Author: viking

The conflict in the Middle East is having profound human and economic cost across the region and beyond.

A Bangladeshi man who spent over three years on bail in Malaysia fighting local child pornography charges has been spirited to Alaska by the FBI to face what prosecutors describe as one of the most prolific child exploitation cases in US history.
Zobaidul Amin, 28, was brought from Malaysia to the United States last Wednesday and made his initial appearance in a federal court in Anchorage the following day, where he pleaded not guilty to all 13 counts, according to the US Department of Justice…

Warissara* survived the crash. It was the next four hours that killed her.
The 21-year-old had been riding home from her restaurant job on the night of February 20 last year, caught in heavy rain on a slick Bangkok road, when she came off her motorbike.
Emergency responders who arrived at the scene found only a few visible scratches – and detected the smell of alcohol. She had no identification on her. The call was made: send her to the police station, not the hospital.
She arrived at…

Southeast Asia is set to see a warmer-than-usual early summer, potentially raising power demand for fuel and straining grids at a time when the Middle East conflict has tightened energy supplies in the region.
Across most of maritime and mainland Southeast Asia, home to more than half a billion people, temperatures will be above average for the March-April-May period, according to the latest seasonal outlook published by the Asean Specialised Meteorological Centre (ASMC) on Friday.
The forecast…

The mountains of the Philippines are quieter now.
The jungle bases that once sustained Asia’s longest-running communist insurgency are mostly emptied out. Its tens of thousands of guerrilla fighters have been reduced, by the military’s account, to something “very, very negligible”.
After 56 years, the Philippine military thinks the fight is almost over – and that conviction is transforming the armed forces from the inside out.
Commanders are overhauling training and strategy, moving away from…

A thin band of light from Cristian Lucanas’ headlamp pierces the blackness of a Philippine rainforest as he digs through the underbrush before gently scooping up a cockroach with his bare hands.
As the Southeast Asian country’s lone expert on the oft-misunderstood insect – and discoverer of 15 species – friends have dubbed the soft-spoken scientist “Ipis Lord”, after the local name for the ubiquitous bug.
While fully aware most view cockroaches as disgusting, disease-bearing pests, the…

By late afternoon in Putrajaya, the smell of smoke fills the air. Charcoal pits glow along the side of the road as office workers and families with school-aged children in tow move through the haze with the deliberate purpose of people who have not eaten since dawn.
This is a Ramadan bazaar in full bloom: rows of bright pink drinks in plastic cups, towers of kueh – bite-sized sweet and savoury snacks – in every colour, and, at one particularly busy stall, rows of whole chickens turning slowly…

At the bustling Han Market in central Da Nang, two Vietnamese vendors tease a middle-aged South Korean tourist by calling him harabeoji, or “grandfather” in Korean.
“I’m offended!” he jokes.
The women grab his arms and laugh. “It’s OK, it’s OK.”
The man had returned to their stall after buying 200,000 dong (US$7.60) worth of macadamia nuts the day before. It is a small moment of banter, repeated dozens of times a day in a city that many people from South Korea jokingly call their own unofficial…

Indonesia went to Washington to negotiate a trade deal and came home with more than 200 obligations to America’s nine.
A day after the signing, the US Supreme Court struck down the legal basis for the tariff threat that had driven the whole exercise – for a time, at least.
Detractors have likened this “agreement on reciprocal trade” to a blank cheque and a surrender of Indonesia’s sovereignty. The government, for its part, calls it a win-win.
The deal was signed by President Prabowo Subianto on…

Plans by a UK regulator to provide support to legitimate financial influencers and develop a stronger investment culture in the country, highlight its increased commitment to smarter regulation, according to an expert.