The Kremlin announced on Friday that the assets of Swiss food giant Nestlé, French retailer Auchan and home improvement chain Lemana Pro had been transferred to Russian entity LEV Management under a decree signed a day earlier by President Vladimir Putin.

“These are unfriendly nations,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said while announcing the decision to introduce “external management”.

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He added that the countries involved were either “actively involved in military actions against our country” or had “engaged in strikes by the Kyiv regime on our civilian and economic infrastructure”.

About 230 Japanese-affiliated companies continue to operate in Russia, according to the Japan External Trade Organisation, though many have frozen operations or halted new investments.

More than three-quarters of these companies expected to maintain a business presence in Russia for at least the next two years, a survey conducted in June by the organisation found.

“Japanese companies are going to be watching very closely what happens next, and they are going to be concerned,” said Yakov Zinberg, a professor of international relations at Tokyo’s Kokushikan University.

Japan-Russia ties have been in the doldrums since the Ukraine war began in 2022, with Tokyo joining other G7 nations in imposing broad economic and diplomatic sanctions.

While surveys indicated almost half of British, 33 per cent of Canadian and 27 per cent of US companies completely withdrew from Russia following the invasion, few Japanese firms followed suit – likely hoping for a swift end to the war, according to observers.

But tensions between Moscow and Tokyo have been ratcheting up in recent months.

Eisuke Mori, the speaker of Japan’s House of Representatives, visited Kyiv this month to meet President Volodymyr Zelensky, who invited Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi to visit the Ukrainian capital.

He condemned Russia’s invasion as “a barbaric act that shakes the international order and the values that the international community has built over decades”, in comments to Ukraine’s parliament.

It followed a high-profile visit last month by Putin to a chain of disputed islands north of Hokkaido that Tokyo protested against and Moscow summarily dismissed.

Russia later unveiled a statue depicting a Soviet soldier crushing a border marker bearing the symbol of Japan’s emperor.

Moscow would be closely watching the UN General Assembly in New York this week for a potential Zelensky-Takaichi meeting, said James Brown, an international-relations professor specialising in Russian affairs at Temple University’s Tokyo campus.

“Up until now, the Japanese side has been able to avoid a face-to-face meeting for any number of reasons, but it is going to be much more difficult for Takaichi to do that when they are both in New York and this is at the request of the Ukrainians,” he said.

“Not meeting Zelensky would not be a good image and would indicate that Takaichi is trying to distance herself from Ukraine.”

But agreeing to the meeting could prompt Russia to target Japanese companies, Brown said, adding that Tokyo would be “very wary about losing its stake” in Russian liquefied natural gas projects.

Japan held a 10 per cent stake in Russia’s Arctic LNG 2 project in northern Siberia and a 30 per cent stake in Sakhalin 1, north of Hokkaido, he said.

Concerns over energy security explained why Takaichi had been so “timid” in her dealings with Moscow, Brown said.

Yet closing down Japanese companies’ operations would also be “self-defeating” for Russia, he said.

“These businesses pay taxes and seizing them would cut off a significant amount of tax for the Russian government,” Brown said, adding that consumer backlash over the loss of popular brands would also pose a challenge.

Zinberg said he expected both sides to proceed with caution, even as they “keep complaining about the other”.

“Russia’s policy towards Japan is still rooted in old Soviet attitudes and their leaders are aware that they still need Japan,” he said. “The old approach was to try to drive a wedge between Japan and the US, and they are still following that approach.”

This Week in Asia contacted seven major Japanese companies operating in Russia for comment, including Panasonic, Olympus, Japan Tobacco and cosmetics firms Kao Corp and Shiseido, but had received no response at the time of publication.

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Ant, an Alibaba Group Holding affiliate, merged its Digital Payment Business Group, Alipay Business Group and Zhima Credit Business Group into a new business unit dedicated to Alipay, according to an internal letter from CEO Cyril Han Xinyi on Monday, as reported by Chinese media outlet The Beijing News.

The company also appointed Wu Minzhi, a veteran executive at Ant and previously at Alibaba, to lead the new Alipay Business Group while serving as Ant’s chief people officer.

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The restructuring aimed to “further consolidate technology, product and ecosystem capabilities and strengthen the merchant service system”, Han said in the letter.

“As AI technology advances and industry adoption accelerates, agentic commerce is entering a phase of explosive, large-scale growth,” Han said, according to excerpts of the letter seen by the South China Morning Post.

Alipay has built a solid foundation for the era of agentic commerce by expanding its footprint across AI payments and AI wallets, while also developing an ecosystem that connected multiple hardware devices, according to the excerpts.

