Asia

3 days agoShareSaveDaniel ThomasBusiness reporter, BBC NewsShareSaveDeena Ghazarian had only been in business for a year when the trade policies of President Donald Trump’s first term of office sent her company into a tailspin.
It was 2019 and her California-based firm, Austere, had just agreed to supply several big US retailers with its high-end audio and video accessories that are largely manufactured in China.
Then Trump imposed sweeping tariffs on China, and overnight Deena found herself paying a 25% surcharge on every cable and component she imported – up from zero previously.
She was forced to absorb the costs and for a while thought she would go bust.
“I literally thought I am going to start and end a business in less than a year,” she says. “I had spent all this time, money and effort, and to have something like this blindside you was shocking.”
The firm pulled through, but like numerous other US businesses it now finds itself in a strikingly similar situation.
Since retu..

2 days agoShareSaveJoel GuintoBBC NewsShareSaveA plane carrying former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte has arrived in the Netherlands where he is to face charges of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court (ICC) over his deadly “war on drugs”.
Duterte was arrested at Manila airport on Tuesday and within hours was on a chartered jet which flew via Dubai to The Hague, where the ICC sits.
The 79-year-old could become the first Asian former head of state to go on trial at the ICC.
Duterte, who contested his extradition, led the Philippines from 2016 to 2022 and presided over a violent “war on drugs” that saw thousands of small-time drug dealers, users and others killed without trial.
The Gulfstream G550 landed in Dubai for a stopover early on Wednesday and its expected departure was delayed for several hours while Duterte received medical checks, Reuters news agency reports.
Once the plane had landed in Rotterdam, the ICC confirmed that Duterte was in its custody ..

6 days agoShareSaveFarhat JavedBBC NewsReporting from IslamabadAnna LamcheBBC NewsReporting fromLondonShareSavePakistan’s army says it has freed more than 300 hostages from a passenger train seized by militants in Balochistan province on Tuesday.
The military spokesperson said 33 militants were killed during the operation.
Twenty-one civilian hostages and four military personnel were killed by the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) before the operation began, the military spokesperson said. These numbers have not been verified by the BBC, and it is unclear how many passengers are unaccounted for.
The military continues its search operation in the area to rule out any remaining threats.
There were approximately 440 passengers on board the train when it was attacked, according to the army’s spokesperson.
Security officials have been quoted as saying some of the militants may have left the train, taking an unknown number of passengers with them into the surrounding mountainous area.
The militar..

22 hours agoShareSaveBBC UrduReporting fromQuettaKelly NgReporting fromSingaporeShareSavePassengers who were freed from a train seized by armed militants have spoken of “doomsday scenes” that unfolded on board the Jaffar Express in Pakistan’s Balochistan province.
“We held our breath throughout the firing, not knowing what would happen next,” Ishaq Noor, who was one of those on board, told the BBC.
He was one of more than 400 passengers travelling from Quetta to Peshawar on Tuesday when the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) attacked and took a number hostage. The train driver was among several reported injured.
Military sources claim 155 passengers have been freed and 27 militants killed. There is no independent confirmation of those figures. Rescue operations are continuing.
Security forces say they have deployed hundreds of troops to rescue the remaining passengers. Authorities have also deployed helicopters and special forces personnel.
The BLA has warned of “severe consequences” ..

2 days agoShareSaveSoutik BiswasIndia correspondent•@soutikBBCShareSaveIndian Americans are increasingly optimistic about India’s future, but hold deep concerns about US-India relations under a second Donald Trump administration, a new survey finds.
The 2024 Indian-American Survey, conducted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and YouGov in October, examined Indian-American political attitudes.
Two pivotal elections happened in India and the US last year, amid a deepening – but occasionally strained – partnership. Tensions between the countries flared over a US federal indictment of Indian billionaire Gautam Adani and allegations of a Delhi-backed assassination plot on American soil.
With more than five million Indian-origin residents in the US, the survey asked some key questions: How do Indian Americans view former president Joe Biden’s handling of US-India ties? Do they see Donald Trump as a better option? And how do they assess India’s trajectory post the 2024 electio..

