Japan's LDP tends to prefer Republican partners in Washington – even now.

Pakistan released two of former prime minister Imran Khan’s sisters from prison on Thursday, after weeks in jail ahead of a planned anti-government march by their brother’s party, their lawyer said. Uzma Khan and Noreen ‌Niazi were freed from Kot Lakhpat Jail in the eastern city of Lahore after the government suspended their detention orders, lawyer Mudassar Umar said. Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party said another of his sisters, Aleema Khan, remained in prison. Pakistan’s government said...

Tokyo wants adversaries to conclude that an attack on Japan would fail. Would allowing a nuclear-armed U.S. ship to make a temporary port call in an emergency make the U.S. nuclear guarantee more credible?

Few tech leaders are as synonymous with their companies as Jensen Huang. The Nvidia co-founder has been credited with transforming the firm over three decades from a niche graphics-chip designer into a US$4 trillion powerhouse through a series of high-stakes bets. Now, allegations of extramarital affairs with two women – alongside an internal review and a potential congressional probe – have forced Nvidia’s board to confront a once-unimaginable question: who can replace Huang when there is no...

Seven Chinese tourists, a dozen villagers and a couple of journalists forded streams and bushwhacked to the downed plane of Isoroku Yamamoto, the Japanese admiral. Machetes proved handy.

Indonesian police said on Thursday they have enough initial evidence to pursue treason charges against four suspects in a case involving the wiretapping of President Prabowo Subianto, as lawmakers urged detectives to uncover who ordered the ‌bugging. Former police chief Listyo Sigit Prabowo, who is not related to the president, and three other senior police officials were arrested last week over accusations of unauthorised monitoring of phones belonging to Prabowo, government officials,...

Workers at New Zealand’s largest retailer have had to resort to defecating in the distribution aisles after their bathroom breaks were tracked by artificial intelligence, their union has claimed. More than 300 employees of The Warehouse protested in Auckland and Christchurch on Thursday against technology monitoring them and taking over their jobs, The New Zealand Herald reported. In recent months, the company had been using drones for stocktaking, a robot for packing orders and AI to monitor...

Nvidia’s board of directors is facing perhaps its biggest test yet as it weighs whether to oust chief executive Jensen Huang, the man credited with transforming the chipmaker into one of the world’s most valuable companies. The board was reportedly preparing to remove Huang after reports that he had an extramarital relationship with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice-president of healthcare, who reported to him, according to The New York Times and Wall Street Journal on Wednesday. The latest...

South Korea should use its growing economic clout over Laos to crack down on Pyongyang’s IT workers allegedly using the Southeast Asian nation as a base to secure remote jobs under false identities and funnel earnings to their regime’s weapons programmes, according to analysts. Authorities in Seoul and Washington have launched investigations into such schemes, with analysts warning that Laos is emerging as a hub for North Korea’s operatives exploiting its weak banking networks and...

A former ByteDance artificial intelligence scientist’s new venture has released a life sciences AI model that the firm claims outperforms state-of-the-art systems, intensifying the increasingly crowded competition in AI-driven drug discovery. Geodesic Intelligence’s NovaAtom-Lite, an AI model designed to predict the structures and interactions of biomolecules, topped a third-party benchmark in several drug discovery tasks, founder Quanquan Gu said on social media on Wednesday. On the FoldBench...

A six-figure dinner bill in Japan involving Philippine Vice-President Sara Duterte-Carpio’s family has drawn scrutiny over her perceived lavish lifestyle, as ordinary Filipinos grapple with elevated inflation and a slowing economy. The 205,007-peso (US$3,220) tab was racked up at an upscale Tokyo restaurant in 2023 by a group of 11 people. Charged to the credit card of her lawyer-husband, Manases Carpio, the expense took centre stage on Thursday at Duterte-Carpio’s impeachment trial, which is...

Singapore has opened its national gold vault to foreign central banks, a move analysts say will sharpen its head-to-head rivalry with Hong Kong for the title of Asia’s leading bullion hub. The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has announced that it would store gold for overseas central banks, international financial institutions and sovereign entities in its currency vault. The facility can hold 500 tonnes and has room for expansion. Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong, who chairs the...

South Korea is ramping up diplomatic efforts as fresh hurdles loom for its nuclear-powered submarine ambitions following a Democratic Party takeover of the US Congress. Seoul’s Defence Acquisition Programme Administration last week approved preliminary plans for the submarines, with design work set to begin next year under an initial budget of 96.6 billion won (US$72.5 million) and delivery targeted for the late 2030s or beyond. While US President Donald Trump endorsed the submarine plans at a...

Malaysia’s former prime minister Najib Razak is barred from political activity and media appearances under house arrest, according to the home minister on Thursday. Any breach will send him straight back to prison. The announcement will remove any ambiguity about Najib’s possible role in the Melaka state election on Saturday and help shore up the credibility of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s government, already facing recriminations for not being able to stop the house arrest, an expert...

South Korean police sought an arrest warrant on Thursday for a 59-year-old man, surnamed Jin, suspected of killing a 15-year-old girl who was the alleged victim in a statutory rape case involving his son, as investigators continued efforts to establish the motive. The Seongbuk police station in Seoul requested the warrant on suspicion of murder. Jin was taken into emergency custody at around 1.40am on Wednesday after allegedly stabbing the girl to death at a shared accommodation property in...

Gibran Rakabuming Raka, who is stepping down amid a scandal over his academic credentials, was a symbol of the partnership that elevated President Prabowo Subianto into office.

As Min Aung Hlaing's regime attempts to court the West, resistance forces urgently need to clarify their position toward Beijing.

Nexperia’s Chinese unit says its domestic 12-inch wafer platform now covers all of its product categories, marking a key milestone in building an independent supply chain more than a year after its Dutch parent halted direct shipments of European wafers. Speaking at the 23rd China International Semiconductor Expo in Beijing on Thursday, Nexperia China CEO John Chang said the local division had partnered with domestic foundries while relying on its own facilities and local contractors to handle...

Indonesia’s Vice-President Gibran Rakabuming Raka formally resigned on Thursday in the midst of a scandal over his academic qualifications, leaving President Prabowo Subianto with a difficult choice over who should replace him. Gibran, 39, the eldest son of former president Joko Widodo, submitted his resignation letter to the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR), a day after submitting a separate letter to Prabowo, bringing an end to a tense period that had seen mounting pressure for his...

A 17-year-old boy with autism was found alive on Thursday after six days lost in eastern Australian woodlands. The boy, whom police identified only as William, had begun camping with a teenage friend when he disappeared last Friday near Walhalla, a former gold-mining town 185km east of Melbourne, police said. A police helicopter crew found him surrounded by wilderness lying in a dry creek bed, and he was later reunited with his mother. William was in good spirits and mostly in good health, the...

That the United States suspected Nvidia’s leader was a Chinese spy target underscores the deep distrust between the two powers, even as their leaders try to stabilize ties.

For Malaysian content creator Iqbal Fatkhi, making news content credible to younger audiences sometimes means making it less like traditional journalism. Instead of polished broadcasts using formal language, the 33-year-old editor-in-chief of news portal CiliSos Media prefers conversational videos that speak to audiences on their own terms. “It’s ironic in a way that, to gain credibility, you have to look not credible in that sense,” he said. His approach reflects a broader shift in news...