Ant did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday. Alibaba owns the SCMP.

The latest reshuffle comes nearly two years after Ant split its Alipay business group into two units, the Digital Payment Business Group and Alipay Business Group, in late 2024.

The previous Digital Payment Business Group focused on the development of innovative payment products, while the Alipay Business Group focused on user base growth and monetisation of the digital wallet.

In the current age of agentic AI, Ant would equip users with personal AI wallets and life assistants, enable merchants to grow their businesses on Alipay’s AI platform, and build a trusted AI agent ecosystem, Han noted in the letter.

Ant has been accelerating its agentic AI efforts to prepare itself for the next generation of commerce. The company introduced an interactive assistant named Ah Bao in June, the biggest overhaul of Alipay in two decades, aimed at transforming its ubiquitous mobile-payment app into a native AI platform with autonomous agents.

In late May, the Hangzhou-based company launched a new suite of AI payment tools, including an AI Wallet integrated within the Alipay app and designed to let users manage and authorise tasks carried out by AI agents. It also debuted Token Pay, a specialised business-to-business product engineered for AI-model providers.

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Speaking at the company’s annual Apsara Conference in Hangzhou on Tuesday, group chairman Joe Tsai highlighted Alibaba’s commitment to building end-to-end capabilities.

“Alibaba is firmly investing in building full-stack AI ... to let AI move from a technological breakthrough to value creation,” Tsai said during his opening remarks at the flagship event, which runs through Thursday.

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CEO Eddie Wu Yongming outlined the company’s road map during a keynote address, identifying “AI models, AI chips and the AI cloud” as the three cornerstones of the machine intelligence era. The company aims to scale its Alibaba Cloud global data-centre capacity to more than 20 gigawatts by 2032.

“As AI unlocks greater capabilities and penetrates into every domain, a profound shift is under way: machines are becoming the primary force behind thinking, turning intelligence into a commodity supplied at scale,” Wu said.

To advance towards ASI – AI that matches or beats human intelligence – Alibaba’s Qwen development team planned to train its Qwen 5 AI model with 5 trillion to 10 trillion parameters, designed to execute complex tasks over extended periods.

Alibaba’s current flagship model, Qwen 3.8-Max – the second-highest-scoring Chinese system on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index – features 2.4 trillion parameters, while Moonshot AI’s Kimi K3, China’s largest open-weight model, boasts 2.8 trillion parameters.

Liu Dayiheng, head of the Qwen large language model (LLM) project at Alibaba Token Hub, presented the road map outlining plans for the Qwen 4, Qwen 4.5, and Qwen 5 series.

The presentation marked Liu’s most prominent public appearance since taking charge of the project. He joined Alibaba in 2021 and has served as a core researcher for the Qwen line.

Liu highlighted progress in recursive self-improvement using empirical feedback, as well as upgrades across Qwen’s speech, vision and multimodal model families.

Alongside its frontier model push, Alibaba launched Qwen Intelligence, a full-stack agent platform designed to give smartphone makers access to Qwen-powered tools for developing AI phones capable of executing tasks across apps. The company confirmed earlier it had been collaborating with Apple on AI features for iPhones sold in China.

On the hardware front, Alibaba debuted the Zhenwu V900 processor, billing it as “the most powerful AI chip in China today”. The new chip delivered three times the performance of its predecessor, the Zhenwu M890, according to the company.

A computing cluster built around the V900 can link up to 500,000 chips to handle both training and inference for frontier models, according to the company.

Wu said Alibaba expected a “significant” increase in annual AI chip shipments, though he did not provide a specific target.

Alibaba’s semiconductor subsidiary T-Head laid out a road map extending to 2028.

Gao Hui, vice-president of T-Head, said the Zhenwu V900 would feature 216 gigabytes of high-bandwidth memory and inter-chip bandwidth of 1.2 terabytes per second. Mass production and commercial availability were scheduled for the first quarter of 2027.

T-Head also previewed the next-generation Zhenwu J900, scheduled for release in the third quarter of 2028, alongside plans for next-generation proprietary central processing units (CPUs) tailored for agentic AI tasks – the Yitian 720 and Yitian 730, both due in 2027.

The Yitian 730 would be T-Head’s first CPU built on an in-house microarchitecture.

Alibaba faces stiff competition from local rivals, including Huawei Technologies, which last week unveiled its new Atlas 960 SuperPoD computing cluster powered by its Ascend 960 chips. Huawei expected a major domestic shift towards its AI computing infrastructure for model training next year, according to rotating chairman Eric Xu Zhijun.

