Asia - South China Morning Post

Three people ⁠were killed ⁠and one was ⁠injured in an accident during lifeboat maintenance work at a floating storage and offloading (FSO) vessel operated by Malaysian state energy ‌firm Petronas on Sunday, the firm said.

Petronas, or Petroliam Nasional Berhad, said in a statement on Monday the incident occurred around 12.50pm at FSO Sepat off Terengganu state on the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia.

Three ‌workers were pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital, while the injured ‌staff member...

Each morning, people in Thailand wake up to the latest viral videos on social media of drunken punch-ups, thefts, scams or acts of public indecency committed by some foreign tourists.

After months of warnings, Thailand on May 19 announced the cancellation of its 60-day visa-free entry rules for 93 countries and territories in a bid to curb crime, antisocial behaviour and abuse of the visa privilege by a portion of the tens of millions of tourists who have visited the kingdom annually.

Visitors...

Singapore’s economy expanded faster than expected in the first quarter as the global artificial-intelligence boom lifted the nation’s manufacturing and services, offsetting the drag from higher crude prices.

Gross domestic product grew a seasonally adjusted 1 per cent in the three months through March from the previous quarter, the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) said on Monday.

That is well above the government’s advance estimate of a 0.3 per cent contraction and the median forecast of a...

A photographer shooting the final day of the World Surf League (WSL) in New ⁠Zealand was injured by what organisers suspect was a sea lion or shark bite on Monday, forcing the event to be put on hold for several hours.

The New Zealand Pro semi-final between Brazilian world champions Yago Dora and Italo Ferreira at Raglan was halted after the ‌in-water photographer suffered puncture wounds and needed medical attention, the WSL said.

“This morning one of the water photography team suffered a...

Southeast Asia has been planning a unified electricity grid since 1997. Now, nearly 30 years later, its leaders are giving renewed impetus to the push to get energy flowing seamlessly across borders and seabeds.

In Cebu earlier this month, leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations put the power grid’s development high on their summit agenda, aiming to better insulate the region against the next big energy shock.

But as regional governments try to turn the decades-long dream of an...

A blast targeting a train carrying military personnel killed at least 24 people on Sunday in Pakistan’s turbulent southwestern province of Balochistan, a senior official said.

Army servicemen and their relatives were among the victims of the attack in the provincial capital Quetta, with over 50 people wounded, the official told AFP.

The attack, claimed by the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) militant group, was branded a “cowardly” act of terrorism by Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

Images...

Japan’s immigration authorities plan to crack down on visa overstayers and illegal foreign workers by monitoring social media and other platforms for information or leads.

The initiative is part of the country’s efforts to reduce the number of overstayers at a time when Japan is taking in more foreign workers due to labour shortages.

As early as next year, the Immigration Services Agency plans to use analytical tools to identify online information related to illegal work, including solicitations...

Population ageing is fast becoming a global phenomenon. Even regions currently enjoying youthful demographics will eventually undergo demographic transition – and this is increasingly relevant for developing countries too.

Some Southeast Asian economies, Thailand and Vietnam among them, have already reached the intermediate stages of this transition. It has begun even in younger economies such as the Philippines, where the fertility rate has now fallen below replacement level.

Conventional...

A nine-storey building under construction in a city north of the Philippine capital collapsed before dawn on Sunday, leaving at least one Malaysian tourist dead and at least 21 people, mostly workers, trapped in the rubble, officials said.

Two were located alive but could not be immediately extricated.

At least 24 workers either managed to dash out of the building, where they mostly slept on the ground floor, or were rescued after it crumbled to the ground around 2:30am in a crowded...

A US plan to build an “AI-native” industrial hub in the Philippines has highlighted the political sensitivities around Washington’s push to secure critical technology supply chains, after Manila rejected proposals for the zone to be governed by US laws or covered by diplomatic protections.

Philippine officials said the planned economic security zone under Washington’s Pax Silica initiative would remain covered by local laws, clarifying that there would be “no special arrangement” for the...