Asia

4 days agoShareSaveFan WangBBC NewsShareSaveA Japanese woman who unexpectedly kissed K-pop boy band BTS’s Jin at a fan event last year has found herself under investigation by South Korean police.
Police have called for the woman – who is currently in Japan – to come forward for questioning on charges of sexual harrassment in a public space.
The incident happened during the K-pop idol’s first public event in Seoul last June, which saw him hug 1,000 fans. Instead of just hugging the star, the woman appeared to have kissed his face, with Jin responding by turning his face away.
The kiss angered other BTS fans, one of whom filed a criminal complaint against her, leading police to launch an investigation.
On 13 June, 2024, the day after he was discharged from the army, Jin, whose real name is Kim Seok-jin, held a fan event where he hugged 1,000 fans and performed songs in front of 3,000 others.
During the three-hour long “hugathon”, fans who won the chance to embrace him queued up and w..

6 days agoShareSaveShaimaa KhalilTokyo correspondentShareSaveWhen Japanese journalist Shiori Ito decided to speak up about her rape allegations, she knew she would do so in the face of a society that prefers silence.
“I’m scared…but all I want to do is to talk about the truth,” she says, in the opening scene of her Oscar-nominated documentary Black Box Diaries.
Shiori became the face of Japan’s MeToo movement after she accused a prominent journalist, Noriyuki Yamaguchi, of rape. He denies the charges.
Her acclaimed directorial debut, based on her memoir of the same name, is a retelling of her quest for justice, after authorities found insufficient evidence to pursue criminal charges.
But there is one country where the documentary has still not been aired: Japan – where it has run into huge controversy.
Shiori’s former lawyers have accused her of including audio and video footage that she did not have permission to use, which, they maintain, has violated trust and put her source..

3 days agoShareSaveUmang PoddarBBC HindiReporting fromDelhiShareSaveFive years after deadly religious riots engulfed India’s capital Delhi, there is no legal closure in sight for the people involved.
A BBC Hindi analysis has found that more than 80% of the cases related to the violence where courts gave decisions have resulted in acquittals or discharges.
More than 50 people, mostly Muslims, were killed after clashes broke out between Hindus and Muslims over a controversial citizenship law in February 2020. The violence – the deadliest the city had seen in decades – stretched on for days, with hundreds of homes and shops set on fire by violent mobs.
The BBC had earlier reported on incidents of police brutality and complicity during the riots. The police have denied any wrongdoing and in their investigation, alleged that the violence was “pre-planned” as a part of a larger conspiracy to “threaten India’s unity” by the people who were protesting against the law.
They registered 758 cases..

4 days agoShareSaveKaty WatsonPacific correspondentShareSaveThe Cook Islands may be small but the ambitions of its leader are mighty.
A range of deals Prime Minister Mark Brown signed with China without consulting the public or New Zealand – an ally to which the Cooks is closely tied – has caused increasing irritation and concern.
The agreements are the first of their kind with a country that is not a traditional ally. They cover infrastructure, ship-building, tourism, agriculture, technology, education and, perhaps crucially, deep-sea mineral exploration.
Brown says his decisions will be based on the “long-term interests” of the Cook Islands, which are remote, resource-rich and vulnerable to climate change.
Not everyone agrees with him. The new, wide-ranging deals with Beijing have led to protests on Rarotonga – the largest Cook Island – and a vote of no confidence against Brown in parliament, which he survived earlier this week. They have also worried Australia, another..

3 days agoShareSaveLaura Bicker and Kathryn ArmstrongBeijing and LondonShareSaveAt least 40 Uyghurs have been deported to China,Thai authorities have confirmed, despite warnings from rights groups they could face possible torture and even death.
The group is thought to have been flown back to China’s Xinjiang region on Thursday, after being held for 10 years in a Bangkok detention centre.
China has been accused of committing crimes against humanity and possibly genocide against the Uyghur population and other mostly Muslim ethnic groups in the north-western region of Xinjiang. Beijing denies all of the allegations.
It is the first time Thailand has deported Uyghurs since 2015.
The deportation has been shrouded in secrecy after serious concerns were raised by the United States and United Nations.
Thai media reported that several trucks, some with windows blocked with sheets of black plastic, left Bangkok’s main immigration detention centre in the early hours of Thursday morning.
Hou..

