TOKYO — North Korea had launched its third barrage of short-range missiles in just over a week, parading its growing ability to strike its neighbors with devastating firepower. But instead of banding together against a common adversary last week, the two American allies in the path of the missiles — Japan and South Korea — […]
TOKYO (Reuters) – The offshore Chinese yuan fell to its weakest level on record on Monday while the Australian dollar flirted with this year’s lows on concerns over a sharp escalation in the Sino-U.S. trade war. The broadening fallout of the trade dispute saw many investors seeking cover in perceived safe-haven assets, including the yen […]
SINGAPORE – The Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) has announced five constituencies that it plans to contest at the next General Election, but its chief Chee Soon Juan believes a crucial battleground lies in winning the youth vote. Apart from its outreach to older voters, he said SDP feels it is equally important to connect to […]
In the early 1990s, the international community – through what was then the largest-ever UN peacekeeping operation – made an idealistic attempt to remake broken, war-ravaged Cambodia into a functioning liberal democracy. Twenty-five years later, Hun Sen, the man who ran the country before the UN arrived, remains in charge and Cambodia is on the […]
A huge power outage has hit the Indonesian capital Jakarta and surrounding cities, potentially affecting tens of millions of people. The failure began at about midday local time (0500 GMT) and it could take hours for power to be restored. Traffic lights switched off in some areas of Jakarta, worsening congestion in a city notorious […]
PHNOM PENH (AFP) – The man known as ‘brother number two’ of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge regime died on Sunday (Aug 4) aged 93, a spokesman for the Cambodian tribunal where he was convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity told AFP. “We can confirm that defendant Nuon Chea… passed away this evening on 4 August […]
KUALA LUMPUR – A decision by the Pakatan Harapan government to scrap a requirement for the controversial Lynas rare earth plant to ship back its feared radioactive waste as a condition to renew its operating licence has attracted condemnation among its own as well as the opposition. “Since the PH government is making a huge […]
SYDNEY (REUTERS) – The United States opposes destabilising behaviour by China in the Indo-Pacific, US Defence Secretary Mark Esper said on Sunday (August 4), as the two nations wage an escalating trade war. “We firmly believe no one nation can or should dominate the Indo-Pacific and we are working alongside our allies and partners to […]
A Singaporean woman who travelled to Syria with her Bosnia-born husband to join terror group Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is reportedly dead, and three of their children are being sent back to Australia. Fauziah Begum Khamal Bacha, who was living in Melbourne, is one of four radicalised Singaporeans known to have taken […]
MANILA, Philippines (AP) – At least seven people died and 31 others were rescued when three ferry boats separately capsized in bad weather on Saturday (Aug 3) between two central Philippine island provinces, the coast guard said. Police said at least seven people were missing after the inter-island ferries either turned over or sank in […]