Despite US export controls designed to restrict China’s access to advanced chips, China’s most advanced AI models were still being trained on Nvidia processors, the South China Morning Post reported last month, citing sources at major Chinese AI developers.

The firm said on Tuesday it was also accelerating the expansion of its power-intensive infrastructure to support rising computing demands.

“Alibaba will join forces with all our partners to commit fully to AI infrastructure development, forging an AI cloud designed for the machine-intelligence era,” Wu said.

Alibaba’s Hong Kong-listed shares rose 3 per cent to HK$166 as of midday. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.

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Yet questions remain over where the missing billions have gone – as well as the role of the country’s elite, who for many years denied the problem existed at all on Cambodian soil.

Scam compounds took over declining mega-casinos during the pandemic. As borders closed, gamblers were replaced with scam workers: many tricked, trafficked and forced to commit cyber fraud for Chinese criminal networks.

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Under intense pressure from Beijing and Washington, Cambodia last year took belated action.

Compounds have since been closed across the country and tens of thousands of scam workers have been detained and deported. Some crime bosses have been arrested, while many have fled to Myanmar and beyond.

On Wednesday, Cambodia hosts the International Conference on Combating Online Scams, supported by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and Interpol.

It is a chance for Prime Minister Hun Manet to tout his government’s enforcement actions against cyber scammers, an effort he has called “cleaning our own house” of an issue that has badly damaged his country’s reputation.

Hun Manet will open the conference, where organisers hope to secure an agreement on a framework for greater intelligence sharing and victim protection. The aim is to build transnational capacity to combat scam networks that change bases and business models faster than authorities can act.

Ahead of the conference, government-guided tours of emptied compounds in Phnom Penh and nearby Prey Vang province offered the media a glimpse into the scale and sophistication of the now-defunct operations, with banks of mobile phones, SIM cards, stacks of passports and official uniforms used in elaborate cons.

Cambodia had deported 21,102 foreign nationals of 38 nationalities as of June 30, according to official figures.

Critics of Cambodia’s response to the scam crisis say this week’s conference is an effort by Phnom Penh to mark its own homework as it seeks to move on from the damaging scandal.

Bringing global parties together was an attempt to secure endorsement for Cambodia’s self-declared “mission accomplished”, said Jacob Sims, a transnational crime expert and visiting fellow at Harvard University Asia Centre.

“Everything they [the Cambodian government] have done reflects a country that recognises it has incurred severe reputational damage to the formal government apparatus,” he said, suggesting the Cambodian elite were now happy to “cut their losses” after raking in untold wealth and closing down the industry.

A July report by the UNODC estimated losses from scams across East Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand were between US$88.3 billion and US$114.1 billion for 2025 alone. The World Bank put Cambodia’s gross domestic product at just over US$51 billion last year.

“No one is denying the scam compounds are mostly shut down,” Sims said, warning that without greater accountability over where the money had gone and unrelenting outside monitoring, the scam centres would likely reopen as soon as the world moved on.

The main driver behind the crackdown was the alleged involvement of Cambodian elites, whose exposure only grew as international law enforcement closed in.

In April, the US Treasury sanctioned Kok An, a Cambodian senator and prominent tycoon accused of controlling scam compounds throughout the country.

Known for his close ties to Hun Sen, the current prime minister’s father and a strongman ruler who led the country for over three decades, Kok An was already the subject of an arrest warrant issued by Thailand.

US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent warned earlier this year that fraudsters and scam centres “that steal billions of dollars from hardworking Americans” were in his government’s crosshairs “no matter where they operate or how well-connected they are”.

Several other Cambodian tycoons, provincial officials and government figures have also faced scrutiny, alongside prominent Thai politicians and businessmen.

Many were named in a letter sent last week by US lawmakers urging Bessent and Secretary of State Marco Rubio to investigate their eligibility for sanctions.

Profits from scam centres had equalled as much as 60 per cent of Cambodia’s formal GDP, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast said in the letter.

Sims said the amount of money involved suggested “state capture”, adding that any cash laundered through Cambodian banks raised urgent questions over the safety of those institutions.

Critics of Cambodia’s government have urged representatives meeting in Phnom Penh this week to demand greater accountability from their hosts, alleging that the same authorities now poised to hail a scam crackdown had allowed the industry to thrive in the first place.

“Hosting an international conference in Phnom Penh while the system protecting these scam compounds remains entirely intact is an exercise in political theatre,” said Mu Sochua, president of the Khmer Movement for Democracy, a former leading opposition lawmaker to Hun Manet’s party and a Nobel Peace Prize nominee.

