have been hospitalised.

The fire, which broke out at ⁠a home in Anguruwatota 55km (34 miles) from the commercial capital Colombo, ‌has been put out and ⁠the ⁠director of the establishment has ‌been arrested, police said.

“A total of 51 ‌people were ‌rescued from the ‌home and they are being ⁠looked after by the military ⁠and public officials in the area,” police...

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung’s ruling party swept most of the country’s major local elections, but a narrow defeat in Seoul has given conservatives a foothold to challenge his reform agenda.

The loss in the capital, South Korea’s political and property-market centre, has taken the shine off an otherwise dominant performance by the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), dealing a blow to Lee’s plans for tougher real estate taxation, according to observers.

Across the country, the DPK won...