Asia

3 days agoShareSaveKelly NgBBC NewsShareSaveSouth Korean singer Wheesung was found dead on Monday at his home in Seoul.
Emergency services found the 43-year-old unresponsive after being alerted by his mother, local media reported.
The authorities said that an autopsy had been requested, but that there were no signs of foul play.
Wheesung, whose real name is Choi Whee-sung, debuted in 2002 and quickly made a name for himself with his soulful vocals. He was popular in the 2000s and has been credited with popularising R&B in South Korea.
Over the years Wheesung established himself as a mentor and vocal coach to K-pop stars, even writing songs for some of them. He collaborated with many artists and also performed in K-pop concerts across the world, including in Hollywood.
He was scheduled to hold a concert with ballad singer KCM this weekend in the city of Daegu.
His R&B ballads won praise from veteran Korean singers like Shin Seung-hun and Seo Tae-ji.
But Wheesung was also no stranger ..

3 days agoShareSaveGavin ButlerBBC NewsShareSaveAn Indonesian TikToker has been sentenced to almost three years in prison after reportedly ‘talking’ to a picture of Jesus on her phone and telling him to get a haircut.
Ratu Thalisa, a Muslim transgender woman with more than 442,000 TikTok followers, had been on a livestream, and was responding to a comment that told her to cut her hair to look more like a man.
On Monday, a court in Medan, Sumatra found Thalisa guilty of spreading hatred under a controversial online hate-speech law, and sentenced her to two years and 10 months in jail.
The court said her comments could disrupt “public order” and “religious harmony” in society, and charged her with committing blasphemy.
The court ruling came after multiple Christian groups filed police complaints against Ms Thalisa for blasphemy.
The sentence has been condemned by human rights groups, including Amnesty International, who described it as “a shocking attack on Ratu Thalisa’s freedom of e..

2 days agoShareSaveLaura BickerChina correspondentReporting fromBeijing ShareSaveHead in hands, eight-year-old Timmy muttered to himself as he tried to beat a robot powered by artificial intelligence at a game of chess.
But this was not an AI showroom or laboratory – this robot was living on a coffee table in a Beijing apartment, along with Timmy.
The first night it came home, Timmy hugged his little robot friend before heading to bed. He doesn’t have a name for it – yet.
“It’s like a little teacher or a little friend,” the boy said, as he showed his mum the next move he was considering on the chess board.
Moments later, the robot chimed in: “Congrats! You win.” Round eyes blinking on the screen, it began rearranging the pieces to start a new game as it continued in Mandarin: “I’ve seen your ability, I will do better next time.”
China is embracing AI in its bid to become a tech superpower by 2030.
DeepSeek, the breakthrough Chinese chatbot that caught the world’s attention ..

Watch: Rodrigo Duterte questions ICC warrant for his arrest

6 days agoShareSaveJonathan HeadSouth East Asia CorrespondentShareSaveJust short of his 80th birthday, Rodrigo Duterte, a man who once vowed to purge his country through a bloody anti-drugs and crime campaign, found himself outmanoeuvred and in custody.
The former president was met by Philippines police as he arrived in Manila on a flight from Hong Kong, where he had been rallying support for his candidates for the upcoming mid-term election among the large Filipino diaspora there.
The much-talked-about warrant for his arrest from the International Criminal Court (ICC) was, it turned out, already in the hands of the Philippines government, which moved swiftly to execute it.
A frail-looking Mr Duterte, walking with a stick, was moved to an air force base within the airport perimeter. A chartered jet was quickly prepared to take him to the ICC in The Hague.
How had this happened? How had a man so powerful and popular, often called “the Trump of Asia”, been brought so low?
In vain, his..