“Every raid we see today targets the lowest tier of this machinery: the victims forced into cyber-slavery and the low-level operators on the floor. Meanwhile, the high-level bosses, the politically connected tycoons and the complicit government officials who lease the land, grant the security and pocket the proceeds remain entirely untouchable.”

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Jakarta’s Foreign Ministry said on Thursday that it would launch its campaign this week for a fifth term as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council for 2029–2030.

The ministry said it was seeking the seat to represent the priorities of developing countries at the UN’s most powerful body and that its campaign would focus on peacekeeping, preventive diplomacy, conflict prevention and civilian protection.

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“Indonesia aims to act as a bridge builder, establishing common ground, maintaining dialogue within the council and seeking practical solutions. We will also bring the voice and priorities of the Global South,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Yvonne Mewengkang told reporters on Thursday.

“Indonesia [also] wants a Security Council that delivers results. It might sound overly ambitious, but why not? That is precisely what Indonesia aims to bring: an effective and responsive Security Council,” she added.

The council has 15 members: five permanent members with veto powers – China, France, Russia, Britain and the United States – and 10 non-permanent members elected for two-year terms.

Indonesia has previously served four terms on the council: 1973–1974, 1995–1996, 2007–2008 and 2019–2021.

Rifki Dermawan, an international relations lecturer at Universitas Andalas in Padang, West Sumatra, said the country’s bid stood a good chance considering its active global engagement under President Prabowo Subianto.

“Popularity does matter,” he said, adding that securing the seat could help strengthen Prabowo’s goal of making Indonesia an active contributor to the international community.

Since taking office in October 2024, Prabowo has visited nearly 30 countries and attended a number of high-profile summits to position Jakarta as an active mediator and independent middle power.

Apart from joining Brics as its first Southeast Asian member, Prabowo has actively advocated for the Global South at international forums such as the G20, emphasising fairness and strategic autonomy for developing countries.

Radityo Dharmaputra, a foreign-policy analyst and lecturer at Surabaya’s Airlangga University, said the odds of a fifth term on the council “are in Indonesia’s favour”, adding that Jakarta was one of the most consistent contributors to UN peacekeeping troops.

He said Indonesia was expected to push hard for Palestinian statehood, humanitarian access and for any stabilisation mission to remain anchored in a UN mandate rather than in a US-led framework.

“On Ukraine, I would expect Indonesia to present itself as a bridge builder calling for a ceasefire and dialogue,” Radityo added.

However, Indonesia will still need to mount a strong diplomatic campaign, taking lessons from the Philippines’ defeat by Kyrgyzstan last June. Manila lost to Bishkek for a non-permanent seat by a wide margin of 142 to 49 votes – a loss partly resulting from Manila’s treaty alliance with the US, which worked against it among non-aligned nations.

Yohanes Sulaiman, an associate international relations professor at Jenderal Achmad Yani University, said that while Indonesia stood a good chance of getting a seat, the UN might look to consider other countries. He pointed out that former Indonesian foreign minister Retno Marsudi was appointed UN special envoy on water in November 2024.

The Security Council bid also reflected the “personal ambition” of Prabowo, who had often sought high-profile arenas to “showcase his leadership”, Yohanes added.

Rifki said a seat on the council might not automatically make Indonesia the voice of the Global South due to Jakarta’s mixed positions on several international issues.

“Jakarta’s external approaches under Prabowo have been confusing for many Indonesians. Many have criticised his unclear direction in exercising foreign policies,” he said.

“How can Indonesia support the freedom of Palestine while sitting side-by-side with Israel on the ‘Board of Peace’, a problematic organisation led by [US President Donald] Trump?”

Indonesia strongly supports Palestinian independence and a two-state solution, maintaining that it will only formally recognise Israel as a sovereign state once Palestinian statehood is established.

In January, Indonesia joined Trump’s “Board of Peace” to oversee post-war governance, reconstruction and demilitarisation of the Gaza Strip, but Prabowo later suspended his country’s participation.

Rifki said that Indonesia’s ability to exert influence on behalf of the Global South would also be constrained by the “privileges of veto power” held by the five permanent members of the council.

“To make the council more effective, reform is a must,” Rifki said.

Critics have long called for reform of the council as its permanent members, in place since 1945, each wield a veto power that often paralyses its ability to resolve international conflicts and crises.

Apart from sharp disagreements among nations on how to expand the council, amending the UN Charter governing its make-up would require a two-thirds majority in the UN General Assembly as well as ratification by two-thirds of member states – including all five permanent members of the council.

