SCMP Asia·Monday, December 22, 2025

SCMP Asia - Monday, December 22, 2025

10 stories~15 min

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Stories Covered

The shifting global university landscape: Western decline, Asia rising

The British university system is facing a steep decline, a crisis in the making for over a decade. In the last year, universities have announced over 12,000 job cuts. A report by the Office for Students warns that 40 per cent of England’s universities are facing budget deficits this year, with courses and departments at risk of closure. A great deal of uncertainty has now gripped the university sector. Several factors account for this degradation. Historically, the university sector was funded..

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India’s partial visa suspension signals unease over Bangladesh’s recent unrest

India’s decision to suspend visa services from Bangladesh’s port city of Chittagong after a fresh bout of political violence underscores how difficult it may be for bilateral ties to return to normal any time soon, analysts have said. The suspension, announced on Sunday, followed protests triggered by the death of Sharif Osman Hadi, 32, a youth leader linked to last year’s student-led uprising, who was shot in Dhaka on December 12 and later died from his injuries at a hospital in Singapore after

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South Korean universities face ‘widespread cheating’ after AI exam scandals

Mass cheating in online exams has resurfaced during finals at South Korean universities, exposing institutions’ incomplete preparedness and ongoing struggles to establish effective online test controls and guidelines for students’ artificial intelligence (AI) use. According to Seoul National University, on Sunday, the results of a final exam for a general education course offered by its College of Natural Sciences were invalidated after signs of cheating were detected among nearly half of the 36

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Malaysia says Cambodia, Thailand set for Christmas Eve ceasefire talks after Asean push

Fresh allegations of violence threatened to derail peace efforts on Monday as Cambodia claimed Thai F-16s bombarded Siem Reap and Preah Vihear, undercutting an earlier announcement by Malaysia that the two sides had agreed to a Christmas Eve ceasefire meeting. Cambodia’s defence ministry said the Thai military shelled areas of Siem Reap and Preah Vihear provinces. “At 4.18pm, the Thai military deployed F-16 fighter jets to bombard further deep into the Cambodian sovereign territory in the area..

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Malaysian rapper Namewee acquitted of drug use charge after negative test

A Malaysian court on Monday granted rapper Namewee a full acquittal from his drug use charge after the prosecution presented a negative urine test in court. Namewee’s lawyer, Joshua Tay, confirmed the acquittal with This Week in Asia. Tay told the Kuala Lumpur magistrates’ court that since the pathology report was negative, there was no prospect of recharging his client, whose real name is Wee Meng Chee. “The appropriate order should be a discharge and acquittal,” Tay said. Magistrate S...

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Malaysia’s Chingay parade dazzles George Town as Unesco bid with Singapore gains steam

Lion dancers, drummers, stilt walkers and unicyclists flooded the streets of George Town on Sunday as the northern Malaysian city staged its annual Chingay parade, a century-old procession best known for performers balancing towering flagpoles on their chins and fingertips. This year’s spectacle carries added weight. Malaysia and Singapore have jointly nominated Chingay for recognition on Unesco’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list, a move organisers hope will elevate the tradition onto the...

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16 dead as Indonesian bus hits barrier, rolls on side; witnesses say driver was speeding

A passenger bus crash killed at least 16 people on Indonesia’s main island of Java just after midnight on Monday, officials said. The bus carrying 34 people lost control on a toll road and struck a concrete barrier before rolling onto its side, said Budiono, a search and rescue agency chief who goes by a single name like many Indonesians. The inter-province bus was travelling from the capital Jakarta to the country’s ancient royal city of Yogyakarta when it overturned while entering a curved...

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Japanese H3 rocket fails to launch geolocation satellite into orbit after engine cuts out

A Japanese H3 rocket carrying the sixth satellite in a seven-orbiter geolocation system failed to deliver its payload into orbit after lift-off on Monday, the country’s science ministry said. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency is assessing the situation and investigating the cause of the second-stage engine’s premature cut-off that occurred shortly after lift-off from the Tanegashima Space Centre in Kagoshima prefecture. Placed on multiple orbital planes, the Quasi-Zenith Satellite System...

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Japan backs world’s largest nuclear plant restart despite pushback from residents

Japan took the final step to allow the restart of the world’s largest nuclear power plant on Monday as the region of Niigata voted to resume ‍operations, a watershed moment in the country’s return to nuclear energy nearly 15 years after the Fukushima disaster. Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, located about 220km (136 miles) northwest of Tokyo, was among 54 reactors shut after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami crippled the Fukushima Daiichi plant in the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. Since then, Japan.

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Singaporean man charged with making fake terrorist threat after church bomb hoax

A 26-year-old Singaporean man who was arrested after a suspicious item was found at St Joseph’s Church in Bukit Timah was charged with making a false terrorist threat on Monday. Kokulananthan Mohan was charged with an offence under Regulation 8(2)(a) of the United Nations (Anti-terrorism Measures) Regulations. According to charge sheets, he is accused of placing three cardboard rolls “filled with stone pebbles and sporting protruding red wires, held together using black and yellow adhesive...

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