More than four dozen lawmakers from 20 countries have written to their governments opposing the nomination of Hu Binchen from China’s Ministry of Public Security for an oversight position at global policing organisation Interpol.Hu has been put for...

China’s top cyberspace watchdog has drafted a new regulation that would punish individuals and institutions for helping internet users bypass the “Great Firewall” and access censored information from overseas, a move that could strengthen the g...

New home prices in China fell by the most in six years in October, as analysts warned a deeper correction is yet to come.The average price across 70 cities dropped 0.25 per cent from the previous month, according to figures released by the National B...

A nine-year-old Dallas boy has become the youngest person to die from injuries sustained during a crowd surge at the Astroworld music festival in Houston.Ezra Blount of Dallas died on Sunday at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, family lawyer Be...

Hong Kong police arrested a suspected burglar who pepper-sprayed officers in an unsuccessful bid to escape after he was allegedly caught breaking into a house in Tai Po in the early hours on Monday.Dozens of Police Tactical Unit officers also combed ...

China is battling the spread of its biggest Covid-19 outbreak caused by the Delta variant, according to numbers announced on Monday, with travellers from a city where infections have grown faster than elsewhere in the country subject to tough quarant...

An All Nippon Airways plane adorned with characters from the global hit anime series Demon Slayer will start flying on domestic routes in Japan from late January next year, the parent company of ANA said on Monday.In collaboration with the anime, whi...

More than half of cast iron cooking pots recently tested by Hong Kong’s consumer watchdog were found to have released various metals exceeding global safety standards, with one possibly containing carcinogenic substances.The Consumer Council on Mon...

The Women’s Tennis Association on Sunday called for a “full, transparent investigation” into Chinese player Peng Shuai’s allegations of sexual assault against a former senior Chinese leader and demanded an end to censorship of the former top-...

Mainland China has one of the world’s most complicated quarantine regimes, with policies varying from province to province and changing abruptly when there is an outbreak of Covid-19 or an important event such as a political meeting or sporting com...

A group of women subjected to invasive gynaecological searches at Doha airport will sue Qatari authorities, seeking redress for an ordeal that sparked global condemnation, their lawyer said on Monday.Women on 10 Qatar Airways flights from Doha, inclu...

Hong Kong parents should also have the option of BioNTech jabs for their younger children, a pharmacists’ association chief has suggested ahead of a meeting expected to determine if those as young as three will be allowed to take the Sinovac vaccin...

The number of new international students at US universities last year plummeted to nearly half their pre-pandemic levels, but Chinese students continued to vastly outnumber any other group.New foreign student enrolments during the 2020-21 year droppe...

Boeing is optimistic that it will soon be logging Chinese orders and deliveries of its 737 MAX after the nation’s regulator signalled it is close to ending a more than 2.5-year grounding of the single-aisle workhorse.“We’re hopeful,” said Sta...

India reopened its borders to mass foreign tourism, ending a 20-month clampdown as coronavirus infections across the country remain low and vaccination rates rise.After halting tourist visas in March last year, India is now allowing quarantine-free e...

What’s in a name? Well, for Ji-Young, the newest muppet resident of Sesame Street, her name is a sign she was meant to live there.“So, in Korean traditionally the two syllables they each mean something different and Ji means, like, smart or wise....

It is August 2021 and the sun is scorching in Darmo. A glance at the weather report on a mobile phone confirms what everyone here is feeling. “Temperature: 33C”, it reads.Darmo is a village located in Muara Enim Regency in Indonesia’s South Sum...

President Vladimir Putin said Russia isn’t behind the migrant crisis playing out at the Poland-Belarus border, but instead is ready to help resolve it. Speaking to Rossiya-1 TV Channel on Sunday, Putin said he had learned about developments in the...

As China enters another winter with Covid-19, there is no sign that the coronavirus that causes the disease is going away. There is also no sign that the country will ease its reliance on “zero-tolerance” tight controls and restrictions to contai...

Hello and welcome to a new week after China’s Singles’ Day online shopping spree and the anniversary of the day the world marked the 1918 end of World War I.Held on China’s unofficial anti-Valentine’s Day on November 11 – because 11/11 look...

Nine-year-old Mattias Chung Pui-yin was born with a genetic disease that affects his motor skills and development, but he appears to have a spring in his step as he energetically darts around a yoga studio, playing with his instructors.Chung’s cond...

Retail sales growth in China bounced back in October, data released on Monday showed, while industrial production also beat expectations.Retail sales, a key measurement of consumer spending in the world’s most populous nation, grew by 4.9 per cent ...

Premature deaths caused by fine particle air pollution have fallen 10 per cent annually across Europe, but the invisible killer still accounts for 307,000 fatalities a year, the European Environment Agency said on Monday.If the latest air quality gui...

The Beijing Stock Exchange began trading on Monday, with three-quarters of 81 carefully selected stocks opening higher in their debuts, underpinning the Chinese president’s pledge to support small and medium enterprises that he has dubbed the “li...

As new homes in Hong Kong shrink despite costing more, private developers are adding gimmicks to sell their smallest flats. The latest feature: a tiny patch of garden.More of these shoebox homes, usually just 200 to 300 sq ft in size, have been built...

