Asia News fra SCMP

Singapore and Thailand ranked among the world’s “least miserable” economies in an annual index compiled by a Johns Hopkins University economist, who said Southeast Asia was one of the “healthiest economic neighbourhoods” in the world. The 2025 Hanke’s Annual Misery Index (HAMI), compiled by applied economics professor Steve Hanke, measures the “economic temperature” of a country and seeks to approximate how its average citizen experiences the economy. This year’s HAMI found that several...

A train hit a car in Indonesia on Friday, killing four people including two children, police said, days after another deadly train crash outside the capital Jakarta. The driver of the car involved in the collision in Central Java province did not see the oncoming train on a level crossing due to thick fog, local traffic officer Eko Ari Kisworo said in a statement issued by the police. The train then collided with the car, which carried nine people and was flung about 20m (66ft) before hitting a...

A man who is believed to have struck a 17-year-old high school student in the face with a hammer in Tokyo earlier this week was arrested on Friday after a manhunt on suspicion of attempted murder, according to local police. Teruyuki Takabayashi, 44, was apprehended in Narashino, Chiba Prefecture after allegedly attacking the boy between 7.15am and 7.25am on Wednesday in Fussa, a suburban area in western Tokyo. The boy was part of a group of seven teenagers hanging around a nearby restaurant at...

A horrific train crash that killed 16 passengers on the outskirts of Jakarta has prompted Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto to pledge 4 trillion rupiah (US$230 million) to overhaul level crossings across Java after officials identified one such intersection as a key point in the chain collision. The pledge targets one of the key weaknesses in Indonesia’s rail network: crossings that are unguarded, poorly maintained or haphazardly created by local communities. Transport analysts said the...

Asia’s gold rush is starting to lose some of its lustre, as surging oil prices due to the Iran war dampen rate-cut hopes that recently helped fuel one of the metal’s strongest rallies in years. A surge in energy costs has revived inflation concerns and made central banks less likely to cut rates, and this has made interest-bearing assets more attractive, according to analysts. Gold prices fell by 12 per cent from US$5,247.90 per troy ounce on February 27 to US$4,620 on Friday morning. The metal...

A viral video of three elephants sent from Malaysia to a zoo in Japan has sparked public anger after online users said the animals appeared distressed when visitors called their names in Malay – which many viewers interpreted as a sign of homesickness. The footage showed the three pachyderms – Dara, Amoi and Kelat – responding to the Malaysian visitors, while another widely shared clip led social media users to claim one of the elephants appeared to be “weeping”. Other clips and images...

Hundreds of protesters clashed with Australian emergency services workers in a remote town following the arrest of a man suspected of murdering a five-year-old indigenous girl, police said on Friday. Australia’s prime minister, the Northern Territory’s police commissioner and a spokesperson for the victim’s family all appealed for calm after an angry crowd of roughly 400 indigenous people gathered on Thursday night at the hospital where ‌the suspect was taken after being beaten unconscious by...

Japanese police arrested a man for allegedly incinerating his dead wife at the zoo where he worked, officials and local media said on Friday, following the discovery of human remains. Police arrested Tatsuya Suzuki on Thursday evening on suspicion that he “transported the victim’s body to a tourist facility” in the northern island of Hokkaido and “destroyed it through incineration there”, a local police official said. The victim, 33-year-old Yui Suzuki, was identified by local media as his wife....

Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong has sought to reassure workers amid concerns about the AI revolution, vowing that the city state will carve out fresh opportunities even as the new technology renders some jobs obsolete. In the annual May Day rally on Friday, Wong acknowledged the anxieties but urged workers and firms to build artificial intelligence capabilities and harness its benefits. Demand would rise for AI-savvy workers, and new doors would open as global companies expanded their...

A government-backed water rave in Kuala Lumpur has earned the wrath of Malaysia’s culture war brigade, pitting religious objections against tourism goals, as critics decry the vulgar import amid growing conservatism. The uproar over the three-day Rain Rave Water Music Festival in Bukit Bintang comes as Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s government tries to promote the country as a youthful, experience-led travel destination, even as it manages a traditionalist pushback against concerts, pop culture...