Are Hongkongers being rude when they refer to Caucasians as gweilo?The term, which translates to “ghost man”, has been in use since at least the 16th century, when Chinese people in the Pearl River Delta first encountered Westerners and were stru...

Automated social media accounts engaging in political discussions are stretching China’s internet police to the limit, a new study has found.These social media bots are difficult to identify because they use artificial intelligence technology to mi...

Hong Kong must keep up its economic growth if it hopes to “make the cake bigger” so all residents can enjoy a share, the city’s finance chief has said, touting Beijing’s latest policy goal of achieving “common prosperity”.In his weekly bl...

A Hong Kong police officer is suspected of having accidentally fired a gun inside his New Territories residence on Sunday.Police were notified about the incident at Ka Kei House in Tai Wai’s Ka Tin Court by the officer involved at 12.25pm. No injur...

When the Taliban ruled Afghanistan in the 1990s, Sara Seerat was just a young child. She grew up hearing stories of violence, restrictions, and displacement.“And for 20 years these were just stories from the past,” she sighed.“But now I am seei...

More than a dozen shipowners have made payments of about US$300,000 apiece to release vessels detained by the Indonesian navy, which said they were anchored illegally in the country’s waters near Singapore, according to sources with direct knowledg...

Nearly everything about the coronavirus pandemic seems tailor-made to increase the anxiety of Hongkongers living with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).From washing their hands dozens of times a day, to locking themselves in their homes to avoid hu...

Hong Kong’s labour chief has suggested that an improving coronavirus situation in the Philippines and Indonesia and low infection rates among arriving domestic helpers from both nations could pave the way for a greater influx of such workers.Secret...

“1997, please come soon, then I can go to Hong Kong …” the old song goes, and who would have thought back then that these lyrics could still mean so much so many years later.When 23-year-old Ai Jing, a mainland Chinese folk and pop singer, rele...

Kristen Ng, a musician and promoter, went to see the new James Bond movie at a cinema two weeks ago with her girlfriend in Chengdu, the southwestern Chinese city where they live.Three days later, they were in a hotel for 14 days of quarantine, after ...

Forget samosas and bhajis, Indians love their sandwiches and gravitate daily to their favourite street corner stalls to enjoy slices of bread with every kind of filling from paneer to pizza.The creation of the staple snack has long been attributed to...

There is no truth behind social media scuttlebutt that people can “detox” their body of the Covid-19 vaccine in a bath made with the household cleaner borax, experts said.Anti-vaxxers on social media have been recommending all manner of sketchy a...

After some US-based Singaporeans expressed frustration at being unable to use a quarantine-free travel lane between the city state and America because they did not have a permitted proof of vaccination against Covid-19, the island nation’s authorit...

China’s aviation regulator has told airlines it is satisfied that design changes Boeing proposed for its 737 MAX plane could resolve safety problems, in a sign it is closer to lifting a more than two-year flight ban in Chinese skies.The Civil Aviat...

Climate activists and environmentalists are calling for investors to be more environmentally aware and stop funding companies that are involved in forest clearing in Indonesia, amid Jakarta’s apparent backtracking on a pledge made at COP26 to stop ...

Former princess Mako Komuro and her husband on Sunday left Japan to start a new life in the United States, less than a month after getting married amid controversy over a financial dispute involving his mother and her former partner.The couple, both ...

Hong Kong health authorities have stepped up measures to curb the transmission of Covid-19 in designated quarantine hotels, where hundreds of guests have been found breaching infection-control rules.Among other issues, hotels have been told to separa...

The spell that Singles’ Day casts over Chinese shoppers appears to have lost some of its potency.The world’s biggest online shopping event may remain popular but the hedonistic self-indulgence has been toned down a notch, replaced by the sober re...

China is one of more than 100 nations that pledged at the COP26 climate talks this month to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030. But that has not stopped criticism of the country’s role in global deforestation.China’s commer...

Hackers compromised the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s external email system on Saturday.The hackers sent out tens of thousands of emails from an FBI email account warning about a possible cyberattack, according to the Spamhaus Project, which tr...

When Thailand’s leader Prayuth Chan-ocha visited the southern province of Nakhon Si Thammarat last month, police were quick to warn locals: “Do not throw eggs or stale eggs at the prime minister and do not curse at him.” Prayuth, who first too...

Internationally acclaimed author Wilbur Smith has died in South Africa aged 88, his publisher announced on Saturday.“Global bestselling author Wilbur Smith died unexpectedly this afternoon at his Cape Town home after a morning of reading and writin...

