Asia - South China Morning Post

On a quiet March morning at Incheon International Airport, the head of a government agency responsible for administering industrial accident insurance stood before a memorial adorned with flowers and a photo of Nguyen Van Tuan.

The 23-year-old Vietnamese worker had died 10 days earlier in a conveyor belt accident at a gravel factory in Icheon, Gyeonggi province.

Korea Workers’ Compensation and Welfare Service (K-Comwel) President Park Jong-kil bowed deeply, offered flowers and placed his hand on...

AI skills are becoming a clear salary advantage for Singapore’s software engineers, with those who have such capabilities earning up to 25 per cent more than their peers, according to a new salary report by NodeFlair.

The Singapore-based tech talent platform said its findings came from more than 230,000 verified data points and showed software engineers with AI expertise commanded a 13 to 25 per cent pay premium across experience levels.

That marks a shift from 2024, when rising demand for AI...

Japan’s prime minister is set to arrive in Australia to strengthen ties with one of her country’s strongest allies as she seeks to build on an updated regional strategy laid out in Vietnam.

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is scheduled to touch down late on Sunday local time in Canberra for the three-day visit, which will focus on defence, critical minerals and broader economic security. The two countries have grown increasingly concerned about the changing security and economic environment in the...

A woman carrying a knife has been arrested after being tackled by the crowd during the Rain Rave Water Music Festival in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday night.

In a viral video, a man can be seen attempting to disarm the woman.

Several others from the crowd, along with security personnel, then joined in to restrain her until the police arrived.

She was seen being arrested shortly after.

Kuala Lumpur police chief Fadil Marsus reportedly confirmed the arrest of the 28-year-old woman for possession of a...

Astronomers in Japan have recently launched what they say is the country’s first organisation dedicated to the search for alien life, with radio observations planned in the summer next year.

“They must exist somewhere in the universe. I’m excited to be putting this into action,” said Shinya Narusawa, an astrophysical expert at the University of Hyogo and head of the Japanese Society for SETI – the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

Narusawa, a 61-year-old leading expert in the SETI field,...

Across Bangkok, aromas of garlic, chilli and grilled meat drift from roadside stalls and carts, but tighter controls on vendors threaten livelihoods and the street food culture that defines the Thai capital.

Convenient, full of flavour and popular among locals and tourists alike, Bangkok’s street food is one of the city’s signatures, where sizzling woks and smoky charcoal grills turn boulevards and pavements into open-air kitchens from morning until late at night.

But many street sellers in the...

Rising youth suicides in Manila, fuelled by emotional distress and digital triggers, have spurred calls to expand support for vulnerable Filipinos, as the deeply religious country begins to confront mental health more openly.

In 2018, Macy Castaneda Lee, a 16-year-old Manila high school student, thought about ending it all after grappling with past trauma, including childhood molestation.

Now a journalist and founder of the mental health advocacy group Talang Dalisay, Lee has turned that ordeal...

In India, cuddly and colourful animals are paraded across Instagram, Facebook and YouTube channels, where free advice is shared on how to raise a lemur – or what to feed an iguana – in congested megacities far from forest habitats.

Cuteness has become a commodity in Asia’s social media world, with Thailand’s main airport emerging as a reluctant hub for wild animal smuggling.

On Wednesday, a 19-year-old passenger bound for Taipei tried to evade security at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport with...

Japan and China are Asian powerhouses that should collaborate responsibly for the peace and prosperity of the region. However, bilateral relations have experienced ups and downs since the start of the century and are now at their lowest point after normalisation in 1972. A major cause of this is the widening perception and information gap between the two nations that needs to be addressed through direct people-to-people contact.

Some, perhaps many, misunderstand that Japan and China are always...

When Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto recently visited Seoul for a state visit, one of the most memorable moments was a photo that he took with a 19-year-old Indonesian K-pop idol.

Nyoman Ayu Carmenita, better known as Carmen of the girl group Hearts2Hearts, symbolises Indonesia’s ascendancy in the K-pop universe: no longer just a vast market for the genre’s stars, with the country increasingly playing a part in the industry’s global growth.

Foreign Minister Sugiono said on April 22 that...