22 hours agoShareSaveJoel GuintoBBC NewsReporting fromSingaporeJonathan HeadSouth East Asia correspondentReporting fromBangkokShareSaveA plane carrying the former president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, has left Manila after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a warrant accusing him of crimes against humanity over his deadly “war on drugs”.
He was taken into police custody shortly after his arrival at the capital’s international airport from Hong Kong on Tuesday morning.
Duterte, 79, contested his detention but within hours was on a chartered jet en route to The Hague in the Netherlands, where the ICC sits. Current President Ferdinand Marcos Jr said the country was meeting its legal obligations.
During Duterte’s time in office, thousands of small-time drug dealers, users and others were killed without trial.
Marcos said his predecessor would face charges relating to what he described as Duterte’s “bloody war on drugs”.
“Interpol asked for help and we obliged,” Presid..

4 hours agoShareSaveAzadeh MoshiriReporting fromIslamabadAyeshea PereraReporting fromSingaporeShareSaveArmed militants in Pakistan’s Balochistan region have attacked a train carrying more than 400 passengers and taken a number of them hostage, military sources told the BBC on Tuesday.
The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) fired at the Jaffar Express Train as it travelled from Quetta to Peshawar.
The separatist group said it had bombed the track before storming the train in the remote Sibi district, claiming the train was under its control.
At least 16 militants have been killed and 100 passengers were freed as of Wednesday morning, local media reported. The BBC has not been able to independently verify those figures.
Among those released are 17 injured passengers, who have been admitted to hospital for treatment.
The militants had threatened to kill hostages if authorities did not release Baloch political prisoners within 48 hours, according to local reports.
The rescue operation is ongoin..

5 days agoShareSaveZoya MateenBBC News, DelhiShareSaveAbout 15 years ago, an Indian rapper of humble origins broke onto the country’s then-infertile hip-hop music scene and transformed it forever.
He teased, cajoled and vexed his listeners, daring them to explore the “devilish” contours of his mind, as he sang rash rhymes about parties, drugs and “seducing” women. His songs played in clubs and weddings, blaring from stereos at big parties and roadside tea stalls alike.
Then, at the peak of his career, he vanished. Seven years later, Yo Yo Honey Singh is back – with a new album and an ongoing music tour, claiming to be a changed man after a prolonged battle with drug abuse and mental health struggles.
The 41-year-old singer and producer was once one of India’s biggest music stars, a figure who “moved the cultural gravity of hip-hop music”, says music journalist Bhanuj Kappal in Famous, a recent Netflix documentary on Singh.
But he was also deeply controversial – and, by his own admissi..

9 March 2025ShareSaveYogita LimayeSouth Asia and Afghanistan correspondentShareSaveGurpreet Singh was handcuffed, his legs shackled and a chain tied around his waist. He was led on to the tarmac in Texas by US Border Patrol, towards a waiting C-17 military transport aircraft.
It was 3 February and, after a months-long journey, he realised his dream of living in America was over. He was being deported back to India. “It felt like the ground was slipping away from underneath my feet,” he said.
Gurpreet, 39, was one of thousands of Indians in recent years to have spent their life savings and crossed continents to enter the US illegally through its southern border, as they sought to escape an unemployment crisis back home.
There are about 725,000 undocumented Indian immigrants in the US, the third largest group behind Mexicans and El Salvadoreans, according to the most recent figures from Pew Research in 2022.
Now Gurpreet has become one of the first undocumented Indians to be sent home si..

22 hours agoShareSaveTom BennettBBC NewsShareSaveThe head of Myanmar’s military government has said the country will hold a national election in December 2025 or January 2026.
General Min Aung Hlaing said the elections would be “free and fair” – adding that 53 political parties had already submitted their lists to participate.
It would be the first vote since his military junta seized power in a 2021 coup, arresting and imprisoning democratically elected leader Aung San Sung Kyi and making unsubstantiated claims of fraud in the previous year’s elections.
Since then, the country has been in turmoil, with a protest movement against the junta turning into an armed rebellion across the country.
Critics have described the announcement as a sham designed to maintain the junta’s power through proxy political parties.
Human Rights Watch, an NGO, told the BBC: “The junta is delusional if they think an election under the current circumstances will be considered remotely credible.
“As a precurso..