Asia - South China Morning Post

A massive avalanche of garbage at Indonesia’s largest landfill site killed at least five people and left several others missing after heavy overnight rain triggered a rubbish dump collapse, officials said Monday.

More than 300 search-and-rescue personnel, using heavy machinery and sniffer dogs, were deployed to the sprawling dump site late on Sunday at the Bantargebang Integrated Waste Treatment Facility in Bekasi, a city just outside the capital of Jakarta.

Rescuers worked cautiously amid...

Southeast Asia is set to see a warmer-than-usual early summer, potentially raising power demand for fuel and straining grids at a time when the Middle East conflict has tightened energy supplies in the region.

Across most of maritime and mainland Southeast Asia, home to more than half a billion people, temperatures will be above average for the March-April-May period, according to the latest seasonal outlook published by the Asean Specialised Meteorological Centre (ASMC) on Friday.

The forecast...

The mountains of the Philippines are quieter now.

The jungle bases that once sustained Asia’s longest-running communist insurgency are mostly emptied out. Its tens of thousands of guerrilla fighters have been reduced, by the military’s account, to something “very, very negligible”.

After 56 years, the Philippine military thinks the fight is almost over – and that conviction is transforming the armed forces from the inside out.

Commanders are overhauling training and strategy, moving away from...

Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said on Monday that his government would do whatever it took to keep RON95 petrol at 1.99 ringgit (50 US cents) per litre – even as the US-Israel war on Iran pushed global crude prices past US$100 a barrel.

“We will do our best to ensure the price of RON95 remains at 1.99 ringgit so that the rakyat (common people) are not burdened,” he said at the Domestic Trade and Cost of Living Ministry’s monthly assembly in Kuala Lumpur.

The pledge comes as the Middle...

The United States began a large military exercise with South Korea involving thousands of troops Monday while also waging an escalating war in the Middle East.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff has said about 18,000 Korean troops would take part in Freedom Shield, which runs through March 19. US Forces Korea has not confirmed the number of American troops participating in the training in South Korea.

The allies’ combined exercise comes amid South Korean media speculation that Washington is...

Malaysia has slashed operating licence fees for gyms in Kuala Lumpur by 80 per cent, offering a regulatory “carrot” as the government tries to push residents in one of Southeast Asia’s heaviest nations to exercise more.

The move comes as Malaysia grapples with some of the region’s highest obesity rates – a problem health officials say is especially pronounced in sedentary urban centres such as the capital.

Under the new rate, effective from January 1, gyms in Kuala Lumpur now pay 10 ringgit...

Japan’s most treasured historic sites still lack upgraded fire protection, raising concerns that irreplaceable cultural landmarks remain vulnerable to another catastrophic blaze.

Government data shows work has yet to begin at about 30 per cent of the cultural properties prioritised under a national programme launched in the aftermath of the devastating blaze at Shuri Castle in Okinawa in 2019.

The campaign, overseen by the Kyoto-based Agency for Cultural Affairs, was launched in 2020 to...

Bangladesh began fuel rationing on Sunday as the war in the Middle East deepened an energy crunch, creating long queues at petrol stations and boiling over into anger.

The country of 170 million people imports 95 per cent of its oil and gas needs.

Following the US and Israeli attacks on Iran, and Tehran’s retaliatory strikes throughout the Gulf, the national oil company, Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC), restricted fuel sales for most vehicles.

Authorities capped fuel purchases for several...

The North Korea that leaves the ninth Workers’ Party Congress is a different country from the one that left the eighth congress in 2021. Five years ago, the centrepiece of the eighth party congress was an ambitious weapons development programme unveiled by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and accompanied by belligerent rhetoric against the United States, both of which indicated the North Korean leadership’s concerns about their vulnerability.

Now, Kim’s regime has an improved and resilient...

A Nepali political party led by an ex-rapper is set for a landslide victory in the country’s first parliamentary election since Gen Z protests ousted the old leadership that has ruled the Himalayan nation for decades.

The Rastriya Swatantra, or the National Independent Party (RSP), formed only four years ago, had already won 117 of 165 directly elected seats and led in eight other constituencies in the results published on Sunday morning by Nepal’s Election Commission.

Other political parties...