8 days agoShareSaveNikhil InamdarBBC News, Mumbai•@Nik_inamdarShareSaveA shorter winter has literally left Nitin Goel out in the cold.
For 50 years, his family’s clothing business in India’s northwestern textile city of Ludhiana has made jackets, sweaters and sweatshirts. But with the early onset of summer this year, the company is staring at a washout season and having to shift gears.
“We’ve had to start making t-shirts instead of sweaters as the winter is getting shorter with each passing year. Our sales have halved in the last five years and are down a further 10% during this season,” Goel told the BBC. “The only recent exception to this was Covid, when temperatures dropped significantly.”
Across India as cool weather beats a hasty retreat, anxieties are building up at farms and factories, with cropping patterns and business plans getting upended.
Data from the Indian Meteorological Department shows that last month was India’s hottest February in 125 years. The weekly average minim..

4 days agoShareSaveShareSaveHundreds of thousands of people remain without power in Australia after a cyclone brought wild weather to the east coast.
Communities in southeast Queensland and northern New South Wales (NSW) were beginning the clean-up on Sunday after the storm caused widespread flooding and knocked down power lines and trees.
A 61-year-old man’s body was recovered from floodwaters on Saturday, while in a separate incident, 12 soldiers were taken to hospital after their convoy crashed en route to rescue operations.
The storm had weakened by the time it made landfall near Brisbane on Saturday night, but Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Sunday warned locals of the continued wild weather and risks from flooding.
“The situation in Queensland and northern New South Wales remains very serious due to flash flooding and heavy winds,” Albanese said.
“Heavy rainfall, damaging wind gusts and coastal surf impacts are expected to continue over coming days.”
Cyclone Alfred had hovered..

2 days agoShareSaveKatie RazzallCulture and media editor•@katierazzSarah BellBBC NewsShareSaveA former senior Facebook executive has told the BBC how the social media giant worked “hand in glove” with the Chinese government on potential ways of allowing Beijing to censor and control content in China.
Sarah Wynn-Williams – a former global public policy director – says in return for gaining access to the Chinese market of hundreds of millions of users, Facebook’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, considered agreeing to hiding posts that were going viral, until they could be checked by the Chinese authorities.
Ms Williams – who makes the claims in a new book – has also filed a whistleblower complaint with the US markets regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), alleging Meta misled investors. The BBC has reviewed the complaint.
Facebook’s parent company Meta, says Ms Wynn-Williams had her employment terminated in 2017 “for poor performance”.
It is “no secret we were once interested..

3 days agoShareSaveJoe TidyCyber correspondent, BBC World ServiceShareSaveHackers thought to be working for the North Korean regime have successfully converted at least $300m (£232m) of their record-breaking $1.5bn crypto heist to unrecoverable funds.
The criminals, known as Lazarus Group, swiped the huge haul of digital tokens in a hack on crypto exchange ByBit two weeks ago.
Since then, it’s been a cat-and-mouse game to track and block the hackers from successfully converting the crypto into usable cash.
Experts say the infamous hacking team is working nearly 24 hours a day – potentially funnelling the money into the regime’s military development.
“Every minute matters for the hackers who are trying to confuse the money trail and they are extremely sophisticated in what they’re doing,” says Dr Tom Robinson, co-founder of crypto investigators Elliptic.
Out of all the criminal actors involved in crypto currency, North Korea is the best at laundering crypto, Dr Robinson says.
“I ..

3 days agoShareSaveKoh EweBBC NewsReporting fromSingaporeThanyarat DoksoneBBC NewsReporting fromBangkokShareSaveA former Thai police chief who was jailed for life three years ago for torturing a drug suspect to death has been found dead in his Bangkok jail cell, authorities said.
Thitisan Utthanaphon, who was nicknamed Joe Ferrari for his many luxury cars, died by suicide, according to a preliminary autopsy.
In 2021, a leaked video showed Thitisan and his colleagues wrapping plastic bags around the head of a 24-year-old drug suspect during an interrogation, leading to the suspect’s death.
The video sparked national outrage at that time over police brutality in Thailand. It has made fresh rounds on social media in the wake of Thitisan’s death.
Thailand’s justice ministry has launched an investigation into his death after his family expressed doubts that he killed himself. Further tests were needed to confirm that he had indeed died in a suicide, authorities said.
Justice minister Tawee ..