India’s renewables sector looks set to become a battleground between the fossil-fuel tycoons Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani, who are going head-to-head in an ambitious pivot to green energy that aligns with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s aggressi...

Hong Kong’s health minister has raised the longer-term possibility of introducing a local “vaccine passport” after most of the population has been inoculated for Covid-19, but will first add cinemas and fitness centres to an existing list of ve...

Bangladeshi migrant worker MD Sharif Uddin used to spend his days off with friends outside his cramped Singapore dormitory, but coronavirus curbs have for 18 months left him stuck inside during his spare time.More than 300,000 migrant workers, many o...

Falguni Nayar, an investment banker turned entrepreneur, has become India’s newest billionaire after floating her beauty and fashion company on the Mumbai stock exchange.FSN, the parent company of her Nykaa brand, hit a valuation of US$13.5 billion...

The daughter of Philippine leader Rodrigo Duterte filed her candidacy for the vice presidency, her spokesperson said on Saturday, ending months of speculation about her 2022 election plans.Sara Duterte-Carpio, 43, entered the vice presidential race b...

Hong Kong’s customs department is shifting the focus of its anti-smuggling efforts following the September death of a marine police officer, its new chief has said, placing greater emphasis on land-based raids and information sharing rather than da...

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi called on the United States and China to use next week’s presidential summit to put relations between the two countries back on track.In a phone call with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Saturday, Wang said ...

“Hi everybody, I’m Lu Mama. I’m making … for the kids today” is how Lu Aimei usually starts her cooking videos on Douyin, the Chinese TikTok.By kids, she was referring to her eldest son, 39-year-old Zhu Xiaoqiang, and second son, 29-year-ol...

Japan’s new foreign minister, Yoshimasa Hayashi, said on Saturday US Secretary of State Antony Blinken assured him in a phone call that Washington’s commitment to defending Tokyo, including southern islets claimed by China, was unwavering.Tokyo�...

Hongkonger Wong Chung-shing has never forgotten his first trip to Fengshan village in a mountainous area of the sprawling municipality of Chongqing, five hours by bus from the city’s international airport.“I used to visit my relatives in Guangdon...

When Liang Du was born in a remote mountain village in Jiangxi province in 1979, he was the seventh child in the family and the only boy. At the time, the more children – and especially the more sons – a rural family had, the more blessings it wa...

There is probably no country on Earth where the economy is more tied up with hydrocarbons than Saudi Arabia.About 42 per cent of the Gulf state’s GDP is linked to oil and gas, according to a research centre linked to the authorities (the King Abdul...

The USS Connecticut nuclear submarine may have been damaged in a collision with an abandoned oil rig in the South China Sea last month, according to a former Chinese naval instructor.Chi Guocang, previously a senior instructor for the PLA’s Naval S...

An 18-year-old man was charged with murder in the shooting death of a Chinese student near the University of Chicago’s campus after he was found carrying the gun used in the slaying, police announced on Friday.Chicago Police Superintendent David Br...

China is fast-tracking its space exploration programme as the country “follows the path already ploughed by Russia and the United States,” according to American theoretical physicist Michio Kaku.“They are following the footsteps of the superpow...

As nominations for the Legislative Council election wrapped up on Friday, all eyes will now turn to how aspiring candidates will change the political landscape in Hong Kong. What do they represent and how will the different camps compete for causes a...

Hong Kong has entered peak volunteering season, and initiatives aimed at helping pets, pupils and elderly people are among locals’ favourite causes to donate their time to, a data-driven platform has revealed.The platform, created by the non-profit...

Shenzhen resident Chen Channing frequently receives blocks of gibberish code via his WeChat app – and he knows exactly what to do with it.He copies the codes, opens Alibaba Group Holding’s Taobao shopping app on his phone, pastes them in, and voi...

It would be “inconceivable” for Australia not to join the United States should Washington take action to defend Taiwan, Defence Minister Peter Dutton said on Saturday.On Wednesday, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said America and its allies...

Fish stocks in the South China Sea are at risk of collapse if action is not taken in the next 10 years to reduce overfishing and the effects of climate change, says a study by University of British Columbia scientists and ADM Capital Foundation.The s...

In August, a South Korean man dressed as the Joker live-streamed himself harassing activists who had gathered in Daejeon city to protest against advertisers profiting from YouTube videos that promoted hatred against women.His words were chilling: “...

A 41-year-old stay-at-home mother from Ningbo, Zhejiang province, eastern China, has been diagnosed with a shopping addiction and anxiety after spending up to 200,000 yuan (US$31,200) per month.Her shopaholic habit reportedly developed after her daug...

Negative attitudes are keeping down the number of babies available to adopt in Hong Kong, while couples willing to do so are wary about the children they choose, experts say.As of June this year, there were 101 children listed for adoption. According...

The United States said Friday it had opened talks with Japan aimed at reducing US tariffs on steel and aluminium imports imposed under former president Donald Trump, after Washington reached a deal on the same issue with the European Union.Citing “...

