Taiwan will tighten border controls to keep out the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus, authorities said on Friday, requiring arrivals from five countries, including Britain, to be placed in centralised quarantine facilities.Health Mi...

At least 18 people – most of them children – were killed in a deadly blaze at a mixed martial arts school in central China’s Henan province in the early hours of Friday morning.Four others were severely injured and 12 sustained minor injuries i...

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s plan to build a £200 million (US$278 million) flagship has come under fire for being an expensive vanity project that even Queen Elizabeth appears not to be totally on board with.Downing Street announced last mont...

Health authorities have pinned the source of a Hong Kong airport worker’s Delta variant infection to a sample collection centre at the transport hub, where two Covid-19 cases sharing the same viral footprint were earlier detected.In a groundbreakin...

Japan’s prime minister on Friday dismissed claims that the country’s emperor is “concerned” the Tokyo Olympics could spread the coronavirus, saying the comments were the opinions of an imperial household representative.On Thursday, Yasuhiko N...

A gay couple has won their second judicial challenge against the Hong Kong government in the High Court, this time over a discriminatory policy that barred them from living together in subsidised housing – a situation the judge described as “oppr...

European Union leaders rejected an appeal from Germany and France to hold formal talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, handing Angela Merkel a rare public defeat at what could be her final EU summit as chancellor.The proposal was dropped from ...

Disruptions to people’s work lives from the coronavirus pandemic over the past 16 months have fuelled significant growth in people seeking to pursue live streaming as a gig, particularly in emerging markets, according to the co-founder of Asia Inno...

Hundreds of Palestinians showed their anger on the streets of Ramallah in the West Bank after a prominent critic of the Palestinian Authority (PA) died while being arrested.Nizar Banat's health apparently deteriorated during the operation by Palesti...

In southern China, just days after Guangdong province managed to subdue a Covid-19 outbreak caused by the Delta variant in late May, a Shenzhen airport worker caught the highly transmissible strain.A new cluster emerged, with six locally transmitted ...

Downtown Sydney and the city’s eastern suburbs, which include Bondi Beach, will go into a one week lockdown from midnight Friday as authorities struggle to contain a spike in the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus in the city.People...

The first television drama to star top Chinese film actress Zhou Dongyu launched recently to widespread criticism, echoing the disapproval that met fellow star Zhang Ziyi’s disastrous foray onto the small screen earlier this year.Zhou’s first per...

Beijing has promoted Hong Kong security chief John Lee Ka-chiu to the city’s No 2 position, while elevating police commissioner Chris Tang Ping-keung to take over his cabinet post.Xinhua announced on Friday morning that the State Council on Wednesd...

There are some things the internet just can’t get enough of: grumpy cats, charity challenges, TikTok dances and – in China particularly – foreigners speaking Chinese.The latest sensation to have taken over people’s news feeds is Gurdip Singh,...

Roughly 650 US troops were expected to remain in Afghanistan to provide security for diplomats after the main American military force completes its withdrawal, which is set to be largely done in the next two weeks, US officials said.In addition, seve...

China’s push to boost domestic chip production capacity by building new foundries could be hindered by delays in obtaining US permits to import the necessary equipment, an issue which has not improved since Joe Biden assumed power in the White Hous...

Thousands of families in Hong Kong are facing uncertainty over when domestic workers they have hired from the Philippines and Indonesia can take up their jobs in the city after authorities banned flights from the two countries over Covid-19 risks.Fac...

The public response to the death of former Philippine president Benigno “Noynoy” S. Aquino III on Thursday has so far been decidedly mixed. While some social media influencers continued bashing him, other supportive posts showed yellow ribbons hu...

Victims of child abuse are among the most vulnerable people in society, their harrowing experiences requiring Hong Kong police investigators to draw on a range of soft skills extending far beyond detective expertise.“While other crime units aim to ...

Drawing on sister company funds to pay the wages of Apple Daily staff exposes those subsidiaries to the same risks under the national security law already engulfing the tabloid-style newspaper, according to insiders at the defunct publication.They...

Japanese Defence Minister Nobuo Kishi said the security of Taiwan was directly linked with that of Tokyo, as tensions around the island build up and its defences are increasingly overshadowed by China’s military might.The comments from a cabinet mi...

Misinformation is a complex social issue that predates the advent of the internet and social media. However, with the rising prevalence of sharing information online, misinformation poses a new set of challenges for all involved.Amid the ongoing Covi...

An impoverished rag picker in southeastern China has been hailed as the country’s Vincent van Gogh after images of his paintings appeared on social media.Wei Guangming, who is self-taught, only started painting in 2016. The 48-year-old migrant work...

Hong Kong’s move to cut the hotel quarantine time for most vaccinated travellers to seven days has been met with relief, and praised as a long-awaited reward for those who dutifully signed up for jabs. It is also a step towards reopening, and comes...

