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A growing dispute over former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak’s house arrest has thrust the attorney general’s powers into the spotlight, raising the spectre of a constitutional clash – though legal experts say it falls short of a full-blown crisis. Najib, 73, was due to move from Kajang Prison to his Kuala Lumpur home on Friday after his political party, Umno, paid a 50 million ringgit (US$12.3 million) fine, fulfilling a condition of a royal pardon issued in September allowing him to...

Indonesia will tighten controls on state ⁠surveillance equipment and consider ⁠sweeps of its presidential palace for bugging ⁠devices, a minister said on Monday, following last week’s discovery of illegal wiretaps on the president, top officials and more. The wiretapping scandal led to the arrest of four senior police officers accused of unauthorised monitoring of phones, among them a former national police chief ‌who had recently been appointed President Prabowo Subianto’s chief of staff. The...

A viral social media prank targeting Japanese police is sweeping across the country, with children as young as seven being caught in the act. Known as “Shorinji racing”, the trend involves minors shouting “Shorinji-ja” (“We are Shorinji”) at police officers in person or through false emergency calls from public telephones while peers record them, according to Jiji Press. Some have kicked doors and torn down posters at local police boxes, or koban. The perpetrators then flee or hang up before...

DeepSeek’s Harness artificial intelligence agent framework has reached 1.54 million daily active users less than three months after launch, the Chinese AI champion said on Sunday, marking rapid growth in a new battleground between leading Chinese and American AI giants. Users of Harness through the company’s official application programming interface were consuming around 92 trillion tokens a day as of November 4, the Hangzhou-based start-up said. That is equivalent to about 1.1 billion tokens...

Nearly eight years after a psychiatrist’s murder prompted South Korea to pass a new law that increased penalties for assaulting medical staff, another attack this month has doctors asking why the country’s hospitals are still unsafe. The attack at Severance Hospital in Seoul last Wednesday left the victim, a psychiatry professor surnamed Kang, with a severe hand injury that required surgery and cuts to his face and head. South Korea’s leading medical bodies have called for urgent new security...

Ousted Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina requested on Monday a new passport and identity card so she can return from self-imposed exile in India, according to a letter seen by Reuters, her first ‌such communication since fleeing in 2024. The request marks the clearest step by Hasina to act on her plan to return to Bangladesh in December, more than two years after a deadly uprising ended her long rule, raising the prospect of fresh political and legal tensions in a country where her party...

Kota Laksamana in Melaka could be developed into Malaysian state’s new capital if Umno-led Barisan Nasional wins the seat in Saturday’s poll, according to caretaker chief minister Ab Rauf Yusoh. He said the proposed transformation would be supported by the Straits of Melaka Waterfront Economic Zone, which would bring together tourism, commercial and industrial activities along the state’s waterfront. “Kota Laksamana will become the state capital of Melaka. That is what I hope for,” he said...

Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore have all recorded rising numbers of child abuse cases in recent years, but child welfare advocates say this may be a sign of progress rather than worsening violence, as greater awareness and improved reporting bring more cases to the attention of authorities. “The good news is that more people are reporting,” said Hartini Zainuddin, a veteran advocate for abused children in Malaysia. Official figures show growing caseloads in all three countries, but differences...

In a Pakistani village nestled in rice fields, Abdul Hafeez Khoso remembers the vast industrial zones he saw in Germany when he visited to file a pioneering climate legal case. “They’re spreading pollution: up in the sky there are no borders, it can affect anywhere,” the 43-year-old said, describing areas far larger than his village of 800 people. “This is a problem for the whole world – that is why it should be resolved at the global level.” Khoso and 38 other farmers from Pakistan’s southern...

Global climate talks starting on Monday are unlikely to yield new targets on curbing greenhouse gases, but negotiators have plenty to do to implement measures already agreed, according to Singapore’s environment minister. “I think that we are not expecting a major upgrade in mitigation targets” at ‌the annual UN talks in Turkey, Grace Fu told reporters. “But we have enough, even within the Paris Agreement, with what we have already agreed on. There is enough to work on.” Delegations from nearly...

Artificial intelligence promises to make government bureaucracies leaner across Asia, but its biggest effect on public-sector employment may not come from the widely feared wave of lay-offs. Instead, analysts say the technology is more likely to reshape existing jobs and narrow opportunities for young graduates hoping to enter the civil service, even as governments seek to improve efficiency without sacrificing job security. Unlike the Netherlands, which aims to cut an estimated 25,000 full-time...

India’s top court decreed that only more environmentally friendly fireworks could be set off this weekend, citing air quality concerns. But environmental activists call it a “green wash.”