Japan PM’s fawning sparks backlash, Philippines’ work-life balance fails: 7 Asia highlights

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi points and laughs at a portrait in US President Donald Trump’s Presidential Walk of Fame at the White House on March 19.

Photo: White House We have selected seven stories from the SCMP’s coverage of Asia over the past week that resonated with our readers and shed light on topical issues.

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Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is facing accusations of diplomatic sycophancy after White House footage showed her giggling at a portrait of an autopen – placed by US President Donald Trump in the spot reserved for his predecessor Joe Biden – during summit talks last week.

Heavy traffic on the streets of Manila.

Photo: Shutterstock In New Zealand, Keisha Constantino likes to start her morning at a leisurely pace.

In when she was in the Philippines, she had to handle unpaid tasks like thesis advising as a faculty member.

Getting to and from the workplace was a chore as she lost precious time daily due to heavy traffic and poor public transport options.

Across peninsular Malaysia, the heat is getting unbearable and posing health risks for many, and nowhere is this felt more sharply than in Kedah and Perlis, two northern states at the centre of Malaysia’s food-growing belt.

A Thai soldier shines a torch into a room disguised as a Chinese police station inside an abandoned scam centre on the Thai-Cambodian border on March 12.

Photo: AFP Scam bosses and their multibillion-dollar crime networks are fleeing to Myanmar, Laos and Thailand ahead of an April deadline.

A state-sponsored forced labour programme that has escalated in recent years generates up to US$500 million annually for North Korea, according to a report by a global rights group.

The report also warns that workers are trapped in “brutal” conditions where they are subjected to “control, abuse and coercion”.

Jollibee employees attend to customers at an outlet in Manila in 2015.

Photo: AFP Forget McDonald’s and KFC, Jollibee – with its sweet spaghetti and crispy Chickenjoy – is something else entirely: a cultural anchor for a diaspora scattered across every continent on Earth.

No fast-food chain has ever meant quite what Jollibee means to Filipinos.

A fire razes through a peatland field in Ogan Ilir, South Sumatra, Indonesia last July.

Photo: AP In recent weeks, Singaporean Cindy has been troubled by an odour lingering in the air during her evening walks to the gym. “It’s the same situation e

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