The good news is, when US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in Washington this week, neither chose confrontation. Amid the high pomp and ceremony, what China has called constructive strategic stability continues. Even an uneasy truce in great power relations can be useful. Both recognise the considerable incentive to prevent their economic rivalry from spiralling out of control. Even limited understandings can reduce risks in artificial intelligence (AI) and other...

The Philippines decision to block messaging platform Discord for less than a day following a series of school shootings has raised questions about the governments response to child safety online, with analysts describing the move as a show of regulatory muscle that did little to address underlying problems. The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) announced on Thursday that it had lifted the ban after what officials described as successful negotiations with Discord...

A major coal deal in Indonesia is set to secure a powerful new partner for one of the countrys biggest miners, even as the industry worries a delay in the governments approval of production quotas could have a severe impact on the business outlook. Low Tuck Kwong and his daughter Elaine Low, the biggest shareholders of Bayan Resources, agreed on September 16 to sell a 30 per cent stake in Indonesias third-largest coal producer to fellow tycoon Andi Syamsuddin Arsyad, better known as Haji...

Former Malaysian leader Najib Razak has no money to pay the fine to secure his transfer to house arrest, his lawyers have said, as they question the delay in releasing the full details of the conditional pardon granted by Malaysias king last week. King Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar last Friday decreed that Najib would be allowed to serve out the remainder of his sentence at home, on condition that he pay his 50 million ringgit (US$10.3 million) fine. The decision triggered widespread outrage among...

Singapore and China should look to the next phase of cooperation through potential projects in artificial intelligence and the green economy, after decades of economic ties anchored by industrial parks, eco-cities and transport corridors. Singapore Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong said on Friday that the relationship had never been static, arguing that the economic challenges of each era shaped the flagship developments of that time. At the FutureChina Global Forum held in the city state,...

A veteran Malaysian politician pleaded not guilty on Friday to a sedition charge over remarks backing a rival claimant to the Negeri Sembilan throne amid the months-long royal crisis. Rais Yatim, 84, a former cabinet minister and president of Malaysias Senate, was charged at the Sessions Court in Ayer Keroh, Melaka, for his comments on June 5, during a ceremony proclaiming Tunku Nadzaruddin Tuanku Jaafar the states 12th ruler. Rais is accused of uttering seditious words at the Parkroyal...

The Singapore Food Agency (SFA) is looking into a social media allegation that dog meat was being sold illegally in Singapore. The screengrabs shared on the Facebook group Dogs Singapore appeared to show an advertisement in Vietnamese offering various cuts of dog meat. A check on Friday morning found that the post containing the screengrab had been deleted. SFA has not approved any source of dog meat, the agency said early on Friday morning. All food imports must meet SFAs requirements....

Singapores major financial institutions have pledged to train more than 80,000 local employees in AI skills as the country moves to cushion white-collar workers from potential job disruption. A pioneer batch of 23 banks, insurers and asset managers has committed to train all their Singapore staff by 20

Singapore police have launched an investigation after a video of a man allegedly filming female students using smart glasses went viral, sparking concerns about privacy and safety. In the social media video, a man wearing black-rimmed glasses and a face mask is seen walking behind two female students wearing what appear to be uniforms from Raffles Institution, a premier school in the city state. The girls seem unaware of his presence. The man clutches his phone to his chest and presses what...

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr is weighing an absolute pardon for Mary Jane Veloso, a former death row inmate detained since her 2010 conviction for drug trafficking in Indonesia. The Office of the President is seriously considering granting an absolute pardon to Mary Jane Veloso on humanitarian grounds in support of the governments commitment to protecting Filipino migrant workers, lawmaker Albert Garcia said on Wednesday, as quoted by the Philippine Daily Inquirer. There will be...

The Philippine Senate has made it mathematically easier to convict Vice- President Sara Duterte-Carpio, but observers say the ruling could intensify a battle over an impeachment trial already viewed by the public as deeply divisive. The Senate, sitting as an impeachment court, ruled on Wednesday that only senator-judges who are able to take part in the trial should be counted in determining the threshold for conviction. Under the Philippine constitution, a two-thirds vote of the Senate is...

