• Delap scores twice from spot in 3-3 draw with JDT

• Manager made 11 changes against Malaysian champions

Chelsea’s problems mounted as their pre-season tour came to an end in a strangely fiery draw against the Malaysian champions Johor Darul Ta’zim. The omens do not look promising with a bloated choice of forwards, echoes of their inexperience and indiscipline last season, and fewer than two weeks for the new manager, Xabi Alonso, to reintegrate key players and work with the entirety of his squad before they kick off the Premier League season against Fulham – managed by his old friend Álvaro Arbeloa – on 24 August.

Alonso, tasked with transforming a club that finished 10th in the Premier League last season into Champions League qualifiers, made 11 changes for the friendly against JDT. He rested players after beating Milan with a strong lineup only 24 hours earlier, 600 miles away.

Officials are banning some ‘compressed hikes’ which involve walkers tackling demanding routes in short timeframes

Malaysia’s government is tightening hiking rules nationwide after a social media trend left increasing numbers of adventurers needing to be rescued when they became lost or stranded in remote locations.

In the first five months of 2026, Malaysia saw 52 cases of lost hikers, an increase of nearly 30% compared with the same period the previous year, the Malaysian Fire and Rescue Department told local media.

‘I can’t tolerate this life,’ said the 24-year-old in his last voice message to his relatives. Attacked by the military, a rebel army and criminal gangs, Siraz Ullah risked all for a better future

The fear was audible as he spoke, recording a message to his family, asking for their prayers. After pressing send, 24-year-old Siraz Ullah boarded a boat he hoped could deliver him from the violence and persecution surrounding him at home in Myanmar.

Instead, Siraz is among 500 Rohingya refugees who have vanished at sea after setting sail for Malaysia in late June.

Der Ex-Häftling Anwar Ibrahim führt in Malaysia eine Koalition aus 19 Parteien – und erzielt wirtschaftliche Erfolge. Der extreme Pragmatiker ragt unter den Autokraten und Populisten des Staatenbunds Asean hervor.

UN-Organisationen gehen von zwei gekenterten Booten vor der Küste Myanmars aus. An Bord sollen mehr als 500 Geflüchtete gewesen sein – vor allem Angehörige der Rohingya-Minderheit.

Die Blockade der Straße von Hormus zeigt, wie Regionalmächte Handelsnationen erpressen können. Aber die Bundesregierung muss solchen Krisen nicht tatenlos zuschauen.

Weather models project a potentially strong El Niño this year, which could spell disaster for heatwave-hit India, drench China and hurt agriculture across south-east Asia

The UN has warned that the world must prepare for the imminent return of El Niño and the raised global temperatures and weather extremes it brings.

The powerful natural weather pattern has an 80% chance of forming before September and a 90% chance before November, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Tuesday.

Fugitive faces charges including corruption and money laundering in US and Malaysia for role he allegedly played in scandal

The fugitive Malaysian financier Jho Low, a central figure in the multibillion-dollar scandal at the state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), is reportedly seeking a pardon from the US president, Donald Trump.

Low faces multiple charges including corruption and money laundering in the US and Malaysia for the important role he allegedly played in the misappropriation of at least $4.5bn (£3.3bn) from 1MDB.

Yihwen Chen’s warm and galvanising documentary follows queer punk band Shh…Diam! as they battle discrimination with humour and raw energy

For queer Malaysian punk band Shh … Diam!, every live gig is a small miracle. Their name translates as “Shut up!”, a powerful and defiant cry in a country rife with homophobia. Favouring distorted riffs, heavy drums and swaggering lyrics, the band’s powerful sound seeks to drown out the noise of prejudice and discrimination. Their courage, as well as their simple joie de vivre, thrum through Yihwen Chen’s documentary portrait. Shot over six years, the film charts the monumental changes undergone by the band members and their home nation.

Always ready with a joke, lead singer and guitarist Faris is a proud trans man. Rejected by his own family, the charismatic performer finds a safe haven with his bandmates Yon and Yoyo, and their audience. Their songs turn up the volume on issues faced by the queer community, and also bristle with an anarchic sense of humour. One particularly tongue-in-cheek tune is titled Lonely Lesbian; a title taken from a hostile rightwing article citing ways to spot a lesbian, its playful and defiant lyrics reconfigure homophobic ideology into satire, an act of rebellious subversion cloaked in irony.

