Asia Pacific

Japanese voters will head to the polls within weeks after Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, just three months in, called a snap election in a bid to increase her wafer-thin majority.

Some 400 people have been deployed to search for a plane that disappeared from flight tracking systems, though bad weather is hampering efforts.

As millions of people travel to Asia to celebrate Lunar New Year, Australians are being urged to stay alert.

AARON PATRICK: Thanks to China’s one-child policy, the country now has approximately 30 million ‘surplus men’.

A construction crane has crashed onto a moving passenger train in northeastern Thailand, triggering a derailment that killed at least 32 people.

The case was brought to the World Court by a country not directly affected by the alleged genocide of the Rohingya, a precedent for similar claims against other countries, including Israel.

China kicked off a second day of live-fire drills around Taiwan on Tuesday with an intimidating rocket display.

A ceasefire agreed between Thailand and Cambodia aims to end almost three weeks of the worst fighting in years between the Southeast Asian nations.

Beijing has stepped up operations in the Indo-Pacific with new defence exercises while at least seven groups of Chinese warships were spotted operating across the western Pacific at the beginning of the week. 

Triggered by longstanding territorial disputes, the latest round of fighting followed a skirmish on Sunday that wounded two Thai soldiers.

Australian travellers have been told not to travel within 50kms of an 800km stretch of land, warned the Government may not be able to help them as fears of all-out war reignite.

The 15-year effort by Japan is a model for countries now scrambling to reduce their dependence on Beijing’s critical metals.

An enormous 7.6 magnitude quake has struck Japan late at night, with major warnings issued for 90,000 people, as horror videos of the shudder emerge.

Thailand has launched air strikes against Cambodia after one of its soldiers was reportedly killed by gunfire.

The grim warning on Beijing’s flotilla in the Philippine Sea came the same week that Beijing flexed its maritime muscle with more than 100 vessels in the region.