Pinyo Pukpinyo, Thailand’s most famous snake catcher, has found the critters slithering in nooks and crannies all over Bangkok. He refuses to kill them.

The rise of Korean terms in Japanese is a striking reversal from colonial times and a sign of the global appeal of South Korean culture.

For over three decades, Dolores Balladares Pelaez has lived and worked in Hong Kong without once returning to the Philippines for Undas, the annual two-day observance honouring the dead. This year, she is arranging prayers from afar for her late father and four siblings, but will once again miss the gathering back home. On Thursday morning, the 56-year-old domestic helper called her mother and niece in Laguna province to discuss hiring a prayer leader to visit the family home. Her sisters-in-law...

A little-known South Korean music act has climbed the charts with a viral hit that has caught listeners off guard – not just for its sudden popularity, but because its vocals were generated entirely by artificial intelligence. Meomuru’s single, “Have You Become the Adult You Dreamed Of?”, climbed to No 2 on Melon’s Top 100 – South Korea’s flagship streaming chart – earlier this week. The track’s popularity has turned Meomuru into one of the country’s most-talked-about acts. The song was created...

Southeast Asia’s electric vehicle boom risks leaving the region’s smaller companies behind, as Chinese automotive giants bypass local part-makers in favour of imported components and locked-in supplier networks. Local manufacturers across Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia are facing a double squeeze: demand is weakening for parts used in petrol and diesel cars, collectively known as internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, while steep barriers to entry also keep them out of EV supply...

The theft of billions of dollars from Binance within a matter of minutes, the biggest cryptocurrency heist in history, was orchestrated by North Korean hackers, the FBI said on Saturday. The Federal Bureau of Investigation said in a statement that this week’s attack was tied to “malicious cyber activity” by an entity known as TraderTraitor, the same actors behind a US$1.5 billion Bybit hack last year. The FBI asked cryptocurrency exchanges, blockchain analytics companies and others to block...

This week’s $6.3 billion hack of Binance is the largest to hit crypto, and would be the most that North Koreans have stolen in years of brazen cybercrime.

Residents say a proposed Chinese car plant in northern Spain will create new jobs. Others say it’s a long-term risk, distilling a debate about the costs and perks of ties to China.

With US President Donald Trump recently pushing the use of “superintelligence” (SI) instead of artificial intelligence (AI) in national discourse, the acronym has gained unprecedented attention. It is the right acronym but the wrong meaning. In my opinion, SI should stand for “self-intelligence”. It probably explains why academics, critics and even major AI companies are calling for a temporary pause in AI development. They must have realised the technology’s current trajectory is headed down...

Nearly 200 nations have struck hard-fought agreements at a UN biodiversity summit, but the outcome was accompanied by disappointment over missed opportunities to address humanity’s destructive toll on nature. Delegates cheered on Friday as crucial texts were approved in overtime but the celebrations were tempered by acrimonious debates and regret over limited progress on some of the most contentious issues. The Cop17 summit in Armenia sought to revive a landmark commitment to halt and reverse...

Apple’s long-awaited artificial intelligence features will be officially launched in China in December, ending two years of regulatory uncertainty as the US tech giant seeks to bring advanced technologies to its second-largest market with the help of Alibaba Group Holding. The first batch of Apple Intelligence services will roll out to Chinese iPhone users alongside the iOS 27.3 update in December, following an open beta test with developers starting November 4, the US company said in a...

In the Land of the Rising Sun, Bangladesh looks forward to a new dawn. The hope that comes with Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s visit to Japan goes beyond the deals signed or the financial support expected. It shows a country that has emerged from authoritarian rule and wants to turn its new political voice into bigger economic chances and freedom of choice. For a government chosen by the people, foreign policy must answer one question: how does it make life better for the people who gave it...

Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd (CATL) has doubled down on new businesses including battery swapping and energy storage as the world’s largest battery maker seeks new growth drivers amid intensifying price wars and mounting pressure on profitability. But the new path is far from straightforward. Established players like Nio have already built a strong presence in battery swapping, while BYD has reinforced its position in energy-storage systems. Lucas Zhang Liutong, director of Hong...