Malaysias haze crisis has flared again just weeks after emergency measures and cloud-seeding operations brought temporary relief, with experts warning that smoke from Indonesian fires could continue drifting across the country until monsoon winds change. All 108 schools in Serian, a district in the state of Sarawak on Malaysian Borneo, were ordered to close on Thursday after the air pollutant index (API) breached 200 on Wednesday night, forcing pupils back to home-based learning. By noon,...

A fundraiser to help pay disgraced former leader Najib Razaks 50 million ringgit (US$12.3 million) fine has become a lightning rod for insults and mockery, as Malaysians continue to pile criticism on a decision last week to allow him to spend the rest of his jail sentence under house arrest. King Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar last Friday granted Najib a conditional pardon, which will allow the jailed ex-prime minister to complete his term in the comfort of his home provided he first pays off his...

Indonesias navy commissioned its first aircraft carrier on Thursday after acquiring the former Italian vessel to strengthen its maritime defences and disaster response. The Italian flag on the former ITS Giuseppe Garibaldi was replaced with the Indonesian flag on the carrier renamed the KRI Sriwijaya-100 as part of its official transfer at the ceremony held at Tanjung Priok seaport in North Jakarta. The ship, which previously served in the Italian navy, now bears the name KRI Sriwijaya-100,...

As a Rohingya exile who abandoned his life in Malaysia to return to Myanmar, Ismails bleak prospects may portend what awaits others caught in Kuala Lumpurs migrant crackdown. Weeks ago, the 25-year-old was eking out a living at a Malaysian fish market, one of legions of the Muslim minority group who left Myanmar to escape violence some monitors say amounted to genocide. But a wave of anti-Rohingya sentiment, migrant arrests and a government plan to repatriate Myanmar nationals drove Ismail...

Thailands teenage guitar sensation Nene Royal won the US$1 million top prize on Americas Got Talent, capping a viral run that made the 16-year-old a national celebrity and drew support from across her home country. Rattikarn Amloy, better known by her stage name Nene Royal, was crowned the winner during Wednesdays live results show, beating nine other finalists after emerging as the clear favourite before the finale. During Tuesdays final, she sang and played guitar on a rendition of Seven...

Toey Wattana Mongkhonnam began thinking about outfitting his family home in Thailands northeastern province of Yasothon with solar panels during the Covid-19 pandemic. In his household of five, electricity use rises with the days heat, and the monthly bill could range from 1,000 to 1,500 baht (US$30 to US$45). Back then, I checked prices and a rooftop panel system that could put out enough power to run my households appliances could cost 100,000 to 200,000 baht, said Toey, a Muay Thai...

While starting salaries for fresh graduates and entry-level workers in Singapore continue to creep upwards, the number of people in entry-level roles is shrinking, according to new data, indicating an increasingly tough job market for those at the start of their careers. Data published last month by global professional services firm Aon showed a 2.5 per cent year-on-year salary increase for entry-level employees, alongside a 3.2 per cent drop in entry-level headcount. The findings come as...

Inside a car wash lounge in the southern Philippine city of Davao, Shenilane Formento scrolls through messages on her Chinese-made Oppo phone as she waits for a customer to pay. Formento, 29, has worked as a cashier for about a year. She follows developments in the South China Sea through news reports shared on her social media feeds, including frequent confrontations between Philippine and Chinese forces in the disputed waters. While she found such incidents disappointing, she ultimately...

Bruneis measured defence ties with Beijing reflect its low-key approach to South China Sea disputes, with analysts saying that goals such as peacekeeping offer the safest room for both sides to maintain diplomacy. A meeting between Bruneian and Chinese defence officials in Beijing last week, when both nations pledged closer practical cooperation and support for regional stability, underscored that tact. But observers also expect ties to remain modest, constrained by maritime claims and Bandar...

