South Korea’s Justice Minister nominee Kim Seung-won withdrew his nomination on Saturday following allegations concerning his involvement in a Covid-19 treatment and approval of its clinical trials. “After much deliberation, I decided to step down as the nominee for minister of the justice ministry. I apologise for failing to live up to your expectations,” Kim said during a press conference at the National Assembly. Kim, who said he did not want to add any burden to Lee Jae Myung’s...

Briton Johnny Gibbs has been in Australia for six months, surfing and working part-time – like countless other young people drawn to the country’s pristine beaches and laid-back way of life. He is one of thousands that venture Down Under on so-called “working holiday visas” – a chance to work, and play, in Australia for as long as three years. But the future for some backpackers is now in doubt, following the government’s announcement of plans to cut the number of visas issued – and detain...

Japan’s wartime kamikaze pilots remain among the most recognisable symbols of the Pacific war: young men flying aircraft into Allied ships on missions from which they were not expected to return. Far less well-remembered are the fukuryu – suicide frogmen trained in the closing months of World War II to walk into the sea with mines on bamboo poles, then wait beneath the waves for an Allied invasion fleet. Kanade Hamamoto was one of many Japanese people who had never heard of them, despite...

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is caught in an energy policy bind with no easy exit. Cutting Russian oil imports to avoid potential new US tariffs could increase fuel prices ahead of key regional elections, or stress government finances. Maintaining such purchases could cripple Indian exports to its largest market. India, the world’s third-largest oil importer and among the biggest buyers of Russian crude, reacted unusually strongly on Thursday to a US congressional bill that would allow...

Chinese researchers have made early strides in pushing semiconductor processing nodes below 3-nm using older lithography technology, as more advanced extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) tools from ASML remain blocked under US sanctions. The breakthrough marks the latest progress in China’s drive to chart an alternative path to advanced chipmaking amid US export restrictions. Under current export control rules, Dutch equipment giant ASML is barred from selling its state-of-the-art EUV machines...

In Silicon Valley and beyond, the architects of artificial intelligence are increasingly warning about the risks it poses to humanity. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei wants the industry to slow down. A former engineer at his company, who also worked at its rival OpenAI, told reporters after quitting earlier this month that he was “genuinely frightened” unchecked AI development might mean “we could all die in the immediate future”. Even Geoffrey Hinton, the Nobel Prize-winning computer scientist known...

EOS-05 is a single satellite that is part of a broader imitative of India to strengthen its ISR capabilities.

President Trump has gotten no love back yet from Kim Jong-un. He could turn to Xi Jinping, China’s leader, to help set up a summit when Mr. Xi visits Washington next week.

From church vandalism to grave desecration, assaults against Christian minorities are increasing in the large state of West Bengal since the BJP, an RSS offshoot, came to power in May.

The motivations of individual women who join militant organizations cannot be reduced to a single explanation. The organizational incentives are easier to identify.

The Chinese narrative attempts to erase the independent agency Tibet exercised before 1951, framing Shipki La as a historical link between China and India (not Tibet and India).

Even as investment tops 327 billion rupees, firms at Allama Iqbal Industrial City report inadequate wastewater infrastructure, unreliable utilities, and no public transport.

A combination of media misunderstandings, Chinese distortions, and Dutch mistakes raise the risk that Europeans draw the wrong conclusions about economic security.

The suspect, a 16-year-old student, also died, officials said. It was the third high-profile school shooting in the Philippines in recent months.

In adapting the old plot, the director-writer Simon Stone transports the story to a modern Korea from Russia in the early 1900s.

Uzbekistan aims to attract greater U.S. investment, and is making its own investments in the United States. But it can’t forget the people.

The tangible outcomes will be modest, but the stakes are high.

Alibaba Group Holding’s research arm, Damo Academy, has open-sourced an artificial intelligence model capable of identifying nearly 150 abdominal conditions – including cancers – by reading computed tomography (CT) scans, marking the latest step in the firm’s growing medical AI efforts. The vision-language model, called Damo Radar, was designed to analyse contrast-enhanced CT scans covering 18 abdominal organs and identify a broad range of diseases and other abnormalities, such as malignant...

Central Asian states should jointly develop drone capabilities to prepare for current and future security needs.

South Korea is betting big on universal AI access, using state activism and corporate collaboration to strengthen its position in the global AI race.

Asian economies heavily dependent on imported energy are facing an even sharper squeeze after the shutdown of Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline removed a key escape route from the disruption in the Strait of Hormuz, deepening an energy shock that has already pushed crude oil above US$100 a barrel. Analysts said the loss of that bypass would hit Asian refiners first before feeding through to inflation, currencies and economic growth across the region. Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil...

Singapore Airlines was awarded the title of world’s best airline in the annual rankings by Skytrax, taking the top spot from Qatar Airways in a year that saw Middle Eastern carriers come under significant pressure from the ongoing war in Iran. The award, which is based on a survey of almost 25 million travellers, was announced in London on Friday, with a list dominated by Asian carriers. Only one European airline – Air France-KLM – made the top 10, and not a single US company, despite their...

China is pushing patrols into new waters near Taiwan, regularizing its presence, and deploying research vessels that can conduct military reconnaissance.

Ant International, the overseas affiliate of China’s Ant Group, is executing an artificial intelligence overhaul across its entire suite of global financial services, introducing AI agents designed to help manage payments, foreign exchange and treasury operations. Described by the company as its largest-ever product upgrade, the initiative embeds AI-native solutions across all platforms: cross-border payment network Alipay+, merchant services provider Antom, account and treasury platform...

The war with Iran revealed just how much influence the world’s biggest oil importer has over prices and other countries’ supplies of jet fuel, gasoline and diesel.

Here’s what satellite imagery and the IAEA are telling us.

An Australian accused of murdering a teenage girl in Thailand and abandoning her body in a suitcase pleaded not guilty in court on Friday, citing self-defence. Simon Peter Carman, 45, was arrested at a Bangkok airport in June as he prepared to take a flight back to Australia after the 17-year-old victim’s friend had reported her missing. The young woman’s body was found in a suitcase near a railway track in Pattaya, a seaside resort city south of the capital, Bangkok. Police said she died of...