Asia - South China Morning Post

Thousands of Japanese are defying rising prices at home and the pain of the feeble yen to have one final foreign holiday over “golden week” before airlines increase fuel surcharges.

The operator of Narita International Airport anticipates that 1.59 million travellers will pass through the airport on the outskirts of Tokyo between last Friday and May 10. That would be an increase of around 2 per cent from last year’s golden week holiday season, which in Japan refers to a cluster of national...

Social media posts of Singapore politicians taking public transport amid the global energy crisis have divided public opinion online, with some users hailing the move as leading by example while others call it showmanship.

Cabinet ministers, members of parliament and even a retired defence minister have followed with their own public transport posts after Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong urged Singaporeans in an April 7 ministerial statement in parliament to take public transport as part of...

When people were told to stay home during the Covid-19 pandemic, watching K-dramas became a solace for fans of South Korea’s best-known export around the world. But for North Koreans, it spelled death.

A report released by North Korea-focused human rights organisation Transition Justice Working Group (TJWG) on Tuesday showed that the number of people executed for consuming South Korean cultural content – such as K-dramas, films and K-pop – and religious practices surged by 250 per cent after...

Jakarta’s move to press on with importing 150 million barrels of Russian oil despite latest EU sanctions against an Indonesian port underscores a growing divide between Western efforts to isolate Moscow and Asia’s push for energy security.

On Thursday, the European Commission announced its 20th package of sanctions against Russia, which includes Indonesia’s Karimun Oil Terminal for its “connections with the shadow fleet and circumvention of the oil price cap”.

The sanction on Karimun, located in...

A free-trade agreement signed between India and New Zealand has marked yet another regional push towards diversification and away from overdependence on major powers.

The deal, which comes after 15 years of on-and-off negotiations, gained urgency in recent weeks as Indian exporters contend with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and steep American tariffs that have rattled supply chains.

New Zealand, for its part, has been pursuing a strategy to reduce dependence on China, its largest trading...

Herman Susanto and Dwi Aksan were heading from Indonesia’s capital Jakarta to the satellite city of Cikarang after a long day at work on Monday when disaster struck.

Susanto, the head of the Indonesian Workers’ Federation, and his colleague, Aksan, were in the third carriage of a commuter train crammed with workers going home at around 9pm when it stopped to let passengers alight at Bekasi Timur station.

The two men had hoped to rest before they reached their final stop, but instead, they found...

Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz in the Middle East has turned the spotlight on a strategic waterway thousands of miles away in Southeast Asia, with littoral states having different ideas on how to control their stake.

Indonesian officials last week flirted with the idea of imposing tolls for passing vessels in the Strait of Malacca. Malaysia and Singapore, however, have insisted that navigation in the vital corridor remains free.

The likelihood of tolls in the strait is low thanks to...

South Korea’s former First Lady Kim Keon-hee was sentenced on Tuesday to four years ‌in prison for stock manipulation and bribery, after an appeal court increased her earlier sentence.

The court said that Kim had participated in manipulating the price of a thinly traded Korean stock with multiple traders, reversing a lower court’s ruling that acquitted her of the charge.

It also found that she accepted two Chanel bags and a Graff necklace, worth around 80 million ⁠won (US$54,257) in total, from...

A college student stranded in the mountains of Vietnam reportedly survived for 37 hours on just Orion Choco Pies. The South Korean snack, already beloved across Vietnam and often exchanged as a gift during the Lunar New Year, is now drawing attention as a survival essential in emergencies.

According to Vietnamese news outlet VnExpress, Nguyen Tuan Anh, a 19-year-old student at Dai Nam University, had joined friends for a hike on Tam Dao Mountain north of Hanoi.

The group set out from Vinh Ninh...

As impeachment looms, Philippine Vice-President Sara Duterte-Carpio and her spouse are firing back at allegations of ill-gotten wealth, with the couple’s combative responses seen as damage control over what critics say will be “smoking gun” evidence to be presented to the Senate.

A handful of lawmakers are expecting the House of Representatives to submit Articles of Impeachment against Duterte-Carpio to the Senate soon. “I think she will be impeached by the first week of May. My guess is 160 to...