Nearly 200 nations have struck hard-fought agreements at a UN biodiversity summit, but the outcome was accompanied by disappointment over missed opportunities to address humanity’s destructive toll on nature. Delegates cheered on Friday as crucial texts were approved in overtime but the celebrations were tempered by acrimonious debates and regret over limited progress on some of the most contentious issues. The Cop17 summit in Armenia sought to revive a landmark commitment to halt and reverse...

In the Land of the Rising Sun, Bangladesh looks forward to a new dawn. The hope that comes with Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s visit to Japan goes beyond the deals signed or the financial support expected. It shows a country that has emerged from authoritarian rule and wants to turn its new political voice into bigger economic chances and freedom of choice. For a government chosen by the people, foreign policy must answer one question: how does it make life better for the people who gave it...

Malaysia’s Melaka state began its election campaign on Saturday after 79 candidates were cleared to contest a poll testing whether Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s governing partners can turn an opportunistic alliance with his Islamist opponents into a platform for national power. The coastal state south of Kuala Lumpur heads to the polls on November 14, handing the United Malays National Organisation (Umno) and the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) another opening to deepen cooperation after...

The United States, South Korea and Japan reaffirmed their commitment to the “complete denuclearisation” of North Korea on Saturday, as Pyongyang continues to reject disarmament ahead of possible talks with Washington. Speculation is mounting over a potential meeting between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at next month’s Apec summit in China, with Trump making repeated overtures to Pyongyang for nuclear talks. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, South Korean Foreign...

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attended an exhibition devoted to drones and called for rapidly expanding the country’s drone technology, state media reported on Friday, as his military escalates threats against South Korea and the United States. Acquiring advanced drones is a top priority for Kim, who now wants to strengthen conventional and nuclear capabilities to counter what he calls US-led security threats. It is unclear how far North Korea’s drone programme has progressed. Experts say...

A village that sent hundreds of men to one of imperial Japan’s most notorious wartime units is being demolished to make way for a runway at Tokyo’s Narita International Airport. Unit 731 carried out lethal experiments on captives, many of them Chinese, to develop biological weapons during the second world war. Around 300 of its roughly 3,000 personnel came from Kamo, a neighbourhood in Shibayama town, Chiba prefecture, east of the capital. Its founder and commander, Lieutenant General Shiro...

Nafeesa Azman has applied for hundreds of jobs over the past two months, yet the 24-year-old Malaysian marketing graduate is yet to find a permanent role that pays what she needs or uses the skills she spent years, and a good deal of money, developing. Natthanicha Intawong, a final-year media arts student in Bangkok, describes the terror many of her peers feel as they prepare to enter a jobs market that artificial intelligence is already beginning to scythe through. For Joshua Nai, a Singaporean...