Asia

More than 300 foreign nationals were arrested in a raid on an alleged online gambling operation in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, police said on Saturday, in one of the country’s largest crackdowns on illegal digital betting networks. The 321 foreigners, mainly from Vietnam, were arrested at a commercial building near the city’s Chinatown section that investigators described as a hub for more than 70 online gambling websites, targeting players outside Indonesia, based on marketing records...

US President Donald Trump’s landmark visit to China comes as the US-Iran war disrupts global energy supplies, fuels economic uncertainty and adds fresh strain to Washington-Beijing ties. In the latest instalment of a series examining how rivalry, interdependence and geopolitical crises are reshaping the relationship between the two powers, Amber Wang looks at the prospects for joint progress on military use of AI. China and the United States are facing calls to discuss the safe military use of..

The tourists were in a minibus that had left Mount Bromo, local media reported.

Chinese officials have signalled privately a growing willingness to retaliate against the United States, buoyed by confidence in their economic leverage as US President Donald Trump prepares to visit Beijing this week. Sources told the South China Morning Post that officials in Beijing had grown bolder since playing its rare earths card in October and were now less worried about tariffs. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to comment publicly, said..

When US President Donald Trump announced that 5,000 US troops would leave Germany, the immediate reading in Western capitals was political: another round in Trump’s running quarrel with European allies, triggered by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s criticism of Washington’s handling of the war with Iran. For Beijing, the more interesting reading is structural. The drawdown coincides with a period in which Foreign Minister Wang Yi has spent much of 2026 cultivating a “partners not rivals”...

China unveiled some of its most advanced military technology, including robot dogs and an AI-enabled underwater system that can neutralise mines, at a defence expo. Autonomous underwater vehicles designed to be launched by submarine were one of the most noteworthy products that featured at the 2026 Chengdu Defence Technology Industry Expo in mid-April. The vessels, which can be launched from 260mm or 533mm torpedo tubes, are mainly designed to conduct high-precision deep-ocean surveys and seabed

RANONG - Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul cut short his visit to Phuket on Sunday afternoon to inspect an illegal warehouse found to be storing smuggled electrical appliances worth about 50 million baht belonging to a Myanmar national.

A week ago, Seoul reported a blast and fire aboard the same vessel in the strait.

The death toll from a suicide attack on a security post in northwest Pakistan rose to 14 police officers, authorities said early on Sunday. A self-proclaimed breakaway group of the Pakistani Taliban has claimed the attack. A suicide bomber and several gunmen detonated an explosives-laden vehicle near the post in Bannu, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, late on Saturday, senior police official Sajjad Khan said. The attack triggered an intense shoot-out, and some...

The family are now working to bring home the body of Mr Timothy Heng.

The train suspended its service at Kawasaki Station.

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding is preparing an overhaul of how local consumers shop online, betting that the next trend will feel more like chatting with an artificial intelligence chatbot rather than typing keywords into a search bar, according to a source. Users of the company’s flagship AI assistant Qwen – one of the most popular in China – would soon be able to use natural language to “talk” with the chatbot app to find and buy items listed on Alibaba’s Taobao and Tmall...

Israel deported two activists on Sunday after being detained near Greece for slightly over a week for leading an aid flotilla attempting to break the Israeli naval blockade of the Gaza Strip. The two, Spanish-Swedish citizen of Palestinian origin Saif Abukeshek and Brazilian citizen Thiago Ávila, were among dozens of activists intercepted by the Israeli navy off the coast of Crete. Both are members of the Global Sumud Flotilla’s steering committee, whose mission is to break Israel’s naval...

US President Donald Trump’s US$500 billion Stargate AI project is being undermined by the war with Iran, a conflict that is accelerating the decline of the United States, according to Chinese analysts. The project, designed to cement US dominance in the field of artificial intelligence, was announced in January last year, shortly after Trump’s return to power, and involves leading companies such as OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle. A critical component of this plan was building the world’s largest AI

GRANADILLA DE ABONA (SPAIN) - Occupants of a cruise ship struck by a deadly hantavirus outbreak that has sparked international alarm began leaving the vessel in Spain's Canary Islands on Sunday for their repatriation.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s diplomatic balancing act during his visit to China last month marked a sharp contrast with a European Union grappling with geopolitical upheaval and economic stagnation. Sanchez pushed for closer ties with Beijing while raising concerns over a persistent bilateral trade deficit and the Ukraine war, an approach that analysts said could serve as a diplomatic template for Brussels amid its fraying relationship with Washington. According to Wang Hanyi, a...

Tired of petrol shortages and skyrocketing prices, Simón Huanca took matters into his own hands. The 53-year-old Indigenous artisan imported a Chinese electric car to navigate El Alto, Bolivia’s highest city, using the vehicle to transport both his family and the alpaca wool for his weaving workshop. He also installed a dedicated charger in his own garage, mainly for convenience, but also because there are only three public charging stations serving the vast metropolitan area of El Alto and...

China may finally have a chance to loosen the grip of deflation. Yet, the more important question is whether it can do so without making households feel poorer first. The latest producer price index (PPI), which measures the prices factories charge, brings that possibility back into serious debate. China’s March PPI rose by 0.5 per cent year on year, ending 41 months of decline; it was up 1 per cent from February. After years of weak prices, cautious household spending and squeezed corporate...

Malaysia Minister urged the public to maintain environmental cleanliness to keep rodent populations at bay.

China’s flagship civilian aircraft maker is planning to upgrade the cabin capacity of its C919 narrowbody airliner to improve passenger experience and boost the plane’s chances of challenging the Boeing-Airbus duopoly, a source with knowledge of the plans said. Bigger overhead luggage compartments and drip-proof air conditioning outlets are among the design upgrades being sketched out by the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac). “Comac has realised it must make passengers as...