Le Journal

Funds siphoned off from the Philippines’ flood control projects and converted into cryptocurrency may be linked to online scam syndicates run by offshore gaming operators, an official from the country’s cybercrime unit has revealed. Renato Paraiso, acting executive director of the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Centre, told This Week in Asia that investigators had uncovered a “definite link” between digital assets tied to the multibillion-peso flood control scandal and cryptocurrency...

A three-year-old toddler in eastern China has captivated the nation with her striking Caucasian features, despite her parents being Chinese. The story has garnered 120 million views on mainland social media. Living in Yancheng, Jiangsu province, her parents were initially puzzled by their daughter’s unusual appearance. They even wondered if the hospital had mistakenly given them the wrong baby when she was born in May 2022. However, multiple DNA tests confirmed that the girl, nicknamed Guojiang...

Indonesia’s disaster agency on Saturday reported a rise in the death toll from floods and landslides on the island of Sumatra, saying at least 908 people had been confirmed dead while 410 were missing. The National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) said the figures covered three provinces – Aceh, North Sumatra and West Sumatra – which had been hit by days of intense rainfall that triggered overflowing rivers, landslides and severe damage to transport infrastructure. A chain of tropical storms...

What happens when a democracy begins to fear its own internet? In Indonesia, that question is no longer hypothetical, as the government threatens to pull the plug on major online platforms many of its people rely upon. When Jakarta warned last month that it could block major platforms like Cloudflare and Wikipedia, the move was justified as a crackdown on online gambling – a vice officially outlawed in the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation. But for tech industry players and free-speech...