SCMP Asia·Monday, December 15, 2025

SCMP Asia - Monday, December 15, 2025

10 stories~15 min

Listen to this episode

Hear all 10 stories summarized and read aloud.

▶Play on Tera.fm

Stories Covered

Bangladesh to airlift wounded uprising leader to Singapore after election shooting

Bangladesh’s interim government said it would fly a leader of the 2024 uprising, a candidate in coming elections, for treatment in Singapore after an assassination attempt that left him critically wounded. Masked attackers shot student leader Sharif Osman Hadi on Friday as he left a mosque in the capital Dhaka, wounding him in the ear. The shooting took place one day after authorities announced a date for the first elections since the student-led uprising last year that overthrew the autocratic.

Read original →

Indonesia to revoke 22 forestry permits after floods that killed over 1,000 people

Indonesia will revoke more than 20 forestry permits across the country, the forestry minister said on Monday, after deadly floods and landslides devastated parts of the northwestern island of Sumatra. Environmentalists and experts have pointed to the role forest loss played in flash flooding and landslides that this month killed more than 1,000 people and washed torrents of mud into villages. The government will revoke 22 forestry permits that encompass more than one million hectares of land,...

Read original →

Ex-NBA star in Singapore for brain cancer treatment exudes hope – ‘let’s be positive’

When National Basketball Association veteran Jason Collins married his long-term partner Brunson Green in May, having to divert his honeymoon to Singapore six months later for an experimental treatment for stage 4 brain cancer was not on his bingo card. The 2.13 metre (7 feet) former centre, 47, and Green, a film producer, found themselves spending Thanksgiving in the city state last month, far from their extended family, as Collin underwent his first doses of EDV (EnGeneIC Dream Vector) in his.

Read original →

Australia to strengthen gun laws after Bondi Beach massacre by father and son

Australia will toughen gun laws after a father and son killed 15 people in the nation’s deadliest terror attack, opening fire on members of the Jewish community who were celebrating the start of Hanukkah at Sydney’s iconic Bondi Beach on Sunday. A 10-year-old girl, a Holocaust survivor and a local rabbi were among those killed, while 42 others were rushed to hospital with gunshot wounds and other injuries. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese convened a meeting of the leaders of Australia’s states...

Read original →

Does India’s HIV success story overlook its poorest state?

One of India’s poorest states is facing scrutiny over its public health performance after data showed thousands of registered HIV cases in a single district of Bihar, including hundreds of children, despite years of national progress against the disease. Local media reports said around 7,400 people in Sitamarhi district had been registered as HIV-positive, including more than 400 children, prompting alarm over a possible surge in infections. District health officials have confirmed the figures..

Read original →

Anti-dynasty bill in Philippines slammed as ‘ridiculous’ and weak

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr has urged Congress to fast track a long-delayed law banning political dynasties, but a bill filed by the speaker of the House and his eldest son is drawing sharp criticism for aiming to do the opposite. Days after the president met House Speaker Faustino “Bojie” Dy III, Majority Leader Ferdinand Alexander Marcos and others, Dy and the younger Marcos filed the bill on Friday. Lawmakers and critics have slammed the proposal for legitimising and entrenching

Read original →

‘Terrified’ Australia man with same name misidentified as Sydney’s Bondi gunman

A Sydney man said he had received death threats and was “terrified” to leave his home on Monday after his photo was widely shared online as the gunman responsible for the Bondi Beach shooting. A father and son duo opened fire on a Jewish festival at Australia’s best-known beach on Sunday evening, killing 15 people, including a child, and wounding 42 more. Authorities have condemned the attack as an act of terrorism, although they have not named the two shooters. Police said one, aged 50, was...

Read original →

Cambodia says Thai F-16s hit near displaced civilian camp in Siem Reap province

Cambodia accused Thailand on Monday of striking deep inside its territory, bombing areas less than a two-hour drive from the country’s main tourist draw, the centuries-old Angkor temples, in a reignited border conflict. Dozens of people were killed in five days of fighting in July before a truce was brokered and then broken within months, part of a long-standing conflict rooted in the colonial-era demarcation of the countries’ 800km (500 miles) frontier. Renewed fighting between the Southeast...

Read original →

India’s property market enters the big league but challenges remain

Numbers do not always tell the whole story. But they are revealing nonetheless. In 2013, direct investment transaction volumes in India’s commercial property sector stood at around US$1.3 billion. By contrast, in China (excluding Hong Kong), investment activity reached US$27 billion. In South Korea, transactions stood at US$12.2 billion, data from MSCI shows. The woefully low level of investment in India – a leading emerging market that at the time was already the world’s third-largest economy..

Read original →

Hong Kong fire victim sent frantic final video to husband in Indonesia

When Indonesian domestic helper Darwati sent her husband a video from Hong Kong, he had no idea it would be the last time he heard her voice. Eli Cahyono, 39, picked up his phone in the small hamlet of Bendasari in Indonesia’s Cilacap Regency on November 26 and saw a video message from his wife. Moments later, disbelief turned to panic. Darwati, 48, was trapped in a blaze tearing through one of the towers at Wang Fuk Court in Hong Kong’s Tai Po district. Through the haze of thick black smoke,...

Read original →