As dawn breaks on Mataking Island off Sabah’s east coast, a tiny green turtle crawls across the sand, driven by instinct towards the surf before disappearing into the ocean on a journey that could cover thousands of kilometres. Where it goes is impossible to know, but with a huge dose of luck on its epic travels, it may return to the same Malaysian beach decades later to lay eggs of its own. The hatchling is one of tens of thousands that emerge from Sabah’s beaches each year, as the species...

Members of a youth protest movement are outraged after being intercepted at airports and stopped by barricades. “Aren’t we children of this nation?”

Embracing the open-source approach is the only way for Europe to achieve technological independence, Alibaba Group Holding chairman Joe Tsai said, pointing to China’s own open-source drive as a blueprint for innovation under constraints. For Europe, which shares China’s deep roots in traditional manufacturing, the open-source approach presented a unique opportunity, Tsai said, highlighting that factories in the region possessed highly valuable manufacturing data. “You don’t want to feed it into...

Thirty-eight people suffered minor injuries on Saturday when part of a ceiling collapsed at a building in South Korea’s southeastern city of Daegu, fire authorities said. According to local authorities and fire officials, the incident occurred at around 10.16am on the second floor of a four-storey building in Gwaneum-dong. At the time, a vendor was selling kitchenware and other goods to elderly customers when a section of the ceiling’s finishing material fell down. All 66 people inside evacuated...

Lawyers for Winston Lee, the grandson of a former premier of South Korea, said statements by the New York attorney general may have sown prejudice against him.

Dressed in his trademark white shirt and traditional Sundanese headcloth, West Java Governor Dedi Mulyadi stood near the barren slopes of Mount Wayang. Announcing a new initiative to pay hundreds of local farmers to replant its forests and shield the region from flooding, he delivered a line perfectly pitched for the cameras tracking his every step. “I am a leader who does not want obedience caused by poverty,” he declared on September 26. “I want obedience caused by prosperity.” It is this...

Australia has no need to buy fuel from Russia and said that purchases from there would remain barred so that the country did not benefit from the invasion of Ukraine. “We don’t need or want Russian fuel in Australia,” Chris Bowen, Australia’s minister for climate change and energy, said on Saturday at a press conference in western Sydney. “We do not want Vladimir Putin to benefit from this war in the Middle East. What the United States does is a matter for them, but we won’t be changing our...

Growing up in a Malay family in Singapore, Hafeez Hassan feared dogs. He never expected to mourn one like a sibling. “Maybe that is what I have been grieving all along … The experience of loving something that I was taught I was not supposed to love,” he said. Even as an adult, walking his former partner’s husky Pieces in public made Hafeez anxious that a relative might see him, or that he might be judged for being close to an animal whose saliva and waste are regarded as ritually impure by many...

A planned protest against a sweeping voter roll revision prompted police to order a virtual shutdown of New Delhi, the capital. The country’s highest court intervened.

Malaysia is facing renewed pressure to clamp down on its companies over their alleged links to forest fires abroad, as recurring haze from Indonesia continues to disrupt schools and daily life despite years of regional efforts to tackle the problem. On Thursday, Malaysia ordered schools to close across several states, including Johor, Malacca, Negeri Sembilan, Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya and the Rompin district in Pahang, while sporting events scheduled for the weekend were cancelled. The latest...

A craft beer producer in central Japan is hoping that its U-shaped “wobbly” glass will encourage people to drink water along with their beer, in a bid to prevent excessive alcohol consumption and dehydration. The “Wobbly Beer Glass by Yona Yona Ale”, produced by Yoho Brewing based in Nagano prefecture, has been on sale since August amid growing awareness of the need for responsible drinking. The idea is that the glass, divided into two sections, will tilt if a balance between beer and water is...

Police detained more than 2,000 protesters and the founder of the “cockroach” youth movement in Delhi on Saturday as security forces locked down parts of the capital to thwart a demonstration demanding the resignation of India’s election chief. Thousands of police and paramilitary personnel were deployed across the city, mobile internet services were suspended in the central business district, and dozens of metro stations and markets were shut as authorities moved to stop a rally organised by...

Kurt Campbell is a veteran US diplomat and strategist who has played a leading role in shaping Washington’s approach to China and the Indo-Pacific for more than a decade. He served as the White House coordinator for Indo-Pacific affairs from 2021 to 2024 and as US deputy secretary of state from 2024 to 2025. Previously, he served as assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs from 2009 to 2013 and was a key architect of the Obama administration’s “pivot to Asia”. Often...

Kurt Campbell is a veteran US diplomat and strategist who has played a leading role in shaping Washington’s approach to China and the Indo-Pacific for more than a decade. He served as the White House coordinator for Indo-Pacific affairs from 2021 to 2024 and as US deputy secretary of state from 2024 to 2025. Previously, he served as assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs from 2009 to 2013 and was a key architect of the Obama administration’s “pivot to Asia”. Often...

Indonesia officially barred under-16s from using “high-risk” social media earlier this year. But that hasn’t stopped the son of one Jakarta-based writer from using it. Aged 14, he already had accounts on Instagram and TikTok – among the platforms Jakarta said children would be banned from using – as well as popular video game Minecraft and gaming platform Roblox. To register, he simply lied about his age. “He can access everything,” Inne Abidin said of her son. “His friends use everything...

The European Union said the deal could roughly halve shipments of hybrid vehicles from China in the next four years. But it also could lead to an even stronger Chinese auto industry.

China, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan are less exposed to the impact of cross-border terrorism – and less willing to risk smooth relations with Kabul over the issue.

The United States does not need to trust China, share frontier models with China, or slow its own AI development to have a national security interest in AI safety cooperation.

The repression of Rohingya identity is connected to Myanmar’s broader failure to establish an inclusive political order. It's time for ASEAN to realize that.

Here’s what Pyongyang’s Foreign Ministry might be telling Kim about a possible summit.

Whoever is governor, waves of Okinawan anti-base sentiment and protest will continue in the wake of every violent crime.