Asia - South China Morning Post

A South Korean governor has sparked outrage after he proposed “importing Sri Lankan and Vietnamese virgins” to help stem the population decline in provincial areas.

Jindo county Governor Kim Hee-soo made the suggestion during a town hall meeting in South Jeolla to discuss an administrative merger of nine cities and counties in the province with Gwangju Metropolitan City.

“Of the 89 regions facing declining populations nationwide, 20 per cent are in South Jeolla province. We need to solve this...

Indonesia’s stock market needed just two days of chaos to highlight what investors have long lamented: parts of the market are not trading freely.

Last week’s worst tumble in nearly three decades drew attention to a major problem at the heart of Southeast Asia’s biggest equity market: a handful of billionaires own so much of their listed companies that barely any of those companies’ shares are left to trade.

At least three billionaires directly control 85 per cent or more of three listed...

Fears are mounting of worsening violence across Pakistan’s mineral-rich Balochistan province following a string of armed attacks in recent days that have left hundreds dead, as Islamabad’s security forces struggle to deal with insurgents who continue to exploit local grievances.

Pakistan has ruled out talks with the insurgents who seized control of security installations and administrative centres in more than a dozen urban areas during a lightning coordinated operation on Saturday.

A total of...

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has come under fire for deciding to hold Sunday’s general election during the peak university entrance exam season, with critics saying it has placed an additional burden on students.

Takaichi’s abrupt announcement last month to dissolve the House of Representatives has also been questioned, as it will be the first time since 1990 that a lower house election is taking place in February, when some regions experience heavy snowfall.

The prime minister has...

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s call for middle powers to band together amid a fragmenting world order is a vision analysts say appeals to many Asian nations, but lacks a blueprint to bring them all together.

Speaking in Switzerland last month, Carney urged mid-sized and smaller countries to unite against the economic coercion of great powers, warning that nations failing to act collectively risked being “on the menu” rather than “at the table”, in a thinly veiled rebuke of the United...

A new insurance scheme will be created for Malaysians working in Singapore to ensure they remain covered even during their daily cross-border commute, says Human Resources Minister R. Ramanan.

The new scheme will ensure that the nearly 400,000 Malaysians who cross the border daily from Johor are not left out of social security protection after working hours.

“What happens when you are travelling from your workplace back to your home? Where is the coverage during this period? That coverage is not...

As Japan heads into a snap election, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is rumoured to be weighing a trip to North Korea aimed at securing the return of her country’s citizens who were abducted decades ago.

The suggestion of a breakthrough came from Tsutomu Nishioka, a visiting professor at Reitaku University and long-time campaigner for the abductees’ families.

Nishioka, who chairs the National Association for the Rescue of Japanese Kidnapped by North Korea and is also a senior member of the...

Ukrainian sumo star Aonishiki Arata is eyeing the grand title of yokozuna after winning his second-straight Japanese championship on January 25.

The wrestler fled Ukraine for Japan in 2022, narrowly avoiding the military draft. He has since risen rapidly through the ranks in sumo wrestling, adopting the name Aonishiki, which means “blue brocade” in honour of Ukraine.

The United States has been constructing a new dimension of its economic security policy: outbound investment rules. Since January last year, Washington has not only established its first outbound investment screening programme but codified it into law and explicitly provided for its expansion.

These rules are gaining teeth, giving rise to a compliance architecture that conditions US foreign direct investment on national security priorities. As firms begin to operationalise these rules, capital...

In the dead of night, officers from Malaysia’s maritime agency boarded two tankers that were transferring millions of barrels of oil in the waters off Penang, as the re-emergence of ageing vessels from a shadow fleet in the country’s waters has put the spotlight on the illegal trade in Asia.

The January 29 bust was a rare disruption to a trade worth billions of dollars each year – much of it from sanctioned oil-producing nations Russia and Iran, and involving ships plying the waters in the...