Radityo said that other countries might see Indonesia as a “fence-sitter” or a “hypocrite” for championing Palestine’s statehood while remaining neutral on Ukraine. Indonesia had consistently framed the Ukraine war “as a tragedy to be ended through dialogue rather than as an act of aggression”, he said.

Abstaining from votes would be harder to hide on a 15-member council than in the General Assembly, Radityo said.

“So ambiguity becomes much harder to maintain,” he said, adding that Indonesia could contribute credibly as a non-Western, non-aligned voice in humanitarian areas – such as helping with prisoner exchanges, returning deported Ukrainian children and ensuring nuclear safety in war zones like Zaporizhzhia.

“By 2029, the council may be dealing with monitoring a ceasefire rather than the war itself,” Radityo said, adding that Indonesia’s peacekeeping experience would serve it well should this outcome come to pass.

For Prabowo, winning the council seat would indicate “to the world and to the domestic audience that Indonesia is respected”, he added.

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Chakriwat “Than Aong” Vivacharawongse posted a video on social media on Monday saying he had two large brain tumours requiring surgery. The 43-year-old doctor said he wanted to receive treatment in Thailand.

“I want to return to Thailand for treatment because Thai doctors are highly capable,” he said in the video.

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Chakriwat said he did not have enough money to pay for the surgery in Malaysia or the United States, where he had been living, adding that he could be bedridden or even die if he did not receive proper treatment in time.

Chakriwat is the third of four sons born to the king and Sujarinee Vivacharawongse. The former actress had five children with the then crown prince while he was married to his first cousin, Princess Soamsawali. Sujarinee married the crown prince in 1994, but following their divorce two years later, she was exiled to the US with her sons.

All four of Sujarinee’s sons have long been estranged from the palace and do not use any royal titles. When Chakriwat was hospitalised in New York in 2020, he received no support from his father, the Daily Mail reported at the time.

In August 2023, Chakriwat and his older brother, Vacharaesorn, returned to Thailand for the first time in 27 years.

“This was a fast week. There were many things we wanted to do and see in Thailand but there wasn’t a lot of time,” Vacharaesorn said at the time before leaving from Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport, according to Reuters. “We received love and warmth from everyone we met.”

Their short visit passed without incident, but when their brothers, Juthavachara and Vatchrawee, later tried a similar trip, they were denied entry at the border.

Chakriwat has been living with neurofibromatosis type 2 since he was 13. The genetic condition, also known as NF2-related schwannomatosis, can cause tumours to grow along nerves and inside the brain and spinal cord.

While most of these tumours are generally benign, their size and location can still cause serious problems by putting pressure on the brain, spinal cord or nerves.

By 2015, Chakriwat had already undergone 10 open operations alongside several Gamma Knife and CyberKnife radiation procedures, according to news outlet Thai Enquirer.

His worsening health became public earlier this month when he shared that he was unwell. “I’m determined to get better. I’m trying every day,” he wrote.

On Friday night, he posted photos and videos of himself in hospital, saying: “My health is truly in terrible condition, and I am at risk of becoming bedridden or facing death. This is the honest opinion of three to four neurologists I know. I am in urgent need of brain surgery.”

His brothers later released a message expressing alarm over his condition. They said they did not know where he was or what treatment he was receiving, and offered to help him if he responded.

This year has been a difficult one for the king. In June, Princess Bajrakitiyabha, his eldest child and only daughter with Princess Soamsawali, died at age 47 after spending more than three years in a coma.

Her death raised questions about succession in the House of Mahidol.

The 74-year-old king has seven children. With Chakriwat and his three brothers outside the line of succession, the eligible choices are Chakriwat’s sister, Princess Sirivannavari, and 21-year-old Prince Dipangkorn Rasmijoti, the king’s son with his third former wife, Srirasmi Suwadee.

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On Friday, US President Donald Trump signed into law an act that would give him authority to impose sanctions on Russia and slap tariffs of up to 100 per cent on the top five buyers of Russian crude oil, gas and military equipment, or countries that help Moscow evade sanctions.

The legislation, named the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, also targets Russia’s shadow fleet of oil tankers.

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The term refers to a network of ageing or obscurely owned vessels that Russia uses to transport oil while seeking to evade Western sanctions and the Group of Seven’s price cap on Russian crude. The ships often operate under complex ownership structures and flags of convenience, making them harder to trace and regulate.

In April, the European Commission sanctioned Indonesia’s Karimun port for its “connections with the shadow fleet and circumvention of the oil price cap”.

A day after the US Congress passed the Graham Act, Indonesia’s Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Bahlil Lahadalia said the second phase of Russian crude oil imports was still on track.