UK was close behind, exporting 675,000 tonnes, with much of the waste sent to Turkey, Malaysia and Indonesia

Germany was the world’s largest exporter of plastic waste in 2025 and sent more than 810,000 tonnes abroad, according to analysis of trade data carried out for the Guardian.

The UK followed close behind, according to the analysis by Watershed Investigations and the Basel Action Network. It exported more than 675,000 tonnes, its highest level in eight years and enough to fill about 127,000 shipping containers.

Karex produces more than 5 billion condoms annually and is a supplier to leading brands like Durex and Trojan, as well as the NHS

The world’s top condom producer, Malaysia’s Karex Bhd, plans to raise prices by 20% to 30% and possibly further if supply chain disruptions drag on due to the Iran war, its chief executive has said.

Karex is also seeing a surge in condom demand as rising freight costs and shipping delays have left many of its customers with lower stockpiles than usual, CEO Goh Miah Kiat told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday.

Blaze struck a ‘water village’ that is home to some of Malaysia’s poorest residents

A huge fire destroyed about 1,000 makeshift homes, many of them built on stilts over water, and displaced thousands of people in a coastal village in Malaysia’s Sabah state on Sunday, authorities said.

The blaze broke out early on Sunday morning in a “water village” in Sandakan district in Sabah’s northeast, where some of Malaysia’s poorest residents, including indigenous and stateless communities, live in closely packed, wooden stilt houses.

Trawler set off from Bangladesh and reportedly capsized due to heavy winds, rough seas and overcrowding

About 250 people are missing after a boat carrying Rohingya refugees and Bangladeshi nationals capsized in the Andaman Sea, according to the UN’s refugee and migration agencies.

The agencies said the trawler carrying more than 250 men, women and children reportedly sank due to harsh weather and overcrowding. It had departed from Teknaf in southern Bangladesh and was bound for Malaysia.

Families of those onboard urge Malaysian government to extend contract with deep-sea exploration firm

Families of those aboard Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 on Sunday urged the Malaysian government to extend a contract it signed with deep-sea exploration firm Ocean Infinity to continue a search for the aircraft that disappeared 12 years ago.

The Boeing 777 was carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew when it vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on 8 March, 2014, becoming one of the world’s enduring aviation mysteries.

Ernest Zacharevic alleges the carrier has repeatedly used his art in its external corporate branding without consent

A Malaysia-based artist has filed a lawsuit against the low-cost airline carrier AirAsia and its parent company Capital A Berhad for allegedly using his art on a plane without permission.

Ernest Zacharevic, a Lithuanian-born artist based in Penang, alleged AirAsia used his 2012 street mural, Children on a Bicycle, on an aircraft between October and November 2024.

Marine robotics firm to renew its search more than decade after plane disappeared with 239 people onboard

The search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 is expected to resume on 30 December, more than a decade after the plane disappeared with 239 people onboard in one of aviation’s greatest mysteries.

A renewed search by Ocean Infinity, a UK and US-based marine robotics company, had begun earlier this year but was called off in April because of bad weather.

In 2014 the Malaysian Airlines jet vanished over the Indian Ocean. Now the team that located Shackleton’s Endurance is looking again with the latest undersea robots

More than a decade after Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 went missing after veering thousands of miles off course, its location remains unknown.

The Malaysian government has promised to pay a private company, Ocean Infinity, $70m (£56m) to search for the plane on a “no find, no fee” basis.

Najib has been in prison since August 2022, when Malaysia’s top court upheld a corruption conviction. He denies wrongdoing

Jailed former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak has been found guilty of abuse of power, in the biggest trial yet in the multibillion-dollar fraud scandal related to state fund 1MDB.

Najib had been charged with four counts of corruption and 21 counts of money laundering for receiving illegal transfers of about 2.2bn ringgit ($544.15m) from 1MDB. He has consistently denied wrongdoing.

Thai PM says military will keep fighting and Cambodia suspends border crossings as casualties rise

• Thailand-Cambodia fighting explained

Thailand’s caretaker prime minister has denied the existence of a ceasefire with Cambodia, despite Donald Trump announcing that both countries had agreed to halt fighting.

As heavy clashes continued along the border between the two countries, Anutin Charnvirakul said on Saturday that Thailand had not agreed to a ceasefire with Cambodia and that its forces would continue fighting. Cambodia announced it had suspended all border crossings with Thailand.

In Südostasien haben Sturm und Schlamm zu einer Katastrophe geführt. Forscher haben nun rekonstruiert, wie es dazu kommen konnte. Ergebnis: Es war nicht nur der Klimawandel verantwortlich.