On paper, the small rooms inside the flats in Din Daeng, a district in Bangkok, were packed with foreign children.

A total of 64 foreign children had been registered as occupants in one flat alone – an implausible listing that authorities say has exposed a wider fraud in Thailand’s house-registration system.

The children were not found living there. Their names, investigators say, have been fraudulently entered into official records, potentially opening the way to pink ID cards, access to public services and – in some

Prudential Hong Kong has agreed to lease headquarters space at Swire Properties’ One Taikoo Place and One Island East, marking a notable expansion of its office footprint in the city, according to the developer.

Under the agreement, the insurer will occupy a total of 83,000 sq ft across the two buildings, “reinforcing the company’s commitment to Hong Kong and Taikoo Place as its long-term headquarters”, said Swire Properties, one of Hong Kong’s largest commercial developers and landlords, in

Iran’s armed forces warned Gulf countries against assisting the US military on Wednesday, hours after the United Arab Emirates announced it was severing economic ties with Tehran following new attacks on shipping.

The Gulf is dotted with US military installations, including in the UAE, which said on Tuesday that Iran had fired two ballistic missiles at vessels off its coast.

Despite a recent lull in hostilities between the United States and Iran, the Strait of Hormuz – which Tehran has blockaded and through which vessels departing most UAE ports must pass –