“Our crude oil supply is, God willing, secure, including those supplied by Russia. I will explain the technical aspects of [the second phase of crude oil import] from Russia at the appropriate time,” Bahlil told reporters on September 17.

Indonesia received around 770,000 barrels of Russian crude oil valued at about US$75 million under the first phase in June, according to Bloomberg, citing customs data. The oil was delivered by the Sierra tanker under a Cameroon flag.

The tanker is sanctioned by several countries including Britain, the European Union, Canada and Australia.

In April, Hashim Djojohadikusumo, President Prabowo Subianto’s brother and his special energy envoy, said Jakarta had secured a commitment from Moscow for 150 million barrels of crude oil “at a special price”, of which 100 million barrels would be sent immediately and the rest would be bought out of necessity.

The government’s fuel import decisions would always be based on “economic principles”, Bahlil said. “We look for the best. We look for the cheaper one, that’s what we will buy.”

Indonesia is a net importer of oil, as domestic production of about 600,000 barrels a day cannot fulfil its demand of more than 1.6 million barrels per day. In the first six months of this year, Nigeria became the largest crude oil supplier to Indonesia, followed by Angola and Saudi Arabia, statistics agency BPS said last month.

Analysts warn that Jakarta’s decision to continue buying Russian oil risks attracting higher tariffs on its own exports to the US. A 10 per cent levy is currently applied to Indonesian goods, following the signing of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade in February.

“There is a real risk, although Indonesia’s exposure is different from that of India or China because Indonesia is not among the world’s largest buyers of Russian crude,” Ronny Sasmita, a senior analyst at the Indonesia Strategic and Economics Action Institution, told This Week in Asia.

“Indonesia should not assume that its relatively small Russian-oil purchases make it immune. Washington could look not only at the volume of purchases but also at whether Indonesia is considered to be materially supporting Russia’s energy revenues.”

Additional US tariffs would have “very large consequences”, as Indonesia’s exports to the US were much more valuable to the economy than its purchases of Russian crude oil, he said.

Michelle Brouhard, head of policy and geopolitical risk at maritime intelligence firm Kpler, said Washington’s actual enforcement of such heavy tariffs would largely depend on global crude price levels.

“I don’t think [Washington] will impose any tariffs until oil prices come down. At US$70 [per barrel], there is a risk of tariffs, but at US$100 oil, they are not trying to take more oil off the market. They are actually trying to get Ukraine to stop hitting Russian infrastructure to keep oil on the market. So, I find the odds pretty low until prices come down,” Brouhard said.

Yayan Satyakti, a lecturer in energy economics at Padjadjaran University, nevertheless suggested that Indonesia “hedge” its Russian crude purchase by importing it on a smaller scale to avoid becoming one of the top five buyers.

“Indonesia is a neutral country. We buy oil from Russia, but we are also committed to buying oil from the United States,” Yayan said. “I believe Indonesia’s policy will not harm trade relations between Indonesia and the US.”

Yayan added that buying Russian crude oil for a strategic reserve was “a lawful exercise of sovereignty” and Indonesia was not obliged to follow the “unilateral sanctions” the US and EU imposed on Moscow.

“In this difficult situation, I believe that taking oil from Russia, even in the shadow of potential sanctions, is the right decision to protect Indonesia’s energy security right now,” he said.

“If we don’t have that, it will be quite difficult for Indonesia to maintain energy accessibility and affordability, alongside managing a fiscal burden where we are experiencing very crucial challenges.”

Yayan estimated that fuel reserves in Java were enough for 28 days of consumption but stock in the eastern part of the country could last only 14 days.

To avoid higher US tariffs, Sasmita urged Jakarta to maintain dialogue with Washington, ensure full transparency that the Russian crude is for domestic energy needs, comply with applicable sanctions, and diversify its crude oil suppliers.

“The broader lesson is that Indonesia should avoid turning an energy-security decision into a geopolitical dependency,” Sasmita said.

“Russia can be part of Indonesia’s energy portfolio, but it should not become the foundation of it. In the current geopolitical environment, diversification itself is an economic asset.”

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Seoul National University’s (SNU) use of StealCut Protect, created by a start-up founded by SNU alumni, marked the first time it was used for a university graduation album in the country, The Korea Herald reported. StealCut provided the technology to SNU free of charge.

Deepfake models generally work by analysing facial structure characteristics to generate manipulated content. StealCut Protect inserts minute, pixel-level signals – largely invisible to the human eye – into images to disrupt this process. If a deepfake generator tries to manipulate a protected photo, the result is a distorted or unidentifiable face.

