A hunger crisis could creep up on Southeast Asia if the region does not guard against export restrictions amid a fertiliser shortfall, International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) Secretary General John Denton has warned. On the sidelines of the Future of Trade Forum in Singapore on Wednesday, Denton urged the city state, as the next Asean chair, to prioritise the “sleeper issue” for the region. He argued that the real story centred on food, despite the Strait of Hormuz gridlock being widely seen as...

Residents of a district in the South Korean capital of Seoul are up in arms over plans to build a permanent school for North Korean defectors in their neighbourhood. The dispute escalated to the point where the school’s principal dropped to her knees to beg protesters to “embrace the children”, the Korea JoongAng Daily reported. Yeomyung School, which educates middle and high school students who fled North Korea or are children of North Korean defectors, has been unable to afford its own...

Shivanjali Singh has worked hard to raise two healthy, athletic children in India, but worries about their ability to resist the lure of junk food constantly surrounding them. Her children, aged 14 and 10, are national-level skaters and have grown up on home-cooked food and drinks such as coconut water rather than fizzy drinks and crisps. Yet Singh, who lives in Noida in the National Capital Region, sees sugary drinks and unhealthy snacks everywhere from school surroundings to sports...

The death of a 14-year-old student at a Malaysian boarding school has renewed scrutiny over student safety, raising questions over whether reforms introduced after the high-profile death of Zara Qairina Mahathir last year have changed what happens behind dormitory doors. Police in Kuala Pilah, Negeri Sembilan, have detained two 16-year-old students as they investigate the death of Muhammad Idlan Fareeq Shahril. They said Idlan was caught vaping by a hostel warden on September 23. Two days later,...

A man became angry after a four-year-old boy pointed his middle finger at him while he was picking up his son from preschool in Singapore. He pursued the boy to a nearby bus stop that was crowded with other young kids, grabbed the boy by the arm and slapped him hard on both cheeks. The boy, who was his son’s schoolmate, suffered bruises on his face and ringing in his ear, on top of emotional trauma that lingered for months and required his parents to change his preschool. The aggressor, Muhammad...

Malaysia says it is repatriating undocumented migrants from Myanmar who want to return. Critics say it is putting their lives at risk.

Philippine senators have urged the Department of Tourism to stick with a single marketing campaign to build long-term international recognition, pointing to long-running successes such as Malaysia’s “Truly Asia” tagline. Newly appointed Tourism Secretary Dita Angara-Mathay was asked about her plans for the current slogan, “Love the Philippines”, during a departmental budget hearing on Monday, the Philippine Star reported. Senate finance subcommittee chairman Erwin Tulfo suggested keeping the...

Mainland Chinese and Hong Kong stocks may face a challenging fourth quarter as investors contend with underwhelming stimulus measures from Beijing, tighter financial conditions in the US and a shift in the narrative around the artificial intelligence trade, according to analysts. The two markets were likely to consolidate throughout the rest of the year to digest the negatives before settling on a clearer direction, according to brokerages including Zheshang Securities and CCB International. CCB...

The sprawling online hunt for information about Winston Lee, a Korean student who is among seven defendants in a Cornell University sexual assault lawsuit, is increasingly crossing borders, with English-speaking social media users calling on their Korean counterparts to help uncover more information about him. As the “Cornell 7” case continues to draw intense attention across the United States, Lee has become the subject of a parallel search focused on his Korean identity and background....

China’s corporate sector remains considerably weaker than it was before the Covid-19 pandemic, but the country is emerging as a key beneficiary of the global artificial intelligence boom thanks to its ample power capacity, according to a Natixis survey of thousands of firms and a separate research report. Profit margins at Chinese firms had stabilised at about 4.5 per cent for the first half of 2026, but remained well below the nearly 9 per cent recorded by their global peers, according to the...

Malaysia’s two-time prime minister Mahathir Mohamad has been admitted to hospital for observation, his office confirmed on Wednesday, in the latest health scare involving the 101-year-old. Mahathir was admitted to the National Heart Institute (IJN) on Tuesday night, barely a day after his wife of 70 years, Siti Hasmah Mohamad Ali, died at the same hospital. It is unclear why the former leader was admitted. Sufi Yusoff, Mahathir’s long-time aide, told reporters that they were awaiting diagnosis...

Japanese BitTorrent users who thought they were simply downloading adult videos for free are increasingly receiving court notices and demands for hundreds of thousands of yen, as copyright holders step up efforts to identify users through their IP addresses. One self-employed man in his 40s living in Tokyo began using the file-sharing software after reading about it online. He would start downloading adult videos before going to bed and switch the software off the next morning, giving him access...

A Singapore-based education financing programme is testing whether income-linked funding can widen access to higher education without an unmanageable debt burden, a model analysts say could help ease repayment pressure faced by graduates across Southeast Asia. Global Financing for Education’s (GFE) Pay It Forward scheme, publicly launched in September, provides students with funding for their education in return for 3 to 10 per cent of their subsequent income for one to 10 years. The...

There are significant opportunities – and risks.

American rapper Macklemore lost his spot on British pop star Ed Sheeran’s US tour after speaking up for Palestinians, but in Malaysia it was Sheeran’s music which ended up being pulled from the airwaves. In neighbouring Singapore, British band Massive Attack faced a different kind of fallout, barred from returning after members displayed a Palestinian flag during a July concert. The contrasting cases highlight the competing pressures on foreign artists in Southeast Asia, where political...

At an Indonesian prison complex near Jakarta, inspectors found expensive cars, spacious quarters with flat-screen TVs and a golf simulator under construction.

The debate over the death penalty is back in Uzbekistan, this time involving the country’s most senior officials.

An airstrike on a bustling market in rebel territory left at least 50 people dead, in one of the deadliest attacks on civilians in months.