The lawyer for an Indonesian businessman arrested in Singapore for allegedly using counterfeit S$10,000 (US$7,830) notes at a casino has said his client was a victim of fraud himself. The businessman, identified only as Steven, is accused of exchanging 34 fake S$10,000 notes for chips over three visits to the Resorts World Sentosa casino in June. The notes were accepted but later found to be counterfeit. His lawyer, Dosma Sijabat, told Tempo news magazine on Tuesday that the fake bills did ..

A Malaysian tofu pudding seller has pledged to donate 10,000 ringgit (US$2,452) to help former prime minister Najib Razak cover his 50 million ringgit fine, describing the contribution as a personal payback for a lifeline extended to him 14 years ago. In a social media post, Sunny Seow, founder of the Sunnycoco brand, shared that his motivation stemmed from a pivotal moment in 2012 when he was serving a sentence in Perak states Manjung for past mistakes. During a visit by Najib to the area ..

The Philippine Senate, sitting as an impeachment court, on Wednesday lowered the number of votes needed to convict Vice-President Sara Duterte, reducing the threshold prosecutors must clear to secure a guilty verdict. The court ruled that only senator-judges able to take part in the trial should be counted when determining the threshold for conviction. Four of the 24 senator- judges have been unable to take part in the proceedings and cannot vote. The decision means prosecutors now need 14...

Female prisoners in Myanmar are subjected to widespread torture, sexual violence and life-threatening medical neglect, Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday, underlining the chronic ill-treatment of thousands of detainees in the war-torn nation. Since the military seized power in a February 2021 coup, a protracted civil war has gripped the impoverished Southeast Asian nation, devastating several regions and killing about 100,000 while displacing more than 3.5 million. In a report, the New...

Melaka on Wednesday officially called for a state election the latest test for Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahims government, which is already facing an internal feud and growing public frustration over failed reforms. The state assembly was dissolved effective from Wednesday following an official notification sent to the countrys Election Commission the previous day by Ibrahim Durum, the Melaka state assemblys speaker. A state election will be held within 60 days of the dissolution...

Singaporeans are among the most open to allowing an artificial intelligence agent to shop for them, but they also want the strictest guard rails, research shows. The latest agentic AI study from Global Payments released on Wednesday indicates the hoops agentic AI will need to jump through to be trusted to make purchases without human intervention. The study, which surveyed seven countries including the United States, China and the United Kingdom, found 59 per cent of Singaporeans are open to ..

A series of small earthquakes beneath Keningau, an inland district of Sabah in Malaysian Borneo, is drawing attention to a part of the state where scientists say the fault lines are poorly understood and the consequences of a larger quake could be devastating. The latest, a magnitude 3.4 tremor on September 3, was felt in several parts of Keningau, prompting staff at the district office to suspend a meeting and move to a designated safe area. No serious damage was reported. The tremor was one ..

More than 170,000 respiratory cases were recorded in regions affected by haze in Indonesia, a health ministry official said on Tuesday, as the country continues its battle to control fires that caused the toxic smog. Blazes in Borneo, Sumatra and Papua have blanketed parts of the vast archipelago of more than 280 million people with haze, as well as neighbouring Malaysia and Singapore, sending air quality indices plummeting. The toxic smog contains pollutants including PM 2.5, a fine ..

The Philippines has less than two years to turn its ambitious Pax Silica project from a US-backed plan into a functioning industrial hub before a change of government in Manila and potentially Washington puts its future to the test. Pax Silica is an initiative by US President Donald Trumps administration to diversify US supplies of critical minerals and semiconductors. The Philippines is seeking to position itself as a manufacturing base for companies looking to reduce their dependence on...

The mother of a 15-year-old Thai-Swedish teenager who died after his motorbike crashed into a truck illegally reversing into oncoming traffic has made an emotional appeal for justice, accusing police of failing to execute an arrest warrant for the alleged driver, a Chinese national, seven months after the fatal crash. Tommy Boulanger, an aspiring footballer, was left in a coma following the February 20 crash in the Nongpure district of Chonburi, near the resort city of Pattaya. He never ..