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The technology differed from existing tools that detected or flagged deepfakes after they were created, StealCut said, as it secured the image at the source – reducing the need for content moderation.

SNU, ranked among the top three universities in South Korea, was at the centre of a scandal in 2024, when illegal deepfake pornography created from women’s graduation and social media photos was shared in chat rooms on Telegram, an encrypted messaging service.

Two men, both SNU graduates, were arrested in May that year, according to The Korea Times. Police identified at least 61 victims, including 12 SNU alumni and students.

During their trial in October 2024, prosecutors said that one of the men, surnamed Park, had created over 400 manipulated images and videos and distributed more than 1,700.

Park was sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges including producing and distributing sexually exploitative and falsified media. His co-defendant, surnamed Kang, was sentenced to four years.

Sexual misconduct at South Korean universities had hit its highest level in five years, news outlet Chosun Biz reported on Monday, citing figures received by opposition People Power Party lawmaker Jeong Seong-guk.

From 2022 to this year, 160 crimes, acts of misconduct and school rule violations involving enrolled students were reported across nine universities, according to Jeong, a member of the National Assembly’s Education Committee.

Sex-related cases accounted for 71 of these incidents, or 44.4 per cent.

Such cases have risen for three straight years, after falling from 12 in 2022 to 10 in 2023. This year 21 cases have been recorded so far, compared with 12 in 2024 and 16 last year.

The types of sex offences have also diversified beyond sexual harassment and sexual violence. Digital sex crimes, such as illegal filming, distribution of filmed material and production and distribution of deepfake sexual exploitation content, are on the rise.

Kyungpook National University recorded the highest number of sex-related cases over the past five years with 25, followed by Jeju National, Gyeongsang National, SNU, Chungbuk National, Kangwon National, Chonnam National and Jeonbuk National universities.

Kyungpook National said it had provided psychological and legal support to victims and taken strict disciplinary action against offenders.

But Jeong said action “should not end with simple post-incident discipline”.

“Preventive education should be actively supported to raise students’ gender awareness, and relevant laws and systems should be improved to respond to new types of sex crimes such as deepfakes,” he said.

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Pax Silica is an initiative by US President Donald Trump’s administration to diversify US supplies of critical minerals and semiconductors. The Philippines is seeking to position itself as a manufacturing base for companies looking to reduce their dependence on China.

With Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr due to leave office in 2028 and Trump facing midterm elections next year that could change control of Congress, the project needs to move quickly to establish agreements and infrastructure that can survive political change, according to Jonathan Ravelas, a former chief market strategist at the Philippines’ largest bank, BDO.

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“The faster the government can institutionalise agreements and deliver infrastructure, the lower the political risk,” Ravelas, now managing director of eManagement for Business and Marketing Services, told This Week in Asia.

The question is whether Manila can deliver the reliable power, infrastructure and regulatory certainty investors need to commit billions of dollars before the political clock runs out. For now, much of it remains on the drawing board.

On April 16, Washington accepted an offer from Manila to convert a 1,600-hectare (4,000-acre) plot of land – rent-free for two years – into the “Pax Silica coordination office”.

The site sits inside the 9,450-hectare New Clark City – part of the much larger Clark Freeport and Special Economic Zone, a master-planned development envisioned to host government offices, sports facilities and other major infrastructure.

As China dominates the supply and processing of several critical minerals used in advanced manufacturing, supply-chain diversification is a strategic priority for Washington. In February, the Philippines signed a memorandum of understanding on critical minerals with the US.

Joshua Bingcang, president and chief executive of the state-owned Bases Conversion Development Authority (BCDA), which manages the area, admitted to This Week in Asia on Monday that nearly everything in the Pax Silica hub – since renamed the Clark Advanced Manufacturing Park – was still in the planning stage.

That is, except for one foreign company “tenant” whom he would not name. Bingcang told the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines on Monday that the company “signed an agreement [to lease] last week”.

It will start hiring local engineers by October to be trained in Taiwan. These engineers would be “the ones to set up the machines, the factory lines” as part of technology transfer, he said.

Bingcang believes Pax Silica can withstand political change because the BCDA has a history of pursuing major projects across administrations. “Our projects started two or three administrations ago, and they’ve seen the impact, so it’s really a no-brainer on the value we bring.”

Pax Silica “transcends any political colour or any terms” because it was long-term, according to Bingcang. “The Philippines has a good track record of implementing multi-administration projects.”

Alvin Camba, a trained political economist and sociologist who is chief scientist at Lyvi, a US defence technology company, said the issue, though “extremely sensitive” in the Philippines, would be able to weather political winds in Washington.

