Asia - South China Morning Post

Watch a cheap commercial drone destroy a battle tank on the frontlines in Ukraine, or a cut-price Iranian Shahed menace Tel Aviv, then ask yourself why Southeast Asia’s defence ministries are suddenly very interested in unmanned aerial vehicles.

The answer was on full display last week at the Defence Services Asia (DSA) exhibition in Kuala Lumpur, where vendors from Abu Dhabi to Pretoria were chasing deals in one of the global arms trade’s hottest emerging markets.

“There is huge demand from the...

It’s midnight. A call was made to Malaysia’s Fire and Rescue Department about a forest fire in Tanjung Bungah, Penang.

Firefighters rushed to the scene only to discover there was no such blaze.

The department gets a prank call every other day. Many of these calls are usually made about an hour before or after midnight.

Its exasperated director general Nor Hisham Mohammad is now calling for a multiprong approach to deal with the problem.

“There should be stricter enforcement, use of technological...

For six months, Adriana Lim Escano’s teenage son went to school and said nothing. He had tried to do the right thing – stepping in when a group of boys bullied a classmate – and paid for it with half a year of misery, name-calling and social isolation.

His mother only found out when another parent called to say her son had voiced suicidal thoughts to a friend.

The school’s response, when it finally came, was a talking-to from the discipline committee. No suspensions. No meaningful...

For 42 years, Ha Sung-ki has sold large speakers to churches and event halls from his electronics shop inside Seoul’s Sewoon Plaza.

On a weekday afternoon, the corridor outside – once part of a bustling merchants’ network – is largely empty.

“These days, the number of customers crossing the street to come here can be counted on your fingers – sometimes fewer than 10 a day,” he said.

“People used to come for the nostalgia, the vintage products and the experience of assembling electronic...

After an hour’s drive through the jungle of Borneo, you reach more jungle. Your rental van from the Balikpapan city airport shakes precariously, navigating a partial bridge washout. A roadside sign admonishes against poaching the endangered sun bears.

By hour three you’ve arrived at Indonesia’s new capital, which is due to start taking over from gridlocked, polluted and seaward-sinking Jakarta in 2028.

Welcome to Ibu Kota Nusantara, known locally as just Nusantara or IKN. Eventually, if all goes...

War on Iran has changed many things, not least of which is the tenor of nuclear debate in two of America’s closest Asian allies: countries that have long defined themselves by the weapons they do not possess.

For decades, the question of whether South Korea and Japan might one day build their own nuclear arsenal was treated as fringe speculation – the preserve of hawks and provocateurs. No longer.

The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has sounded the alarm....

A former University of South Florida student has been charged with killing his roommate and the roommate’s girlfriend – two doctoral students from Bangladesh who disappeared earlier this month, authorities said Saturday.

Hisham Abugharbieh, 26, is facing two counts of premeditated murder in the first degree with a weapon in the deaths of Zamil Limon and Nahida Bristy, students at USF, according to the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office. He made an initial court appearance Saturday in Tampa,...

Hundreds of firefighters were battling wildfires in the forests of northern Japan on Saturday, as authorities urged more than 3,200 people to evacuate their homes, government officials said.

As of Saturday morning, blazes in the mountainous areas of Iwate region had burned about 700 hectares (1,730 acres) since breaking out three days ago, local government officials said in a statement.

A large column of smoke, which could be smelled 30km (20 miles) away, was seen rising up the valley near the...

A surge in fossil fuel ⁠prices since the Iran war is squeezing polyester suppliers and garment makers across India ⁠and Bangladesh, threatening to raise costs for fast-fashion retailers like Zara and H&M.

Filatex, one of India’s biggest polyester yarn producers, is paying nearly 30 per cent more for the petroleum-derived feedstocks – purified terephthalic acid (PTA) and monoethylene glycol (MEG) – that it needs to make yarn, as Chinese suppliers raise prices and Middle East supply is disrupted,...

India and Germany’s new defence road map could give New Delhi fresh momentum in its long-running push to modernise its undersea fleet, while helping Europe expand its security role in the Indo-Pacific, experts say.

The two countries signed a Defence Industrial Cooperation Road Map in Berlin on Wednesday, with Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and his German counterpart, Boris Pistorius, agreeing to deepen collaboration in development, production and niche technologies.

The agreement was...