4 days agoShareSavePeter HoskinsBBC News, Business ReporterReporting fromSingaporeShareSaveA Succession-like feud has engulfed one of Singapore’s richest families as property tycoon Kwek Leng Beng accused his son of plotting a boardroom takeover.
Mr Kwek says he has filed court papers accusing his son Sherman of trying to take control of their real estate firm City Developments Limited (CDL). Sherman Kwek has denied the allegation.
Kwek Leng Beng, who is CDL’s executive chairman, is also seeking to fire his son, who is the chief executive.
CDL, Singapore’s biggest listed property developer, has halted trading in its shares on the financial hub’s stock exchange.
The feud has sparked comparisons with the HBO television series Succession, in which the fictional Roy family fight for control of the global media firm Waystar RoyCo.
“We intend to change the chief executive officer at the appropriate time,” Kwek Leng Beng said in a statement.
“As a father, firing my son was certainly not an ea..

5 days agoShareSaveMahjooba NowrouziBBC Afghan Service, KabulShareSaveIn a crowded control centre, surrounded by dozens of TV screens, the Taliban’s police force proudly shows off its newly-acquired network of 90,000 CCTV cameras – used to watch over the day-to-day lives of millions of people.
“We monitor the entire city of Kabul from here,” says Khalid Zadran, a spokesperson for the Taliban police chief, pointing to one of the screens.
The authorities say such surveillance will help fight crime, but critics fear it will be used to clamp down on dissent and to monitor the strict morality code enforced by the Islamist Taliban government under their interpretation of Sharia law.
The BBC are the first international journalists allowed to see the system in action.
Inside the control room, police officers sit in rows watching the live streams from thousands of cameras, keeping tabs on the lives of the six million people who live in Kabul.
From car licence plates to facial expressions, every..

4 days agoShareSaveSoutik BiswasIndia correspondent•@soutikBBCShareSaveFor over 20 years, archaeologists in India’s southern state of Tamil Nadu have been unearthing clues to the region’s ancient past.
Their digs have uncovered early scripts that rewrite literacy timelines, mapped maritime trade routes connecting India to the world and revealed advanced urban settlements – reinforcing the state’s role as a cradle of early civilisation and global commerce.
Now they’ve also uncovered something even older – evidence of what could be the earliest making and use of iron. Present-day Turkey is one of the earliest known regions where iron was mined, extracted and forged on a significant scale around the 13th Century BC.
Archaeologists have discovered iron objects at six sites in Tamil Nadu, dating back to 2,953–3,345 BCE, or between 5,000 to 5,400 years old. This suggests that the process of extracting, smelting, forging and shaping iron to create tools, weapons and other objects may ha..

2 days agoShareSaveMariko Oi and Mel RamsayBBC NewsShareSaveThe boss of The Pokémon Company believes the series can last for at least another 50 years if it continues to innovate.
First launched on Nintendo’s Game Boy in 1996, the video game has expanded into films, TV and toys to become one of the world’s highest-grossing media franchise.
Most recently, the trading card game based on the cute creatures at the centre of its universe has seen a surge in popularity – but it has also brought scalpers and frauds to the hobby.
CEO Tsunekazu Ishihara, who has been in charge of the company since 1998, spoke to BBC News ahead of its yearly update about the secret of its success, tackling challenges, and the series’ future.
Pokémon Day is an annual livestream showcasing upcoming releases, upgrades and events.
Fans got an extended look at upcoming Nintendo Switch title Pokémon Legends: Z-A, and learned it would be released later this year.
There was also a first glimpse of P..

4 days agoShareSaveSimon AtkinsonBBC NewsShareSaveThe parents of an eight-year-old diabetic girl in Australia who died after they denied her insulin for almost a week have each been sentenced to 14 years in jail for manslaughter.
Elizabeth Struhs had in 2019 been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, and her family was told she would need daily insulin injections.
Her parents belonged to a religious sect known as The Saints, who opposed medical care, believing God would heal her.
She died from diabetic ketoacidosis, which causes a dangerous build-up of ketones – a type of acid – and blood sugar spikes at her home in Toowoomba west of Brisbane in January 2022.
Her father Jason Struhs and mother Elizabeth Struhs, were among 14 people convicted of manslaughter last month.
The Saints’ leader Brendan Stevens has been jailed for 13 years by the judge at the Supreme Court of Queensland, who called him a “dangerous, highly manipulative individual”.
Eleven other members were handed jail terms of six ..