Nominations for the Legislative Council election closed on Friday and among one of the unprecedented changes will be the voting done by the 1,500-strong Election Committee to send some 40 members to the chamber. Chris Lau looks at the range of hopefu...

Existing safeguards in the South China Sea are not enough to prevent tensions spiralling out of control, regional observers have warned as they called for a fresh effort to agree a code of conduct.The strategically important waterway has been a major...

The US military covered up 2019 air strikes in Syria that killed up to 64 women and children, a possible war crime, during the battle against Islamic State, The New York Times reported on Saturday.The two back-to-back air strikes near the town of Bag...

UN climate talks in Scotland ended with a global agreement that aimed at least to keep alive hopes of capping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius, and so maintain a realistic chance of saving the world from catastrophic climate change.Alok Sharma, ...

Sudanese security forces killed at least five demonstrators Saturday in a crackdown on anti-coup protests, doctors said, after the military tightened its grip by forming a new ruling council.The pro-democracy protests come nearly three weeks after to...

A well-known Afghan journalist was killed and at least four other people injured Saturday when a suspected bomb destroyed a minibus near a Taliban checkpoint in Kabul, a media watchdog and officials said.The incident happened in Dasht-e Barchi, a Kab...

At least 68 prisoners were killed and more than two dozen injured in overnight violence at Ecuador’s Penitenciaria del Litoral prison, the government said on Saturday, in what officials characterise as fights among rival gangs.The penitentiary, loc...

The man behind Hong Kong’s most popular nightlife district has claimed the city’s bars and restaurants are being unfairly punished because some customers refuse to comply with measures to control the spread of Covid-19.Urging authorities to be mo...

Cathay Pacific will move its aircrew to a different hotel in Frankfurt and tighten other measures after a cargo pilot arriving in Hong Kong from the German city tested preliminary-positive for Covid-19, triggering a lockdown at his residential estate...

A provocative exhibit by dissident Chinese artist Badiucao opened Saturday in the industrial northern Italian city of Brescia despite pressure from the Chinese embassy in Rome to cancel it.A letter from the embassy included veiled economic threats, n...

Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Joe Biden are expected to use a limited window of opportunity to ease tensions when they hold their virtual summit next week.In what is expected to be their most extensive meeting since Biden took o...

A whirlwind of last-minute reshuffles and changes ahead of what is shaping up to be one of the Philippines’ most bizarre presidential elections saw President Rodrigo Duterte’s daughter Sara on Saturday enter the race to become vice-president on t...

Hong Kong’s homebuyers flocked into the property market to snap up flats in Tin Shui Wai and at the city’s former airport runway in Kai Tak ahead of an expected increase in demand after the reopening of the border with mainland China.Wheelock Pro...

Astronomer Ye Shuhua played an instrumental role in China’s space programme in the 20th century. But the well-known scientist, who is now 94 and still working, says she had to overcome restrictive gender stereotypes to do it.“If you want to get s...

Hundreds of people turned out for an annual Hong Kong pride event on Saturday that was held at an indoor market rather than as a march as in previous years because of Covid-19 restrictions on gatherings.Attended by members of the city’s LGBT commun...

China has said it wants a greater role in setting the rules for the international digital economy and criticised the United States for trying to use the international order to contain it.On Friday, foreign vice-minister Xie Feng told a forum on inter...

Many Hongkongers grew up knowing about an ambitious yet distant plan to develop the harbourfront in West Kowloon into a cultural hub, with a museum of visual arts being the crown jewel of the monumental project. After a wait of almost two decades, th...

Several animal rights groups in Hong Kong have petitioned wildlife officials to drop a plan to capture and cull wild boars, arguing innocent creatures will suffer for merely responding naturally to changes in their habitat.Activist groups including t...

Rarely has there been a case of holiday blues of such monumental proportions.On Saturday, a large group of VIPs in Singapore were attending the official unveiling of a 42-metre-long inflatable outdoor sculpture, Companion, created by celebrity artist...

China plans to develop a new heavy icebreaker and semi-submersible heavy lift ships – so big that they can carry other ships – in the next five years to support its expanding maritime activities.The heavy icebreaker is to be used for rescues alon...

Twenty people were found guilty on Saturday of taking part in a 2019 Hong Kong riot, although three others were acquitted by a judge who invoked a recent top court ruling on whether prosecutors could use the “joint enterprise” principle in chargi...

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 ...