Ultra-Orthodox Jews attacked an unmarked Israeli police vehicle overnight, pelting it with stones and smashing the windows while officers were inside, and igniting a riot in which at least six people were arrested, police said on Friday.The violence ...

It was one of the worst instruments of torture in history – used on women deemed disobedient, usually because of adultery.They would be strapped naked to a “wooden donkey” as if riding it, and whipped as they were paraded through the streets in...

In a sign of the significance of the issue for Japan, Tokyo has wasted no time in getting the new administration in Washington to confirm that disputed islands in the East China Sea are Japanese territory and that the US would come to Japan’s assis...

China fell well short of meeting the lofty purchasing targets of its phase-one trade deal with the United States in 2020, with analysts sceptical as to whether it will get any closer in the second year of the agreement.In the first year of the deal, ...

Greater Bay Airlines (GBA), the Hong Kong start-up vying to snatch a lucrative slice of top local carrier Cathay Pacific’s business, has bid to secure the right to fly to more than 100 destinations across Asia – a major step towards making its fi...

United States sanctions imposed on China over its approach to Hong Kong will remain for the foreseeable future, even with Sino-US relations set to improve under President Joe Biden, a powerful American business group in the city has predicted.Jessica...

The number of people taking their own lives in Japan rose for the first time in over a decade last year, as the coronavirus pandemic reversed years of progress combating a stubbornly high suicide rate.Japan’s health and welfare ministry said on Fri...

Germany counted more than 50,000 deaths since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, figures released on Friday showed, as EU leaders “strongly discouraged” their constituents from non-essential travel.The Robert Koch Institute disease control ce...

China is rolling out a state-backed film praising Wuhan ahead of the anniversary of the 76-day lockdown in the central city where the coronavirus was first detected.The documentary Days and Nights in Wuhan features contributions from 30 filmmakers po...

Taiwan is under no illusions it can quickly sign a long hoped for free trade deal with the United States but feels when the time is right “success will flow naturally”, the island’s chief trade negotiator said on Friday.Taiwan has long sought a...

Rescuers believe it could take at least another two weeks to free miners trapped underground in eastern China, dashing hopes of an imminent retrieval for a group that has already spent 12 days entombed by an explosion.The increasingly desperate attem...

Pro-Islamic State (Isis) activity and support for it in Indonesia declined last year, but authorities should not rest easy as militant groups are splintering to produce small “pop up” terror cells that aim to conduct jihad operations, a Jakarta-b...

Top Republicans have urged US President Joe Biden to take tougher action against China, after Beijing announced sanctions on outgoing American officials just minutes into Biden taking office.Jim Risch, head of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committe...

Not since Jimmy Carter, a Baptist who has taught Bible classes well into his 90s, has the United States had a president whose life is so entwined with his faith as Joe Biden.A devout Catholic, the 78-year-old Biden is as apt to quote Scripture as he ...

A refuse worker died on Friday after he was thought to have plunged 35 floors down a rubbish chute in a Hong Kong public housing block.Kwan Hau-kei, 58, a part-time cleaner, lay fatally injured in a bin at the bottom of the Tuen Mun residential tower...

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Surveillance cameras should be installed in Hong Kong schools to monitor teachers’ speech, pro-establishment lawmakers argued on Friday as they wrapped a three-day debate of the city leader’s policy address.Discontent over the education system to...

Japan’s cabinet approved draft laws to toughen coronavirus restrictions on Friday, a move that could threaten rule-breakers with fines and prison sentences for the first time since the outbreak began, as the country plans to start rolling out vacci...

In a final swipe at China, the Trump administration’s outgoing UN ambassador tweeted that it was time for the world to oppose China’s efforts to exclude and isolate Taiwan, drawing sharp criticism from Beijing.To make the point even more graphic,...

The former coach of South Korea’s double Olympic speed skating gold medallist has been sentenced to more than a decade in prison in a notorious case that exposed the seedy side of the country’s sports arena that often prioritises performance at t...

A button former president Donald Trump used to order Diet Cokes while sitting at the Resolute Desk in the White House has apparently been moved since President Joe Biden took office.Trump first showed off the wooden call box in 2017 interviews with t...

Donald Trump is returning to a family business ravaged by pandemic shutdowns and restrictions, with revenue plunging more than 40 per cent at his Doral golf property, his Washington hotel and both his Scottish resorts over the past year.Trump’s 202...

Hong Kong will lock down around 150 residential buildings in coronavirus-hit Yau Tsim Mong district – deploying more than 1,700 disciplined services officers to do so – in an unprecedented bid to contain an outbreak in neighbourhoods filled with ...

More than 130 of China’s top graft-busters and their provincial counterparts will gather in Beijing on Friday for a three-day meeting to map out their strategy for the year.The annual conference of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection �...