The former vice premier was one of just six women to have served on the Chinese Communist Party’s elite Politburo, though she was excluded from the top ranks of power.

After spending three months in a coma following a brain haemorrhage, a patient in China has regained the ability to speak, eat and walk with support – part of an early clinical trial using targeted sound waves to help “wake up” severely damaged brains, according to state media. The technology, developed by a coalition including the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, used focused ultrasound waves to stimulate regions deep within the brain without requiring...

Malaysia’s Melaka state began its election campaign on Saturday after 79 candidates were cleared to contest a poll testing whether Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s governing partners can turn an opportunistic alliance with his Islamist opponents into a platform for national power. The coastal state south of Kuala Lumpur heads to the polls on November 14, handing the United Malays National Organisation (Umno) and the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) another opening to deepen cooperation after...

The United States, South Korea and Japan reaffirmed their commitment to the “complete denuclearisation” of North Korea on Saturday, as Pyongyang continues to reject disarmament ahead of possible talks with Washington. Speculation is mounting over a potential meeting between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at next month’s Apec summit in China, with Trump making repeated overtures to Pyongyang for nuclear talks. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, South Korean Foreign...

In Malaysia, U.S. and Chinese tech giants are pouring billions into vast data centers, straining local resources and testing the limits of Washington’s restrictions on advanced chips.

The co-founder of Chinese chip giant Cambricon Technologies urged the introduction of universal ethical requirements for leading Chinese and American artificial intelligence models on Friday to mitigate growing risks to society. Chen Yunji’s remarks at an event in Shanghai come as the rapid advance of AI systems globally has resulted in a string of high-profile cyberattacks that have threatened critical infrastructure and breached government servers. Predicting that AI advances would develop...

A 500-day campaign to find and identify fallen soldiers has unearthed hundreds of bodies, but not everyone gets a chance at closure.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attended an exhibition devoted to drones and called for rapidly expanding the country’s drone technology, state media reported on Friday, as his military escalates threats against South Korea and the United States. Acquiring advanced drones is a top priority for Kim, who now wants to strengthen conventional and nuclear capabilities to counter what he calls US-led security threats. It is unclear how far North Korea’s drone programme has progressed. Experts say...

A village that sent hundreds of men to one of imperial Japan’s most notorious wartime units is being demolished to make way for a runway at Tokyo’s Narita International Airport. Unit 731 carried out lethal experiments on captives, many of them Chinese, to develop biological weapons during the second world war. Around 300 of its roughly 3,000 personnel came from Kamo, a neighbourhood in Shibayama town, Chiba prefecture, east of the capital. Its founder and commander, Lieutenant General Shiro...

Nafeesa Azman has applied for hundreds of jobs over the past two months, yet the 24-year-old Malaysian marketing graduate is yet to find a permanent role that pays what she needs or uses the skills she spent years, and a good deal of money, developing. Natthanicha Intawong, a final-year media arts student in Bangkok, describes the terror many of her peers feel as they prepare to enter a jobs market that artificial intelligence is already beginning to scythe through. For Joshua Nai, a Singaporean...

China has broken up a major transnational drug trafficking network in cooperation with Indonesia and Malaysia, seizing around 1.2 tonnes of liquid methamphetamine, China’s Ministry of Public Security said on Friday. The operation was carried out on October 21 by Indonesia’s National Narcotics Agency (BNN), which raided and shut down a large-scale drug processing and purification facility in Aceh, Indonesia, and arrested 11 people, with help from China’s National Narcotics Control Commission...

Australia’s preparations for a possible conflict with China reflect “a relatively superficial understanding”, argues prominent economist John Edwards. Europe, Canada, Indonesia, Malaysia and India, he notes, are not preparing for such a conflict. Why should Australia? Edwards, a former senior economic adviser to former Labor prime minister Paul Keating, makes the observation in a Lowy Institute paper released in October and in a newspaper interview. Instead, he sees US-China rivalry as a...

The day that changed modern China also taught me how to recognize true courage.

The fire in Numrug touches on cross-border capital compliance risks and geopolitical changes impacting Northeast Asia’s ecology.

The Trump administration plans to fly the Afghan immigrants from Louisiana to Pakistan, where they are expected to be expelled over the border to Afghanistan.