Asia - South China Morning Post

More than 15 per cent of hospitals and long-term medical care facilities across Japan have recorded cases of sexual assault or abuse of patients, according to a new government report, as concerns mount that the actual figures may be higher.

The Children and Families Agency released the results of the survey – the first of its kind – on Tuesday, with 1,113 institutions of the 5,000 invited to take part providing responses.

Many of the incidents involved medical staff in psychiatry and...

Myanmar’s detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been moved to house arrest, state media reported on Thursday, over five years after the country’s military ousted a civilian government led by the Nobel laureate and imprisoned her.

Suu Kyi, 80, has been detained by ‌the junta since and her whereabouts have been unclear amid a deadly civil war that was triggered by the February 2021 coup that has engulfed much of the impoverished Southeast Asian nation.

“… the remaining portion of Daw Aung...

Roblox, a gaming platform popular with kids, announced Thursday that children under 16 in Indonesia will be required to undergo facial scans to verify their age to comply with new restrictions on minors’ use of social media and digital platforms in the country.

Nicky Jackson Colaco, Roblox’s vice-president and global head of public policy, announced the changes in a press conference in Jakarta, describing them among the strictest that the company has implemented anywhere in the world.

She said...

Pakistan’s bid to mediate between the US and Iran has put Islamabad near the centre of efforts to defuse the Middle East conflict, but with no lasting peace yet in sight, its fragile economy is becoming increasingly exposed to the fallout from the war.

While soaring oil prices and disrupted flows through the Strait of Hormuz have led to turmoil in global energy markets, analysts said Pakistan has especially limited room to absorb the blow because of its thin foreign exchange reserves, dependence...

Brics’ inability to speak with one voice on the Middle East conflict has become a stern test of India’s leadership of the bloc, exposing the challenge of building consensus among its 10 members with divergent interests and concerns.

The bloc could not agree on a common position on the war at a meeting of Brics officials to discuss Middle East and North Africa issues in New Delhi last week.

Brics has long sought to present itself as a voice for the Global South as frustrations with the US-led...

Australian police ⁠said on Thursday they have found a ⁠body believed to be that of a missing five-year-old indigenous girl and were searching for the man who allegedly murdered her.

The girl, now referred to by her family as Kumanjayi Little Baby in line with Indigenous customs, was reported missing from her home in ‌a remote community in central Australia late on Saturday.

Police said they located a body of a young Indigenous girl they believed was hers shortly before midday on Thursday about...

A viral appearance in the swimsuit round by a male beauty pageant contestant in the Philippines has sparked a wider debate about male beauty standards and whether pageantry is ready to make room for people who do not fit its traditional ideals.

RJ Perkins, 21, drew widespread attention after a video showed him strutting across an outdoor stage during the swimwear segment of Mister Pampanga, held in the province of Pampanga, north of Manila.

Unlike the chiselled bodies typically associated with...

As a rift widens among Republicans over US-Israeli air strikes on Iran, a top Korean-American leader said Seoul must recognise that President Donald Trump is heavily influenced by a faction he calls “new neocons”.

Conservative commentator Tucker Carlson broke sharply with the president in a Wall Street Journal interview on Saturday, calling him a “slave” to hawkish interventionists willing to deploy military force.

Kim Dong-seok, the 68-year-old head of the Korean American Grassroots Conference,...

A 24-year-old Malaysian woman has been jailed for two years for throwing her newborn out of her 38th-floor flat in Kuala Lumpur.

The court on Wednesday convicted Lua Mei Zhu of causing the death of her baby girl on February 26, 2025, the New Straits Times reported.

Lua, who is not married, tossed her daughter out of the bathroom window shortly after giving birth between 1.30pm and 9pm.

A resident on the ninth floor called police at about 10.20pm after finding the baby with severe head injuries...

Malaysia’s system for tracking repeat domestic abusers is under scrutiny after police said a man accused of assaulting his pregnant wife until she miscarried had been married nine times and was free on bail while appealing a 10-year jail sentence for attacking another spouse who was previously expecting.

The 43-year-old suspect, named in local media as Rosmaini Abd Raof, was remanded for seven days in Kedah on Wednesday after police arrested him at a homestay in Alor Setar, the northern state’s...