KUALA LUMPUR ― Malaysian mogul Tony Fernandes, who transformed a floundering carrier into Asia’s biggest budget airline, faces his first major crisis after an AirAsia plane went missing Sunday with 162 people on board. AirAsia is credited with starting a revolution in the skies of Southeast Asia and has seen spectacular growth under Fernandes’ low-cost, low-overheads model despite intense compet...

The head of Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power apologized Sunday over the recent internal data leaks at the country’s nuclear reactors and a gas leak at the construction site of an atomic reactor that killed three workers. The executive also tried to reassure the public, stressing that all of its plants were safe from cyberattacks. “The cyberattacks have been persistent but I assure you that the nuc...

Japan’s push for a greater security role is gaining traction as security hawk Shinzo Abe began his third term as prime minister Wednesday by renewing his push to revise the war-renouncing Constitution. Buoyed by a landslide victory on Dec. 14, the nationalist leader has been seen intensifying his campaign to make Japan a “normal state” with a full-fledged military, which has been hamstrung by th...

After the U.S. officially blamed North Korea last week for the cyberattack on Sony Pictures, Pyongyang’s cybercapabilities and growing threats from them came into the spotlight. The communist state has nearly doubled the number of its cyberwarfare operatives to around 5,900 over the last two years, military authorities in the South estimate, as Pyongyang seeks to strengthen its asymmetric milita...

U.S. President Barack Obama faces a tough decision over whether to relist North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism for its alleged cyberattack on Sony Pictures, as the decision may have political, diplomatic and security ramifications. In an interview with CNN on Sunday, Obama indicated that the U.S. may put the North back on the terrorism list. Obama has vowed to respond “proportionally” to ...

LOS ANGELES ― The devastating cyberattack on Sony Pictures could see the Hollywood studio lose hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue and incur massive recovery costs, experts say. The cancellation of “The Interview,” which President Barack Obama called a “mistake,” has significantly escalated the potential losses of last month’s hack, Hemanshu Nigam of the SSP Blue cybersecurity consultancy...

The chief of the country’s main opposition party has come under fire after local court papers on Tuesday revealed the veteran lawmaker allegedly engaged in influence peddling 10 years ago. Documents from the Seoul Central District Court said Rep. Moon Hee-sang, chief of the New Politics Alliance for Democracy party, had asked Korean Air Lines Co. chairman Cho Yang-ho to offer a job to his brothe...

Lotte, the constructor and operator of the 123 story-Lotte World in southwestern Seoul, on Wednesday expressed regret over the death of a construction worker at its site as well as the shutdown of the facility’s cinema and aquarium due possibly to shoddy construction. “We apologize to the citizens for the accidents that took place at Lotte World Mall including the death of a worker at the concer...

PARIS ― His motives are a mystery and his acts described as random and deranged, but analysts say the gunman who took a Sydney cafe full of terrified people hostage could still score a propaganda coup for jihadists. Bearing a black jihadist flag, the Iranian-born Islamist created precisely the sort of lone-wolf attack urged by groups such as the Islamic State ― replete with bomb threats, hostage...

TOKYO ― Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe faces strong resistance to a promised economic and political overhaul despite a weekend election victory that gives him up to four more years in power. In Sunday’s snap election, the conservative Liberal Democrats who have ruled for most of the post-World War II era locked up a solid majority of at least 291 seats. About 35 seats were claimed by the LDP’...

NANJING, China ― President Xi Jinping said Saturday that no one can deny the Nanjing Massacre, as China for the first time held a national day of remembrance for the Japanese military rampage that Beijing says killed 300,000 people. State media estimated 10,000 people attended a ceremony in Nanjing to mark the 77th anniversary of the massacre, including ageing survivors ― some in their 90s ― of ...

South Korea’s legislature will begin probes into former President Lee Myung-bak’s “resource diplomacy” initiative sometime early next year after the country’s two main parties on Wednesday agreed to set up an investigative committee. But the probes are expected to be highly politicized, with the main opposition party saying the ex-president must be held accountable for allegedly wasting billions...

WASHINGTON ― CIA torture of al-Qaida suspects was far more brutal than acknowledged, did not produce useful intelligence and was so poorly managed it lost track of detainees, a scathing U.S. Senate report revealed Tuesday. The Central Intelligence Agency also misled the White House and Congress with inaccurate claims about the program’s usefulness in thwarting attacks, the Senate Intelligence Co...

The fast expanding ride-sharing service Uber is facing pressure from local authorities and taxi drivers in major cities, most recently in The Hague, New Delhi and Portland. Uber has expanded at breakneck speed since it launched in 2009 and is now present in more than 200 cities across 45 countries. But its rapid growth has caused tensions, especially in Europe where rival taxi companies have pr...

Political reform, or the pretense of it, is once again in the spotlight with the ruling Saenuri Party officially adopting plans drawn up by its reform committee. Led by potential presidential contender Kim Moon-soo, the committee drew much attention from the beginning with party chairman Rep. Kim Moo-sung throwing his weight behind it. Despite the support given to the committee, and its high-pr...