Enthusiastic homebuyers defied concerns that Hong Kong’s sky-high unemployment rate and economic malaise might undermine demand by snapping up new flats offered by Wheelock Properties at its Monaco project on Thursday.The second round of sales at t...

US military prosecutors have filed formal charges against an Indonesian Islamic extremist and two others in the 2002 Bali bombings and 2003 Jakarta attack, the Pentagon said on Thursday.The charges were filed nearly 18 years after the three were capt...

Hundreds of Hongkongers stranded overseas by a ban on travel from Britain fear they may face further difficulties returning home after three of their number, who flew to Hong Kong via Dubai and Singapore, tested positive for Covid-19.Many had already...

In the coming months, more than a thousand government officials, business leaders and sportspeople are expected to flock to Singapore, a nation that seems to have contained Covid-19 infections far better than the United States or countries in Europe,...

Police in Thailand last year launched the lowest number of human trafficking investigations in a decade as coronavirus restrictions on businesses and borders hindered criminal networks, according to a soon-to-be released government report.A total of ...

Chile has become the latest country to approve Chinese firm Sinovac Biotech’s coronavirus vaccine, which has been subject to close scrutiny over its efficacy data.The Chilean Public Health Institute granted authorisation on Wednesday, saying Corona...

Dotted around China’s industrial heartland, well-connected consultants are helping factory owners flout labour laws to churn out goods that end up on the shelves of well-known Western stores.Brimming with guanxi – the Chinese term for the strong ...

The British immigration scheme for Hong Kong’s BN(O) passport holders is due to open for applications at the end of the month. The scheme offers Hongkongers with British National (Overseas) status a pathway to become British citizens. BN(O) passpo...

Canadian Governor General Julie Payette, the representative of the country’s head of state, Queen Elizabeth, quit on Thursday amid allegations of workplace harassment in an embarrassment for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.The resignation has no imme...

India is not poised to become a major new supplier of iron ore to China, despite an increase in iron ore trade between the two countries in 2020, according to analysts.China’s imports of Indian iron ore rose 88 per cent last year to 44.8 million to...

President Xi Jinping’s choice of a cobalt blue parka to protect himself against the cold this week sharply boosted the stock price of the Chinese company that owns the Canadian outdoor clothing brand.The president wore the high-end Arc’teryx wint...

This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Bryan Bender on politico.com on January 21, 2021.US President Joe Biden has decided to accept Russia’s offer to extend the last remaining nuclear arms con...

This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Sarah Ferris, Burgess Everett and Heather Caygle on politico.com on January 21, 2021.US Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is proposing to give former p...

German researchers have enabled mice paralysed after spinal cord injuries to walk again, re-establishing a neural link hitherto considered irreparable in mammals by using a designer protein injected into the brain.Spinal cord injuries in humans, ofte...

Joe Biden has been elected 46th president of the United States. Donald Trump, his predecessor, has been impeached for a second time. Both events are good news.Looking back at the four years of the Trump administration, one might wonder why a man who ...

A newborn girl with complex congenital heart disease suffered a cardiac arrest before doctors discovered she had been injected with excessive potassium in a suspected medical blunder at the Hong Kong Children’s Hospital.The incident had no “appar...

The EU has lost credibility on human rights by sealing an investment deal with China, a resolution in the European Parliament warned on Thursday.MEPs meeting by video link in Brussels overwhelmingly passed the resolution which broadly condemned the c...

The new chairman of the Hong Kong Bar Association wants the government to amend the sweeping national security law to convince countries to reinstate their extradition agreements with the city.Paul Harris SC, a veteran human rights barrister, express...

Twin suicide bombings ripped through a busy market in the Iraqi capital Thursday, killing at least 32 people and wounding dozens, officials said.The rare suicide bombing attack hit the Bab al-Sharqi commercial area in central Baghdad amid heightened ...

As US President Joe Biden takes the helm, he will need to reckon with a very different China than the country he dealt with as vice-president more than four years ago.The new White House has signalled that Biden’s initial telephone calls to world l...

A senior Lands Department official in Hong Kong and her husband have taken legal action against her boss for acting “illegally and unreasonably” in handling the couple’s application to build houses, filed eight years ago.Department assistant di...

China’s relationship with the United States can be restored and “kind angels can triumph over evil forces”, Beijing said on Thursday, in an upbeat statement after earlier imposing sanctions on a raft of American officials who served under Donal...

A new regulation drafted by China’s central bank, which seeks to determine whether nonbank institutions qualify as monopolies, has analysts and legal scholars pondering on the potential of Ant Group’s Alipay and Tencent Holdings’ WeChat Pay bei...

Hong Kong police have arrested a woman and charged her with firearms offences after she was found carrying a stun gun shaped like a cigarette lighter.The 41-year-old suspect will appear in West Kowloon Court on Friday to face charges over possession ...