“Pax Silica is not politically sensitive in the US. I don’t expect it to be something that Democrats would reverse if they happen to take both houses in November 2026 or win the presidency in 2028,” he said.

“There is already near bipartisan consensus on taking a tougher stance on China. At the same time, there is a huge push from the big tech companies to expand their AI models and infrastructure in different parts of the world. So Pax Silica is really supported by both sides of this equation: the Department of [Defence] and the big tech firms.”

He said the biggest concerns for foreign investors in the Philippines were “local political and regulatory conditions that could affect their operations, as well as energy and transportation costs”.

“Regulations matter because companies do not want to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in a country that could stop or reverse their operations once the money has already been sunk and operations have begun.”

For investors, political continuity is only one part of the equation.

“Pax Silica reminds me of the old button soup story. The idea is exciting, but a great soup needs more than a button – it needs ingredients,” Ravelas said. These ingredients include reliable power, world-class infrastructure, skilled talent, regulatory certainty and policy continuity.

“The opportunity is real because global companies are looking to diversify supply chains, and the Philippines is well positioned to benefit. But interest is not the same as investment. The reported land lease commitment is encouraging, yet most of the names being mentioned remain prospective investors rather than signed commitments.”

From an investor’s perspective, Ravelas said, “the biggest concern is not politics or regulation per se – it is execution”.

Investors wanted assurance that infrastructure would be completed on time, power would be available at competitive prices, environmental and ancestral domain issues would be addressed transparently, and policies would remain stable beyond election cycles in both countries, he said.

Those concerns are particularly significant in the Philippines, where energy costs and reliability have long posed challenges for manufacturers.

“The main issue, more than anything else, is energy. This has been a failure of successive Philippine administrations since the 1980s. The lack of abundant, reliable and cheap energy makes it difficult for companies to operate,” Camba said.

“This is actually one of the biggest reasons why companies have gone to Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam rather than the Philippines. In the end, they can simply operate more cheaply and with fewer problems in those countries.”

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Tommy Boulanger, an aspiring footballer, was left in a coma following the February 20 crash in the Nongpure district of Chonburi, near the resort city of Pattaya. He never regained consciousness and died six days later.

Widely circulated CCTV footage of the crash shows a pickup truck reversing onto the main road without indicating – in an apparent attempt to make a U-turn outside a karaoke bar – leaving Tommy unable to brake in time before slamming into the back of the vehicle.

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Tommy’s death has gripped the Thai public, reviving complaints over the country’s often sclerotic justice system and fuelling a mounting sense that wealthy foreign nationals are able to gain preferential treatment.

The Pattaya Provincial Court issued an arrest warrant on March 2 for the suspect – whose name has not formally been released to the media, though he is believed to be well known locally – on charges of reckless driving causing death.

Seven months later, however, the arrest warrant has not been executed, leaving Tommy’s despairing family to push senior detectives for action while dealing with a crippling hospital bill from his care.

Speaking to This Week in Asia, Tommy’s mother, Saitharn Singstrand, said justice had been denied to her, leaving “nothing but emptiness” following the death of her son, a talented youth footballer and Liverpool FC fan who dreamed of one day representing the Thai national team.

“The man who did this to my child is still living comfortably. It’s just not fair. It feels like the death of a child didn’t matter to them [the police], but we are under their authority – we can’t fight them,” the 38-year-old said. “I want the person responsible to go to prison … so he can feel the pain that my family and I have had to endure.”

In a video that went viral on Monday, a visibly distressed Saitharn could be seen confronting officers during a delayed raid on a property linked to the Chinese suspect – only to find he had already fled.

Saitharn told officers at the scene that she had reported seeing the suspect weeks earlier and had alerted police, but officers did not respond at the time.

Tommy’s case gained national attention two weeks ago after featuring on Hone Krasae, a popular Thai television current affairs programme, where Saitharn accused police of dragging their feet.

Phoning in to the broadcast, Chonburi Provincial Police Commander Major General Pongphan Wongmaneethet said officers had “not abandoned the case.” He added that police were preparing a case file for Interpol to request a Red Notice for the suspect.

“If the suspect makes a move or tries to leave the country, he will be arrested immediately,” Pongphan said.

The handling of the case has drawn further scrutiny to the Chonburi police force, which faced public criticism in August over its slow investigation into a missing Thai family. The family members were later found murdered during a search for two missing Russian siblings, who had been killed by a Thai serial offender recently released from prison.

At the time, criminologists urged Thai police to prioritise investigations based on urgency rather than media attention or pressure from foreign embassies.

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