Immigration restrictions, rising living costs and strains in US-India relations are testing support for President Donald Trump among some Indian-Americans who backed the Republican Party in 2024, analysts say, ahead of November’s midterm elections. A survey released in August by AAPI Data and Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote found that 66 per cent of Indian-American respondents favoured Democratic candidates for the US House of Representatives, compared with 18 per cent for Republicans....

Manila sent two strikingly different messages to Beijing on October 13. At the Malacanang Palace, a presidential spokeswoman reaffirmed Manila’s commitment to sustaining diplomatic and economic ties with China, saying “China needs the Philippines, and the Philippines needs China”. That same day, Philippine Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jnr rejected a call for military-to-military communication with China, a move that received public support from the Armed Forces of the Philippines. Teodoro...

More than 1,000 people are still taking shelter in evacuation centres, awaiting temporary housing three months after a magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck Japan’s Kumamoto prefecture, damaging their homes. The quake occurred at 4.27pm on July 28. As of Monday, the death toll stood at 38 – 36 from confirmed disaster-related causes and two suspected to be disaster-related – bringing the number of casualties to 420. Evacuation centres remain open at 21 locations in seven cities and towns. In...

South Korea wants to take back wartime command of its troops from the United States within the next two years, but analysts say Washington is refusing to commit to a date to keep a hold on a military it sees as vital to countering China. The dispute is over wartime operational control, known as OPCON, which the US has held since shortly after the outbreak of the Korean war in 1950. If fighting were to break out again under the current arrangements, designated South Korean units would be assigned...

A heated disagreement over recent land mine explosions is part of the legacy of the truce that halted the Korean War 73 years ago.

The storm, Arnab, is forecast to make landfall Wednesday on the country’s eastern coast and then cut inland and head north toward Nepal.

To make good on Khurelsukh’s announcement, Mongolia’s foreign policy will require more than two decades of sustained continuity.

The election may change the political setting in which India-Israel relations operate, but it is unlikely to erase the interests and institutional links that sustain them.

The Communist Party uses a “national team” of state-owned investment funds to stem the market rout. But this time, investors are not sure it will work.

Discussions highlight the training challenges posed by Japan’s expanding arsenal and opportunities for closer defense cooperation with New Delhi.

In much of the world, Chinese firms introduced local consumers to Japanese aesthetics. Now, they are ready to sell Japanese culture back to Japan itself.

Singapore’s ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) has retained its core executive team in what is seen as a cautious approach despite pledges of renewal, with observers pointing to ministerial promotions as a better indication of leadership plans. The PAP emerged from an internal election on Sunday with an unchanged slate for the Central Executive Committee (CEC), its highest decision-making body, as rising ministers Jeffrey Siow and Jasmin Lau failed to secure seats, though four remaining co-opted...

Open-weight models, China-US tensions, Taiwan – just a few of the more than dozen references to China-related risks cited in Anthropic’s much-anticipated listing prospectus, which was finally released on Monday after months of speculation. Mostly concentrated within the 93-page “risk factors” section of the filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the disclosures reveal how the Silicon Valley start-up assesses the commercial threats posed by China and its artificial intelligence...

The myth of the ASEAN FTA as a bad deal is costing India diplomatically.

Indonesia and Singapore are looking to set up a joint task force to deal with haze from Indonesia’s wildfires, the countries’ foreign ministers said on Tuesday, as they met to reaffirm their ties after weeks of simmering tensions. The visit to Jakarta by Singapore Foreign Minister ‌Vivian Balakrishnan came amid mounting frustrations in the city state over the transboundary haze generated by Indonesia’s most intense forest fires in 11 years. After a two-hour meeting, Singapore and Indonesia’s top...

Lomé’s maritime ambitions, deepening ties with Beijing, and growing coordination with the AES could reshape West Africa’s trade and geopolitical architecture

A 50-million-peso (US$780,000) bounty for information leading to the arrest of fugitive Philippine senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa has raised questions over the Marcos administration’s ability to enforce the law against high-profile political figures, with analysts warning the move risks making Manila appear weak and reactive. Dela Rosa, who served as national police chief under former president Rodrigo Duterte, faces an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant for alleged crimes...

Under pressure from ARSA and the Myanmar military, the AA is looking to simply move vulnerable villagers to new locations.

ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming has reclaimed the title of China’s richest person with a nearly US$100 billion fortune, as artificial intelligence powers a surge in wealth among China’s top entrepreneurs, according to the Hurun Research Institute. The 43-year-old Zhang, who topped the ranking in 2024, saw his wealth rise 43 per cent to US$99.7 billion – a record for China’s richest individual – as TikTok owner ByteDance aggressively expanded into AI, according to the 28th edition of the Hurun...

A court in India has ordered the ⁠takedown of an online documentary posted by Hotmail co-founder Sabeer Bhatia accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi and billionaire Gautam Adani of cronyism, after Adani Enterprises sued, calling it defamatory. Adani’s flagship firm, Adani Enterprises, told the High Court in the eastern city of Kolkata that the documentary, which garnered millions of views on social media in recent days, was riddled with false content and had prompted ‌inquiries from some...

Indonesia could gain critical defence technology, investment and export opportunities through a new multi-nation defence pact with Turkey, Qatar and Pakistan, but analysts warn its success hinges on turning high-level ambition into concrete projects. The four Muslim-majority nations signed the Badr Memorandum of Understanding in Doha on Wednesday. The agreement outlines a framework for defence “cooperation and integration” across joint research and development, training exchanges and industrial...

The collision of two Philippine Air Force training aircraft that killed four pilots has raised questions about whether the service’s training, maintenance and safety systems can keep pace with Manila’s ambitions to acquire more advanced combat aircraft. The crash, which occurred during a fly-by rehearsal at Fernando Air Base in Lipa City, Batangas province, south of Manila, on Friday has renewed calls for a comprehensive review of the Air Force’s ageing fleet, pilot instruction, maintenance...