A Chinese Port Could Be a Lifeline for Spain, but Also a Threat

In the city’s “apartment horror” films, one of the world’s least affordable housing markets is a backdrop for exploring superstition and socioeconomic anxiety.

Japan is bracing for a more unpredictable ally in Washington, as the US midterm elections threaten to deepen political gridlock and complicate Tokyo’s long-term security calculations, analysts say. Observers warn that post-election political battles, ranging from a possible repeat of impeachment proceedings to the mounting legal battles ensnaring the administration of US President Donald Trump, risk diverting the White House’s attention from foreign policy and its long-standing commitments to...

ByteDance is accelerating its push into embodied artificial intelligence, stepping up recruitment for robotics talent as it seeks to move cutting-edge research out of the laboratory and into physical hardware. The Beijing-based owner of TikTok and Douyin is hiring for around a dozen robotics positions across hardware and software within its Seed team, the internal unit dedicated to AI research and large language model development, according to postings released on the company’s career website...

Parents in Japan are taking an increasingly active role in their children’s lives – helping them find marriage partners, navigate job hunting and secure housing – as the line between parental support and personal decision-making continues to blur. In a practice known as “proxy matchmaking”, parents attend social events armed with photos and profiles of their children, hoping to find suitable marriage partners through conversations with other parents. The Association of Parents of Marriage...

Ferocious winds and torrential rain lashed India’s southeastern coast as Cyclone Arnab made landfall on Wednesday, forcing nearly 100,000 people to evacuate their homes in two states, authorities said. Arnab hit Andhra Pradesh as a “very severe cyclonic storm”, with winds of 125-135km/h (78-84 mph) and gusts reaching 150km/h, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said. A storm surge of 1.5 to 2.5 ‌metres (5-8 feet) above normal tide is very ⁠likely to ⁠inundate low-lying areas of the state...

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.