Asia - South China Morning Post

Once a rival, always a rival.

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi kicked off the busiest day of India’s AI Summit in New Delhi, he orchestrated a photo op with 13 other business and political leaders, all standing in a line and holding each other’s hands above their heads.

Well, all of them except two.

Sam Altman and Dario Amodei, CEOs of rivals OpenAI and Anthropic, were positioned next to each other and, awkwardly, refused to clasp each other’s hands. Instead, they stood with their arms crossed in...

The 18-year ordeal of Norida Akmal Ayob, 45, has cast a spotlight on a silent crisis: an unknown number of Malaysian women remain stranded in “dire straits” across Indonesia, unable to afford the journey home.

According to Kosmo, many of these women share a similar ­trajectory – falling into financial ruin after marrying local men in Lombok and finding themselves trapped by the high costs of returning home.

“Money remains the main ­factor, as earning is difficult. My children and I were at the...

When Sanae Takaichi strode into her first press conference as Japan’s reappointed prime minister on Wednesday, she delivered a clear message to the economists and editorial boards warning her away from her signature tax pledge.

Food consumption tax is going to be scrapped, and nothing is going to stop her.

Formally confirmed in office after the Diet voted to reappoint her – following a landslide victory in the House of Representatives election on February 8 – Takaichi reiterated her commitment...

The White House announced a reciprocal trade agreement with Indonesia on Thursday while President Prabowo Subianto was in Washington to attend the first meeting of President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace”.

Under the agreement, Southeast Asia’s largest economy will eliminate tariffs for 99 per cent of American goods while the US would maintain tariffs on most Indonesian goods at 19 per cent, the White House said. That is the same rate the US has set for Cambodia and Malaysia.

Indonesia also...

For nearly three decades, Washington and Tokyo have pledged to close a controversial US airbase in Okinawa, located in the middle of a densely populated island. But the plan is now facing new uncertainty.

The US military would not return its Futenma airbase to Japanese control until Tokyo builds a longer runway than the one being built at a replacement site in the northeast of Okinawa prefecture, according to a report.

Japan’s national broadcaster NHK reported on Wednesday that the US Department...

A prominent leader of an independent resistance group in Myanmar that had come under attack by rivals who are loyal to the mainstream opposition force has surrendered to the country’s military authorities, state media reported on Thursday.

The surrender of Bo Nagar, a leader of the Burma National Revolutionary Army (BNRA), in the upper-central region of Sagaing was a dramatic reminder of fractures within the armed resistance movement, which has led to sporadic clashes over control of territory...

Japan’s health ministry panel on Thursday approved the commercialisation of two regenerative medicine products prepared from iPS cells, the first of their kind in the world.

The two drugs, ReHeart developed by Cuorips, a start-up originating from the University of Osaka, and Amchepry by Sumitomo Pharma and Racthera, will be used for patients with severe heart failure stemming from ischemic cardiomyopathy and Parkinson’s disease, respectively.

“I am very happy to see the first big step towards...

Singapore has no substantiated information that any Singaporean is or was fighting as part of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) during the war in Gaza, its Ministry of Home Affairs has said, after several media reports claimed two passport holders from the city state were among 200 Southeast Asians who had fought with Israeli troops.

Qatari news outlet Al Jazeera reported on Sunday, citing information obtained by Israeli non-governmental organisation Hatzlacha under Israel’s Freedom of Information...

Thai police donned a lion dance costume during this week’s Lunar New Year festivities to arrest a suspect accused of stealing about US$64,000 worth of Buddhist artefacts, police said Thursday.

Officers dressed as a red-and-yellow lion made the arrest on Wednesday evening after receiving a report from a police superintendent earlier this month that his home in the suburbs of the capital, Bangkok, had been broken into.

Bangkok police said the reported break-in involved “numerous Buddhist objects...

The United States’ plan to expand deployments of advanced missile systems and unmanned platforms in the Philippines is less about hardware than geography and what it signals about Washington’s long-term strategy in the region, analysts said.

Announced after the 12th Philippines–US Bilateral Strategic Dialogue this week, the move reflects a steady effort to reinforce the so-called First Island Chain and bolster the US–Philippines alliance’s defensive posture in both the South China Sea and the...