The Covid-19 pandemic and heightened climate concerns have accelerated demand for environmentally-friendly alternative protein, and mission-driven Southeast Asian impact entrepreneurs are increasingly eager to tap into the market, and take a slice of...

A Chinese businesswoman convicted of trespassing at former US president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club and lying to Secret Service agents was deported over the weekend, federal authorities said, more than two years after serving her sentence.Zhang ...

US President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better World initiative (B3W) may complement rather than counterbalance his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping’s transcontinental infrastructure funding project.The B3W, which aims to invest US$40 trillion in devel...

Japan’s former princess Mako Komuro arrived in the United States on Sunday with her husband, swapping ancient imperial rites for the bright lights of New York after leaving the royal family.The pair tied the knot in Tokyo last month in muted fashio...

The son and one-time heir apparent of late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi announced on Sunday his candidacy for the country’s presidential election next month, Libya’s election agency said.Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, who is wanted by the Internationa...

French prison guards thwarted an escape attempt from the Paris region’s second-largest jail on Sunday, with French media identifying the would-be escapee as a suspected Islamic State sympathiser who dug a hole in the wall of her cell and rappelled ...

Egypt’s national research body said on Sunday that it will start clinical trials for a domestically made coronavirus vaccine.The country’s acting health minister, Khaled Abdel Ghaffar, told reporters at a press conference that it is launching cli...

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemned what he called “intimidation tactics” by the Cuban government ahead of Monday’s planned protest march in Cuba and vowed that the United States would pursue measures seeking “accountability” for...

Venezuela on Saturday attempted to break the Guinness record for the world’s largest orchestra, as 12,000 musicians played a classical piece together for more than five minutes.The attempt, by the country’s National System of Youth and Children�...

The conclusion of the COP26 climate change summit in Glasgow left many disappointed after a pledge on phasing out the use of coal was watered down following an intervention by China and India.The agreement, issued on Saturday, did not achieve its mos...

British police announced that officers had arrested three men after a car exploded in front of a women’s hospital in Liverpool, killing one person on Sunday morning.The three men, aged 29, 26 and 21, were arrested in the Kensington district of the ...

US President Joe Biden will announce steps on Monday to improve public safety and justice for Native Americans during the first tribal nations summit since 2016, the White House said.Leaders from more than 570 tribes in the United States are expected...

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is seeking to break a logjam on a US$250 billion bill aimed at making the US more competitive with China and easing a global shortage in microchips by attaching it to a must-pass Pentagon policy measure that could...

Hungary will not leave the European Union but will resist attempts from Brussels to erode its sovereignty, Prime Minister Viktor Orban told his Fidesz party on Sunday.Nationalist Orban, who faces a close parliamentary election next year for the first...

China’s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have faced a host of challenges since early 2020, ranging from the economic shock of the coronavirus pandemic to surging commodity prices and regulatory challenges.Some of them are crumbling under t...

It was a sweet-tempered moment in China-US relations.In Los Angeles in 2012, then Chinese vice-president Xi Jinping sampled chocolate-covered macadamia nuts at a meeting with his opposite number Joe Biden.It was part of a five-day US trip, at the end...

Hundreds of protesters rallied in Bangkok on Sunday against a decision by a top court that ruled calling for royal reforms amounted to a bid to overthrow Thailand’s ultra-powerful monarchy.The Constitutional Court – which critics have long said i...

The Austrian government ordered a nationwide lockdown for unvaccinated people starting midnight Sunday to slow the fast spread of the coronavirus in the country.The move prohibits unvaccinated individuals older than age 12 from leaving their homes ex...

Russia has started supplying India with S-400 air defence missile systems, Russian news agencies reported on Sunday, citing Dmitry Shugayev, the head of the Russian military cooperation agency.The supplies put India at risk of sanctions from the Unit...

Two dozen American business associations sent a letter to senior US trade officials on Friday, urging the White House to reduce tariffs on Chinese goods and broaden the scope of import duty exemptions to restore the competitiveness of US businesses.I...

The Hong Kong management of online food delivery platform Foodpanda has accused some couriers of interfering with others’ work after hundreds of disgruntled fleet members launched a two-day strike to protest against changes in how they are paid.In ...

The US’ top diplomat voiced concern about Beijing’s continued military, diplomatic and economic pressure against Taiwan in weekend talks ahead of a virtual summit between Xi Jinping and Joe Biden.In a phone call with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang...

China will impose a cybersecurity review on mainland companies seeking initial public offerings in Hong Kong on national security grounds, according to a draft regulation released on Sunday, adding a new layer of oversight for Chinese tech giants fro...

Police have made a dramatic rescue of a cryptocurrency trader who was kidnapped by suspected triad members and held at a house in northern Hong Kong for nearly a week as his captors tried to extract a HK$30 million (US$3.85 million) ransom from his f...

At least 10,000 students have been quarantined in a city in the northeastern Chinese province of Liaoning after a Covid-19 outbreak.Two student halls in the west zone of Zhuanghe’s university town were vacated, with 3,291 of its former occupants �...