Malaysia’s Sarawak locks election date amid autonomy, resource control push

The sweeping midterm election victory by US Democrats has triggered warnings from analysts that an impending regulatory clampdown could derail the nation’s multi-trillion-dollar artificial intelligence data centre buildout. Wall Street forecasters slashed their projections for Big Tech infrastructure spending hours after the vote, cautioning that a wave of proposed project moratoria and tighter oversight could stall up to 30 per cent of planned US facilities and force developers to downscale...

Hong Kong’s Exchange Fund, the war chest used to defend the local currency, reported a 74 per cent tumble in third-quarter earnings amid pervasive market uncertainty, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) said on Friday. Earnings totalled HK$18.6 billion (US$2.4 billion) in the quarter, plunging from HK$70.8 billion a year earlier. For the first nine months of 2026, total earnings slid 39.6 per cent from a year earlier to HK$171.9 billion. The Exchange Fund’s Hong Kong equities portfolio...

Malaysia’s Umno said on Friday it had settled the court payment needed to move disgraced former prime minister Najib Razak to house arrest, after a public fundraising campaign reached its target to cover his 50 million ringgit (US$12.3 million) fine. The penalty was a condition of a royal pardon granted in September allowing Najib to serve the remainder of his sentence in a corruption case linked to sovereign wealth fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) at home until August 2028, after more...

A summit could bolster Xi Jinping’s stature. But talks about Ukraine’s future and limits on nuclear weapons pose uncomfortable choices for China.

Japan’s growing strategic partnership with Vietnam is putting Tokyo’s commitment to a rules-based regional order under scrutiny, as Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi faces calls to press Hanoi over its failure to honour labour rights commitments. The issue is expected to surface during Vietnamese President To Lam’s four-day visit to Tokyo from Sunday, raising questions about how far Japan is prepared to defend the principles underpinning a major Pacific trade agreement when its economic and security...

Japanese and South Korean shares plunged on Friday after US shares tumbled overnight on worries that midterm election results could slow or derail the artificial intelligence data centre investment boom. Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index fell 5.1 per cent to 56,930 points in early trade. Seoul’s Kospi index dived 8.5 per cent to 4,923, triggering a circuit breaker which suspended trading for 20 minutes. Investors had initially cheered Tuesday’s Democratic drubbing of US President Donald Trump’s...

A road project with coordinates pointing to Nigeria. A government building apparently located in the Sahara Desert. Another road mapped to a sea near Brunei. These are among the unlikely locations listed for infrastructure projects in the Philippines’ proposed 2027 national budget, according to independent watchdogs that have discovered the discrepancies, highlighting problems with government transparency and accountability. Their scrutiny of Manila’s proposed 7.2 trillion pesos (US$114 billion)...

When Huang Baoying was growing up, her older brother helped look after her, their parents recalled. Huang Bocan would tutor his younger sister at night and help her with her studies, their mother said. To his parents, he was a responsible son whom they trusted to help care for Baoying while they worked long hours. Years later, he would be sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering her. “We never imagined that things could become so serious,” their father said after Bocan, 34, was sentenced on...

A month-long police campaign in Japan to track down hundreds of suspects sought over the nation’s most notorious crimes, some dating back decades, underscores what analysts describe as the surprising ease with which individuals can vanish, even in the country’s highly bureaucratic society. The nationwide drive, officially designated the “Month for Strengthening Investigations into Wanted Suspects”, began on November 1. Through official websites and social media appeals, authorities are urging...

South Korea’s government has announced it will revise a youth counselling manual that categorised homosexuality as a form of juvenile delinquency, after facing a backlash sparked by local media reports earlier this week. Homosexuality was grouped alongside sexual violence, theft and drug abuse under “delinquency-related issues” in the manual, the Korea JoongAng Daily reported. Published by the Korea Youth Counselling and Welfare Institute – a body affiliated with the Ministry of Gender Equality...

Singapore is seeking to flip the script by turning its land and manpower constraints into reasons to embrace AI instead of fearing it, even as the technology carries the spectre of job losses and cyberthreats in the wrong hands, a senior official has said. Minister for Digital Development and Information Josephine Teo argued that pragmatism would give her resource-scarce country an edge without becoming overly reliant on any single power or AI provider. At the Family Business Summit in Hong Kong...