The People’s Liberation Army is expected to show off more new weapons and conduct bigger military exercises targeting Taiwan as Beijing gears up for continued intimidation of the island, military analysts and an insider said.The PLA’s Eastern The...

Calling it her “best day ever,” pop star Britney Spears regained freedom over her life and finances on Friday when a Los Angeles judge ended the conservatorship that had restricted her for more than 13 years.“Effective today, the conservatorshi...

Steve Bannon, a long-time adviser to former US president Donald Trump, has been criminally charged for failing to comply with a subpoena issued by a House of Representatives committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol, the Justice Dep...

A plan from China’s southern manufacturing hub to offer Hong Kong-style shopping vouchers in an effort to stimulate consumption and spending could kick off a nationwide roll-out, although economists and analysts have questioned the effectiveness...

A man who travelled to space with William Shatner last month was killed along with another person when the small plane they were in crashed in a wooded area of northern New Jersey, according to state police.Glen M. de Vries, 49, of New York, and Thom...

Russia sent paratroopers to Belarus on Friday, in a show of support for its ally amid tensions over migrants and refugees amassing on the Belarus-Poland border, but two of the Russian soldiers were killed in a parachute accident.The Russian defence m...

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Friday appealed to richer countries to place more “cash on the table” to secure a climate breakthrough as the COP26 meeting in Glasgow slipped into overtime.Poorer countries have balked at demands to do mor...

Scientists from China are again challenging Google’s claim to “quantum supremacy” after a research team said it had developed an algorithm to perform a task “thought to be impossible for classical computations”.The Chinese team said their n...

French prosecutors are investigating the alleged rape of a female soldier by a fellow serviceman at the presidential palace in Paris, a source said on Friday, a case that could cast a shadow over President Emmanuel Macron’s administration.The alleg...

American Olympic gymnastics gold medallist Sunisa Lee said in an interview with media outlet PopSugar that she was recently pepper sprayed in an anti-Asian attack while out with friends in Los Angeles.Lee said in the interview posted on Wednesday tha...

US President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping plan to hold a much-anticipated virtual summit on Monday evening Washington time, the White House announced on Friday.“Following their September 9 phone call, the two leaders will discus...

The second Covid-19 patient in Hong Kong found to be carrying the “Delta Plus” variant probably infected a man in the adjacent hotel room after breathing heavily during exercise and spreading the coronavirus through the air, health experts said o...

Pacific Rim leaders agreed to do all they can to improve access to coronavirus vaccines and reduce carbon emissions, but failed to reach agreement on whether the US should host talks in two years’ time.US President Joe Biden and Chinese President X...

Austrian Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg says he wants to introduce a nationwide lockdown for those not vaccinated against or recovered from the coronavirus, as cases hit record highs.Only around 65 per cent of the population is fully vaccinated in...

When US President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping have their long-anticipated summit on Monday, one aspect – a sign of the times – will be missing compared with their past meetings.When they met previously, it was face to face �...

Hong Kong authorities will now regularly capture wild boars and put them down in a major policy shift for controlling the most commonly seen wild animals in the city.The change in approach follows a rising number of sightings of the animals in densel...

A senior ideology official with the Communist Party has taken a swipe at a forthcoming US-hosted democracy summit, saying it was ironic given that Western democracies faced “mounting problems”.“The US will host a so-called democracy summit and ...

On September 24, when Huawei Technologies Co’s finance chief Meng Wanzhou boarded a chartered Air China plane headed back to Shenzhen after a nearly three-year house arrest in Vancouver, thousands of Chinese patriots hopped online to follow the Boe...

Sri Lanka has slapped a tax on road accidents in a drastic austerity budget as the country faces a major foreign exchange crisis.“It is proposed to impose a fee on vehicles meeting with accidents,” Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa told parliament...

China can return to a post-pandemic normal if two tough criteria are met, the country’s leading epidemiologist has said.The case fatality rate must be controlled at 0.1 per cent and the coronavirus’ reproduction number should stay within the rang...

Every Legislative Council constituency will be contested in next month’s election for the first time in Hong Kong’s history, but analysts are sceptical whether the increased competition will translate into greater public enthusiasm for a poll avo...

Around 3.2 million children are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition in Afghanistan by the end of this year, with 1 million of them at risk of dying as temperatures drop, a World Health Organization spokesperson said on Friday.Aid agencies have...

A national security law magistrate has granted bail to a former Hong Kong police officer charged with seditious intent over online comments he allegedly made about a chief inspector killed on duty.Chui Chun-man, 26, appeared at West Kowloon Court on ...

British-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca will start to make a modest profit from its coronavirus vaccine as it moves away from the non-profit model it has operated during the pandemic.In a third-quarter update, the company said on Friday it...

The conservative opposition party candidate seeking to replace South Korean President Moon Jae-in at next year’s election has kept open the possibility of further deployments of an American missile system that China sees as a threat.The People Powe...

An unemployed Hong Kong man has been found guilty of inciting others to harm police during the months of social unrest that began in 2019 by suggesting on Facebook that officers would not be able to identify their assailants if they suffered a heavy ...