Hong Kong confirmed on Thursday its first community Covid-19 case involving the more infectious Delta variant, ending a 16-day streak of zero local cases.The infection involving a strain growing in worldwide prominence raises alarm bells ahead of a p...

Hong Kong can connect the Greater Bay Area with the rest of the world, much like San Francisco’s role in the San Francisco/Silicon Valley Bay Area.Both cities are meeting grounds, according to a joint report released by US think tank Bay Area Counc...

This is the first in a series on the centenary of the Chinese Communist Party. Here, we look into leadership succession and possible changes at the 20th party congress next year.When China’s leader Xi Jinping takes the podium next week to mark the ...

Shenzhen, southern China’s tech hub, wants to give a boost to the e-commerce industry through a new set of rules, as it seeks to cultivate its own online shopping giant.The city will provide funding and support to e-commerce companies and related b...

As the United States and its European allies craft a coordinated approach to handling relations with China, both sides must do a better job at understanding and resolving areas of divergence, the White House National Security Council’s top China of...

When the US embassy in Beijing started tweeting figures from its rooftop air quality monitor it did not anticipate the far-reaching consequences.It started publishing hourly measurements of PM2.5 levels – the most dangerous small particles – on T...

The US State Department has approved the potential sale of F-16 fighter jets, as well as Sidewinder and Harpoon missiles, to the Philippines in three separate deals with a combined value of more than US$2.5 billion, the Pentagon said on Thursday.The ...

This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Quint Forgey on politico.com on June 24, 2021.US President Joe Biden on Thursday celebrated his successful brokering of a framework for a bipartisan infrast...

US President Joe Biden lamented the closure of Hong Kong’s Apple Daily newspaper on Thursday, putting the blame squarely on Beijing and calling for the release of the tabloid’s detained journalists and executives.“Intensifying repression by Bei...

Chinese business executives said they see the US business environment improving as they anticipate more predictable relations between Washington and Beijing under US President Joe Biden, despite mounting tensions around issues such as alleged human r...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made it official on Thursday that she is creating a special committee to investigate the attack on the Capitol, saying it is “imperative that we seek the truth”.The new committee comes after Republican senators blocked ...

More than 750 unmarked graves have been found near a former Catholic residential school for First Nation children in western Canada, a tribal leader said on Thursday – the second such shock discovery in less than a month.The revelation once again c...

A new global minimum corporate tax could take up to five years to come into effect if endorsed by the Group of 20 (G20), with countries such as India likely to be beneficiaries, tax consultants say.G20 finance leaders are set to endorse a global corp...

Earlier this month, after US President Joe Biden expanded a Trump-era ban on investments in companies linked to China’s state security apparatus, the White House declared that it would “not hesitate” to block US capital from flowing to certain ...

Andrew Lloyd Webber has joined others in the entertainment industry in launching legal action to force the government to hand over the results from its coronavirus pilot events scheme.The Events Research Programme ran test events at sporting, music a...

The Uygur Forced Labour Prevention Act found new life on Thursday after it cleared a key US Senate foreign policy committee without objection, less than a year after lawmakers failed to pass bipartisan legislation seeking to block all imports from Ch...

Rescue teams combed through the rubble of an oceanfront block of flats near Miami Beach that partially collapsed Thursday, killing at least one person and leaving another 99 unaccounted for amid fears of a much higher death toll.An unknown number of ...

Authorities have launched an investigation after a public library in Hong Kong displayed books by jailed Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai Chee-ying as “the librarian’s choice”.At least 10 books by Lai were shown on the rack recommending titles to ...

Hong Kong’s law and order chiefs are getting promoted, with Secretary for Security John Lee Ka-chiu tipped to move up the ranks to be the city’s No 2 official while Commissioner of Police Chris Tang Ping-keung takes over his cabinet position, the...

An appeal court suspended Rudy Giuliani from practising law in New York because he made false statements while trying to get courts to overturn Donald Trump’s loss in the presidential race.An attorney disciplinary committee said in its motion to su...

China’s crackdown on bitcoin has turned dozens of companies from model energy consumers into pariahs in the span of a year, sowing confusion and frustration in an industry that has an outsize share of the world’s cryptocurrency mines.Nine out of ...

Hong Kong residents flocked on Thursday to buy a copy of the farewell edition of Apple Daily, as fans raced to archive its digital content and hundreds of employees rued their chances of getting paid by the now-defunct paper and finding work again.Re...

Organisers of the Hong Kong Book Fair, which returns on July 14 after a coronavirus-related absence last year, have said police could be called in to deal with exhibits if attendees complain they are violating the national security law or the city’...

The head of a top American defence contractor has warned that US capability in advanced computing has “shrunk to an alarming state” in comparison to China’s.Northrop Grumman chief executive Kathy Warden said China’s growth in the sector was �...

Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban strongly defended a new law in his country banning LGBT content in schools as he arrived at an EU summit dominated by growing controversy over the issue.“This is not against homosexuality, any sexual interfer...