The arrest of President Yoon Suk Yeol and ongoing political turmoil over the fallout from his botched Dec. 3 martial law declaration have sparked mixed reactions from the foreign resident community. Though some view the crisis as a temporary setback unlikely to impact the country’s long-term stability, others describe it as a significant hit to Korea’s international reputation and trust in its democratic institutions. “I think it doesn’t matter much to the foreign community,” said Gregoire Jaquet, a Swiss national in his late 40s, who is a business development manager for a moving company, told The Korea Herald. “But it…
Author: Asia News Network
A faithful dog that mourned its late owner to the point of being “severely depressed” has found a new home after being adopted by a Thai princess. Images of the brown and white dog, named Moo Daeng (Thai for “red pork”), sleeping in front of a convenience store went viral on social media in January, reported The Nation. The Mari-Mo Photography Facebook page, which has been posting photos of Moo Daeng since its owner’s death in November 2024, said in various posts that the dog had been living in front of a 7-Eleven outlet in Yamo Market, in the Mueang…
China on Jan 28 said it is willing to accept confirmed Chinese nationals repatriated from the United States, as US President Donald Trump has threatened tariffs and sanctions on some countries if they do not cooperate on accepting deportees. In recent months, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement has sent five charter flights to China with hundreds of Chinese nationals thought not to have a legal basis to remain in the US. Nonetheless, US Department of Homeland Security officials have been frustrated by what they say is Beijing’s longstanding refusal to cooperate on repatriation by declining to issue travel documents. The…
There are reportedly 36 major Chinese-operated call-centre gangs based in Myanmar’s Myawaddy city, employing over 100,000 individuals to make fake calls to dupe people out of money, a top Chinese official said. Liu Zhongyi, a Chinese assistant minister of public security, and his delegation visited the Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau (CCIB) in Nonthaburi on Monday, to seek support from bureau chief Pol Lt-General Trairong Phiwpan in combating these scams. The assistant minister pointed out that many Chinese citizens have been lured or deceived into working for these gangs in Myanmar, adding that some of these individuals were reportedly assaulted and…
Thailand exported 9.95 million tonnes of rice in 2024, increasing 13% from the previous year, and the highest number in six years, the Commerce Ministry reported on Tuesday. The value of exported rice last year also rose 27% year on year to 225.65 billion baht, said Arada Fuangtong, director general of the Department of Foreign Trade. White rice is responsible for 60% of the total export or 5.99 million tonnes, followed by jasmine rice at 1.74 million tonnes, steamed rice at 1.27 million tonnes, fragrant rice at 0.63 million tonnes, sticky rice at 0.3 million tonnes and brown rice at…
The global sea-level rise due to climate change could be up to 90cm higher than earlier estimates by the end of the century, new research by NTU has found. The UN climate science body had previously estimated that sea levels could go up by between 0.6m and 1m by 2100 if no action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions was taken. But NTU’s new study showed that under such a scenario, the projected sea-level rise is between 0.5m and 1.9m instead. The researchers developed a new forecasting method that combines complementary data from various sea-level projection models with expert opinions. This…
AS the Myanmar crisis approaches its fourth year, everyone is asking if Malaysia, a founding member of the group that has taken over the chairmanship, can really do anything to end the violence that has claimed 5,350 lives and displaced 3.3 million people. It’s not just the scale of the destruction that has caused some to label the latest Myanmar civil war as “Asean’s Gaza”. It has created a refugee crisis for Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and even Bangladesh. The breakdown of law and order in its border areas has allowed criminal gangs to set up scam farms that have ensnared…
A Vietnamese woman has been unmasked as a key mastermind in a massive VND1 trillion (US$40 million) scam network. Phạm Thi Huyen Trang, 26, and in fluent Chinese, operated out of Cambodia and played a senior managerial role, training scammers, designing highly manipulative scripts, and coaching lower-ranking members to pose as police, tax officials and other authorities to steal money from thousands of Vietnamese victims. The Bac Ninh police recently cracked down on this sophisticated online fraud network, arresting nearly 60 individuals involved in orchestrating one of the most organised scam operations Vietnam has seen. Trang was one of five…
U S President Donald Trump said Monday that Microsoft is in talks to acquire TikTok, while the app’s future in the country faces uncertainty. TikTok is facing down a US law that ordered the company to divest from its Chinese owner ByteDance or be banned in the United States. Asked late Monday if Microsoft was in discussion for acquiring TikTok, Trump told reporters: “I would say yes.” “There’s a lot of interest in TikTok, there’s great interest in TikTok,” he added aboard Air Force One. He noted that a “bidding war” would also be a good development. A law banning…
A career-ending sex scandal involving one of Japan’s most bankable stars has snowballed into a corporate governance nightmare and a textbook cautionary tale of how crises should never be managed. The spiralling controversy involves Masahiro Nakai, the 52-year-old media personality who was the leader of defunct male idol group Smap, and mainstream broadcaster Fuji Television. It also highlights the growing role that foreign activist shareholders are playing in compelling change in stuffy Japanese boardrooms. The fallout from the scandal continues, even after Nakai quit show business and dozens of household brand names yanked ads from Fuji TV. Parent company Fuji…