Indonesia’s finance ministry is preparing to absorb debt payments for Whoosh, the China-funded high-speed railway connecting Jakarta and Bandung, in a move officials say will ease financial pressure on the state-owned enterprises that built and operate the line. The government has argued that the burden is manageable after the debt was restructured over 80 years, requiring annual instalments of about 1 trillion rupiah (US$56.5 million). But the plan has also raised concerns that taxpayers are...

UPDATED 6.50PM | Party sec-gen says rule of law should not be sacrificed for bilateral ties.

Malaysia’s former prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin won a significant court victory on Tuesday after he was acquitted of four charges linked to a government programme set up to help contractors during the Covid-19 pandemic. The Kuala Lumpur High Court cleared Muhyiddin of three money-laundering charges and one of abuse of power involving 200 million ringgit (US$49.1 million), after prosecutors said they no longer wanted to pursue those counts in his Jana Wibawa trial. The ruling removes four of...

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No legal or moral basis to continue the freeze, says its info chief.

Singapore, renowned for its clean air and strict environmental standards, saw air quality deteriorate sharply on Tuesday, with all five regions recording unhealthy levels for the first time since September 2019.

Smoke from a suspected faulty brake forced the evacuation of a train at Bukit Gombak MRT station in Singapore on Sept. 15.