SEOUL -- In "Sinkhole," this summer's South Korean blockbuster, the breadwinner of the Park family toils in an office, putting away every spare penny toward his goal of buying a home. After 11 years of work, he cobbles together enough savings to purchase an apartment, an increasingly important milestone and class distinction in his country.

The new place isn't fancy, but Park proudly exclaims "We're homeowners!" as he moves in with his wife and son on a rainy day

KUALA LUMPUR -- Ismail Sabri Yaakob was sworn in as Malaysia's ninth prime minister on Saturday afternoon, marking the return of the country's scandal-plagued old guard amid a relentless COVID-19 crisis.

The 61-year-old became the country's third premier in the three years since the last federal election in 2018. Clad in a Malay traditional costume called baju melayu and accompanied by his wife and children, Ismail Sabri took the oath in front of King Sultan Abdullah

DALIAN, China -- A huge Japan-themed commercial and residential complex will open in Dalian, in China's northeastern Liaoning Province, this weekend.

A Kyoto-style township has been built inside the 600,000-sq.-meter complex, making it one of the biggest in the country. Dalian Shuyuan Group, a local real estate developer, is promoting the project, which was built at a cost of 6 billion yuan ($925 million). Japanese companies such

SINGAPORE -- Survivors who lived through the SARS crisis in Singapore nearly two decades ago may yield hope for the development of a super vaccine to combat potent COVID-19 variants and even other coronaviruses, new research shows.

Scientists from the city-state's Duke-NUS Medical School and National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID) have found "highly potent functional antibodies" in people who had severe acute respiratory syndrome and were vaccinated with Pfizer-BioNTech's shots for COVID-19.

In findings published

TOKYO -- Mizuho Financial Group, Japan's third-largest banking group by assets, suffered yet another system crash on Friday, dealing a further blow to a company trying to restore confidence after a string of similar failures this year.

A system breakdown halted deposits and other transactions at teller windows in roughly 450 Mizuho Bank branches across Japan on Friday morning. Mizuho Trust & Banking locations also were affected.

Though service was mostly restored by the afternoon, customers were disgruntled by Mizuho Bank's fifth crash so

TOKYO -- Japanese utility JERA has sold off its entire stake in an operator of coal-fired power plants in Indonesia as it joins a host of Japanese companies moving away from coal and reducing their carbon footprints, the company said on Friday.

The joint venture owned equally by Tokyo Electric Power Co. and Chubu Electric Power sold its 14% stake in Paiton Energy to Indonesian energy company Medco for an undisclosed sum. The transaction was completed on Thursday.

One of Paiton's coal-fired power plants has a

KANDAHAR/BAGRAM AIR BASE/KABUL, Afghanistan -- Kabul airport had fallen quiet at the moment I left, but the chaos of upended lives lay all around me on the tarmac. In horrific scenes the previous day, people had clung to a U.S. transport plane as it moved to take off and at least two dropped to their deaths after it was airborne.

I scuttled in with the early morning light on August 17 past tattered shoes, broken slippers and a headless doll. My fellow passengers and

HANOI - Vietnam authorities are deploying forces including the army to deal with COVID-19 outbreaks in the economic hub of Ho Chi Minh City and provinces in the south, ahead of the arrival of U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, as deaths from the virus spiral.

Residents in those areas are required to "stay where they are" from Aug. 23, said Pham Duc Hai, deputy head of the city's steering committee for COVID-19 prevention and control, at a press conference

HONG KONG -- Hong Kong's stock exchange on Friday was cleared to launch a new revenue source, even as worries over China's data privacy rules pushed the city's benchmark into bear market territory.

Futures contracts based on the MSCI China A 50 Connect Index will be the Hong Kong exchange operator's first derivative product founded on mainland shares. It debuts Oct. 18, according to a statement.

The exchange hopes the product will boost trading volumes. Hong Kong looks to maintain its prominence