Japanese museums shun video artwork on wartime atrocities acclaimed abroad

Dr Siti Hasmah Mohamad Ali, the wife of former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, has died aged 100. Her family confirmed on Monday that she died after being admitted to the National Heart Institute. The cause of death was unclear. One of Malaysia’s earliest Malay women doctors, Siti Hasmah had a long career in medicine, public health and social work. Born on July 12, 1926, she studied medicine at King Edward VII College of Medicine in Singapore and graduated in 1955. After joining the...

City Developments (CDL), the Singapore property group controlled by one of the country’s wealthiest families, said it wants to invest S$5 billion (US$3.9 billion) in Singapore, China and Japan by 2029 as part of measures to regain investor confidence after a feud within the clan. The firm also aims to sell S$6 billion of assets within the same period either via outright divestments or seeding suitable assets into managed vehicles, according to an exchange filing on Monday. It wants to set up a...

A proposal to upgrade meals for foreigners awaiting deportation at Incheon International Airport has divided immigration officials, with frontline officers raising safety concerns and some questioning whether better food is appropriate for those ordered to leave South Korea for violating the law. According to immigration authorities on Sunday, the Incheon Airport Immigration Office under the Ministry of Justice is considering providing in-flight meal boxes to foreign nationals awaiting...

This year’s haze crisis has added to the heat woes squeezing livestock farmers in Malaysia and Indonesia, as they struggle to keep their animals cool, fed and productive. While it is difficult to separately assess the effects of haze-related smoke from heat, water shortages, feed and disease, farmers and industry groups say the cumulative strain is severely affecting animal health, productivity and their finances. In Selama, Perak, poultry keeper Zaiful Zakaria, 42, had begun installing...

In China, A.I. doomsday warnings can feel distinctly Western or like a ploy to stop Chinese A.I. companies from trying to overtake their U.S. rivals.

Around 100,000 ornamental koi carp ready for sale were swept away after heavy rain caused by a typhoon breached some levees at a lake in Chiba prefecture near Tokyo, it has been revealed as authorities assess the widespread damage to local farming and fisheries. Typhoon Dujuan, which approached the region about a week ago, inundated rice paddy fields and other farmland while flooding facilities where carp and eels were being cultivated near Lake Imbanuma in northern Chiba. Kenji Tani, who runs...

Indonesia is considering lifting a statutory cap on government spending that has been in place for more than two decades, as President Prabowo Subianto pushes for faster economic growth. Supporters argue that greater room to borrow and spend would let Southeast Asia’s largest economy invest its way towards Prabowo’s target of 8 per cent annual growth by 2029. Economists counter that weakening the rule could push up borrowing costs and dent investor confidence. At issue is the mandatory ceiling...

President Trump made the offer to Xi Jinping, China’s leader, said David Perdue, the ambassador to China. The White House later said the U.S. had no plans for such a sale.

South Korea’s presidential office has demanded an official explanation and apology from Ukraine, accusing Kyiv of disclosing the transfer of two North Korean prisoners of war to South Korea and then falsely denying ‌that the two sides had agreed to keep the move confidential. “The presidential office expresses strong regret over Ukraine’s unilateral disclosure and its subsequent false announcement that there had not been a non-disclosure agreement,” Seong Ghi-hong, senior presidential secretary...

A male named Ping Ping and a female named Fu Shuang landed on Sunday, days after China’s leader said he would dispatch “envoys of friendship” to the United States.

Afghanistan’s defence ministry said on Sunday its forces had killed 28 fighters and wounded 32 in the eastern province of Nuristan after a group it said included Islamic State militants travelled from Pakistan. The ministry alleged Pakistani militias ‌had supported the fighters and that most of them were former Afghan government security personnel. Pakistan’s information ministry rejected the allegations, describing them as “frivolous, baseless and devoid of any truth” in a post on social...

US contract chipmaker GlobalFoundries sees robust demand for Chinese optical modules amid the data centre construction boom, as the firm expands its presence in China to better serve its domestic clients. Shankaran Janardhanan, senior vice-president of the firm’s photonics and radio frequency division, told the South China Morning Post in an interview that demand in the optical networking module segment was “strong”. The surging appetite for Chinese optical modules – used to transmit data in...