Asia - South China Morning Post

A walled mansion in one of Kobe’s most desirable suburbs is heading for a court-ordered auction, but its murky past as a target of gang attacks may put off potential buyers.

The two-storey house, long the home of Kunio Inoue, head of the Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi – a breakaway faction of Japan’s largest yakuza syndicate – is being forcibly sold after judges held him liable for crimes committed by one of his subordinates, in a rare test of Japan’s anti-organised crime laws.

The Osaka High Court issued...

Men are almost twice as likely as women to be employed in the best-paid jobs in Australia, according to the country’s latest government gender gap report.

Male employees account for 64 per cent of roles in the nation’s upper quartile of compensation, jobs that have a total average annual pay of A$221,320 (US$155,000), the Workplace Gender Equality Agency said in a report on Tuesday.

Though female representation in the top category has increased slightly, women remain 1.4 times more likely than...

Passengers stranded on the Indonesian resort island of Bali clamoured for flight news on Tuesday as the outbreak of war in the Middle East grounded planes and turned a tropical holiday dream into an ordeal for many.

Hundreds were crowded at Ngurah Rai International Airport, many dressed in shorts, flip-flops and summer dresses, their expressions dour.

Many sat on the floor, exhausted, and one man repeatedly hit a wall in frustration.

“I just kind of want to see my family … right now it’s a bit...

Supporters of former president Rodrigo Duterte have amplified viral claims that Iran could target the Philippines in retaliation for US actions in the Middle East, a narrative analysts say is being used to portray the country’s defence ties with Washington as a threat to national security.

The rumours spread widely enough online that the Armed Forces of the Philippines felt compelled to issue a public rebuttal.

On Tuesday, armed forces spokeswoman Colonel Francel Margareth Padilla said there was...

A record number of people under the age of 20 in Japan were arrested for cannabis offences last year, with experts on social norms attributing the sharp rise to growing despair about the future and the influence of celebrities known to use drugs.

According to the National Police Agency (NPA), 1,373 people under the age of 20 were arrested for cannabis offences in Japan in 2025, an increase of more than a fifth from the previous year.

The figure is the highest since age-specific drug offence data...

Philippine carers have described racing to bomb shelters in Israel as the US-Israeli war in Iran sends missiles across the Middle East.

More than 1.1 million overseas workers from the Philippines are based in the region, with over 96 per cent concentrated in five countries closely tied to the fighting, including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain.

One Philippine carer has already been killed during an air strike.

A group of quick-thinking villagers swooped to the rescue of a runaway train in the East Malaysian state of Sabah on Tuesday, sacrificing a vital motorised rail trolley to force the carriage to stop.

The incident unfolded at about 7.30am as the train was carrying passengers – including teachers and families with young children – on their regular morning commute from Tenom to the Pangi subdistrict in southwest Sabah, on the island of Borneo.

The train suffered a brake failure, according to local...

Even if market researcher Joey Lau were a millionaire and could devote all her time to her family, she still would not want children.

The 34-year-old Singaporean said the risks facing young people today – from social media-driven mental health pressures to climate change – were too high to justify bringing a child into the world.

“I feel like the only reason that I would want to have a child is because it’s cute, it would give shape to my life and my parents would be very happy because they want...

South Korea will soon no longer be one of the few countries where Google Maps does not work properly, after its security-conscious government reversed a two-decade stance to approve the export of high-precision map data to overseas servers.

The approval was made “on the condition that strict security requirements are met”, the ‌Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said in a statement.

Those conditions include blurring military and other sensitive security-related facilities, as well as...

Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto has wasted no time positioning himself as a diplomatic broker in the Middle East, offering to mediate between Iran and the United States even as the bombs are still falling.

The problem, critics say, is that Indonesia stopped being neutral the moment it joined US President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace”.

Jakarta’s offer came on Saturday, hours after US and Israeli strikes began hitting Iran. Prabowo was willing to travel to Tehran in person if all parties...