Asia - South China Morning Post

Three hikers – two Singaporeans and a local – died in an eruption on Friday of Indonesia’s Mount Dukono volcano where they found themselves in a no-go zone, officials said.

The eruption on Halmahera island sent an ash cloud about 10km (6.2 miles) into the air, with no towns or villages near enough to face any immediate threat.

Twenty hikers were on the slopes when disaster struck, North Halmahera police chief Erlichson Pasaribu told reporters at a volcano monitoring station in Mamuya...

The spectre of the global energy crisis loomed over the three-day Asean summit in the Philippines as regional leaders converge for a final day of talks in Cebu on Friday.

Analysts say that while some major flashpoints were addressed – with Thailand and Cambodia’s joint statement of solidarity being a bright spot – surging fuel costs as a result of the Iran war weighed heaviest on the minds of Southeast Asian leaders.

The fuel crisis was the “defining issue”, said Vu Lam, an Asean observer and...

North Korea said on Friday it would deploy new long-range artillery systems this year that were capable of striking South Korea’s capital region and would commission its first naval destroyer in coming weeks.

The announcement comes days after South Korea said the North’s newly revised constitution drops all references to Korean unification, in line with leader Kim Jong-un’s vows to terminate ties with South Korea and establish a two-state system on the Korean peninsula.

Kim visited a munitions...

A year after fending off a massive Indian air assault with the help of Chinese warplanes and missiles, the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) on Thursday unveiled plans to upgrade its fleet through further acquisitions of Chengdu J-10C fighters and substantial upgrades to the JF-17s co-produced by the two allies.

The PAF further confirmed that it has signed an “initial collaborative agreement” for the acquisition of fifth-generation Shenyang J-35 stealth fighter, without disclosing any details about the...

Sentiment is warming among some Southeast Asian members towards easing Myanmar’s isolation five years after a coup, with diplomats signalling a possible opening to bring the crisis-torn nation back into the fold.

Southeast Asian foreign ministers have agreed to a virtual meeting with their Myanmar counterpart, according to Asean’s secretary general on Thursday.

In an interview during the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit ‌in the Philippines on Thursday, Kao Kim Hourn said Myanmar had...

The young man on course to be Japan’s future emperor is attracting the attention of the country’s voracious media, with rumours of girlfriends and security challenges arising from life as a university student, and hints of unrest in the palace over succession.

Royalists say the media should leave 19-year-old Prince Hisahito alone to concentrate on his environmental studies course at the University of Tsukuba, while a debate mounts on whether the constitution should be altered to allow his cousin...

A bonfire of red tape to unleash investment and complete stalled projects across Vietnam may drive economic expansion but is unlikely to offset the damage caused by US tariffs and the fuel crisis which have threatened the country’s growth ambitions.

Vietnam’s Communist Party General-Secretary and President To Lam, the most powerful leader in a generation, has set an annual growth target of 10 per cent until 2030 to galvanise a nation whose ponderous bureaucracy has snarled private investment and...

Two Australian women “kept a female slave” after travelling to Syria in 2014 to support Islamic State, police said on Friday after the pair were charged in Melbourne.

The women returned to Australia on Thursday evening for the first time in almost a decade, travelling from a Syrian detention camp where they were stranded after the group’s collapse.

They were immediately arrested after their Qatar Airways flight landed at Melbourne International Airport.

Police accused the women – a mother and...

When the United States and the Philippines opened this year’s Balikatan exercises, the message travelled far beyond the parade ground. More than 17,000 troops are taking part in drills set to run until May 8. What matters is where the drills unfold, who has joined and what kind of regional habit they are helping to normalise.

Japan took part in its first Balitakan live-fire exercises. Australia, Canada, France and New Zealand were also active participants. Then the exercises moved closer to...

The leaders of Thailand and Cambodia agreed on Thursday to pursue trust-building measures to advance a fragile ceasefire and establish peace, after rare talks over last year’s deadly fighting between the two neighbours.

Troops remain deployed ‌on both sides of their long-disputed 817km (508-mile) border after battles in July and December when skirmishes quickly escalated into air strikes and heavy exchanges of artillery and rockets.

The Philippines, which is hosting Asean meetings on the island...