Asia - South China Morning Post

Chinese energy companies are poised to play an important role in Southeast Asia’s ambitious green transition plans, which will see countries across the region integrate their power grids, according to a senior Singaporean official.

The strategy could eventually lead to a cross-regional network running all the way from Singapore to southern China via nations including Malaysia and Thailand, according to Puah Kok Keong, chief executive of the Energy Market Authority of Singapore – the city state’s...

For more than a decade, Jeffrey Ongoco has watched much of his daughter’s childhood unfold through a screen.

The 46-year-old, who works as a document controller for a construction company in Doha, left the Philippines in 2007 for a job in Saudi Arabia before moving to Qatar in 2010.

He and his wife work in Doha to support their 16-year-old daughter, who has lived in the Philippines since infancy, cared for by relatives in Bataan province, about 130km (80 miles) northwest of Manila.

It was a...

Months of disruption through the Strait of Hormuz have prompted a rethink of global supply chains, with South Korea now following China in pushing to commercialise the Arctic shipping route to Europe.

South Korea aimed to open a regular route through the waters by 2030, following a trial voyage set to debut later this year, according to a broader maritime development plan released on Tuesday by Seoul’s Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries.

“To prepare for the Arctic shipping era approaching after...

China’s military said on Wednesday that it had used measures including electronic interference to drive away a Dutch warship near the disputed Paracel Islands, and in a rare move accused the Dutch navy of triggering “miscalculation”.

The People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Southern Theatre Command, which oversees the South China Sea, said in a post on its official WeChat account on Wednesday evening that the Dutch frigate De Ruyter had “illegally intruded into China’s Xisha Islands” and that its...

A Cambodian court sentenced six Chinese men, reportedly from a scam-linked crime ring, to life in prison on Wednesday for the murder of a South Korean student last year.

The torture and killing of the college student in Cambodia sparked a public outcry in South Korea, which dispatched a task force to the Southeast Asian nation in an effort to jointly tackle transnational cyberscam networks.

The multibillion-dollar scam industry ballooned in Cambodia in recent years, with thousands of foreign...

A buffalo in Bangladesh nicknamed “Donald Trump” for its flowing blond hair has been spared from sacrifice after shooting to fame, and will instead be cared for at the national zoo.

Muslim-majority Bangladesh, a South Asian nation of 170 million people, celebrates Eid al-Adha, the “feast of the sacrifice”, on Thursday.

The 700kg (1,500-pound) bull, a rare albino buffalo with a flowing helmet of light hair resembling the signature look of the US president, was due to be slaughtered to mark the...

Former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte will face a crimes against humanity trial at the International Criminal Court from November 30, the presiding judge said on Wednesday.

Duterte faces three counts of crimes against humanity, with prosecutors alleging his involvement in at least 76 murders between 2013 and 2018 during his so-called “war on drugs”.

The 81-year-old will be the first Asian former head of state to face trial at the ICC, which prosecutes individuals for the world’s worst...

A wave of AI-generated deepfakes and fake endorsements has pushed Indian celebrities, from cricket stars to Bollywood actors, towards the courts seeking stronger protection for their name, image, voice and likeness.

Lawyers say the litigation has exposed a widening gap in Indian law, with courts increasingly recognising personality rights even though the country lacks a dedicated statute to enforce them.

The campaign gained momentum last December, when Indian cricket legend Sunil Gavaskar...

Five of the seven villagers trapped deep in a flooded cave in Laos for a week were found alive cramped on a rocky ledge on Wednesday afternoon, rescuers said, in a mission that included some of the same expert cave divers who saved a Thai youth football team in 2018.

Around 4.30pm, a Thai-led rescue team finally broke through to an area where they found five of the missing villagers perched on the ledge just above the floodwaters, after diving for four days and navigating swamped narrow passages...

At least six newborn babies died in the same hospital ward in Bangladesh within hours of each other on Wednesday, said health officials, who launched an investigation.

The newborns, aged between one and three days, were in the post-delivery ward of Ad-Din Hospital, a private facility in the capital Dhaka.

“An investigation is under way, and we need some time to determine the cause of the deaths of the newborns,” Nahida Yasmin, a director at the hospital, told reporters.

Prabhat Chandra Biswas,...