Indonesia plans to press ahead with discounted Russian crude oil imports to secure domestic energy supplies and manage fiscal pressures, despite the risk of higher US tariffs as Washington moves to tighten economic pressure on Moscow. On Friday, US President Donald Trump signed into law an act that would give him authority to impose sanctions on Russia and slap tariffs of up to 100 per cent on the top five buyers of Russian crude oil, gas and military equipment, or countries that help Moscow...

The third son of Thailands King Maha Vajiralongkorn has said he wants to return home for urgent brain surgery. Chakriwat Than Aong Vivacharawongse posted a video on social media on Monday saying he had two large brain tumours requiring surgery. The 43-year-old doctor said he wanted to receive treatment in Thailand. I want to return to Thailand for treatment because Thai doctors are highly capable, he said in the video. Chakriwat said he did not have enough money to pay for the surgery in...

Indonesias bid for another term on the United Nations premier security body stands a good chance of success given Jakartas growing global engagement, analysts say, but its balancing act between competing powers could complicate efforts to speak for the Global South. Jakartas Foreign Ministry said on Thursday that it would launch its campaign this week for a fifth term as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council for 20292030. The ministry said it was seeking the seat to...

Cambodia is set to present the outcome of its crackdown on scams to global governments and security agencies gathering in Phnom Penh this week. Yet questions remain over where the missing billions have gone as well as the role of the countrys elite, who for many years denied the problem existed at all on Cambodian soil. Scam compounds took over declining mega-casinos during the pandemic. As borders closed, gamblers were replaced with scam workers: many tricked, trafficked and forced to commit...

Believing that a lorry driver in the same neighbourhood had punctured his tyres, a private-hire driver twice left urine and faeces outside his neighbours flat in Singapore. Martin Chua Kim Soon, a 67-year-old Singaporean, was fined S$5,000 (US$3,920) by a court on Tuesday. He paid the fine in full after pleading guilty to two counts of insulting behaviour under the Protection from Harassment Act. The court heard that Chua was a private-hire driver with Tada at the time of the offences and ..

Malaysias Sabah state has ordered a full investigation into the Semporna resort where a female tourist from China was allegedly molested and assaulted inside her room by an intruder early last Saturday. State Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Jafry Ariffin said he instructed tourism authorities and enforcement agencies to investigate the security lapses that led to the incident and the resorts licensing status. I have instructed the relevant tourism authorities to immediately look...

Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to meet US President Donald Trump in Washington this week, after the May talks in Beijing and before the November Apec summit in Shenzhen. This sequence of diplomacy will test if the commitment to building a constructive China-US relationship of strategic stability translates into practical arrangements. The Washington meeting faces clear limits. Differences over trade, technology, industrial policy, Taiwan and regional security are deeply embedded in...

Southeast Asia remains comparatively confident in international cooperation even as scepticism grows over whether the United States or China should take a leading global role, a new survey has found. Analysts said the findings reflected a long-standing regional preference for keeping strategic options open, particularly among smaller and middle powers wary of an international order dominated by either Washington or Beijing. Seeking Security and Opportunity in a Stormy World, released this...

Malaysias royal crisis in Negeri Sembilan spilled into a new constitutional fight on Monday after the states chief minister refused to accept the rulers dismissal of the entire executive council a dispute that has already brought down one government and triggered a snap election. The latest showdown comes less than a week after the executive council backed a disputed bid to remove the ruler, putting the palace and state government in conflict over both the throne and executive...

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has suffered a double whammy as his Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition scrambles to placate public outrage over disgraced ex-leader Najib Razak being granted house arrest and the shock resignation of his transport minister in protest against the royal clemency. But observers do not expect the administration, already reeling from PH defeats in two recent state elections as federal allies turned against the coalition, to implode just yet. Anwar and PHs ..