Economically disadvantaged Hongkongers hoping to visit sick relatives in mainland China are calling on the government to give them equal priority with business travellers when the border begins gradually reopening soon.At least 10,000 residents urgen...

The German-made BioNTech vaccine could be at least 32 times less effective in neutralising the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, a Hong Kong research team has found.But taking jabs remains the most effective protection from Covid-19, according to t...

With the Legislative Council election just a week away, Hong Kong officials on Sunday attempted to drum up enthusiasm for a poll devoid of mainstream opposition candidates, with the financial chief insisting Beijing’s overhaul of the electoral proc...

Malay food continues to gain popularity around the world but it is, at times, still misunderstood. In Britain, for instance, a Malaysia-born contestant was eliminated from cooking show Masterchef in 2018 after one of the judges said her chicken renda...

The Philippine central bank is monitoring a surge in complaints of hacked bank accounts from some users of social media and working with consumer banks to resolve the issue, through measures such as reimbursements, its chief said on Sunday.The bank i...

Australia said on Sunday it will shorten the wait time for people to receive Covid-19 booster vaccines following a rise in cases of the Omicron variant.Australia had previously said it would offer a Covid-19 booster to everyone over 18 and who had th...

Going by her Forbes magazine profile, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has had a good year.She is number 9 on its list of the world’s most powerful women, her leadership through the coronavirus pandemic “is seen as a global model” and she has �...

With the Legislative Council election on December 19 just around the corner, Xia Baolong, China’s top official overseeing Hong Kong affairs has said Beijing welcomes diversity under its principle that only “patriots” should run the city.Using t...

On the day before Thanksgiving, Mayfield Consumer Products in western Kentucky posted photos online showing smiling employees lining up at a buffet table ready to enjoy a special pre-holiday meal together in the factory canteen.On Friday night, the c...

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s personal Twitter account was hacked, his office said.The account using the handle @narendramodi has since been restored after the brief incident, it added.“The matter was escalated to Twitter and the account ...

Hong Kong’s green groups are alarmed by the large amount of plastic tossed out by hotels where arrivals undergo compulsory quarantine during the Covid-19 pandemic.They want authorities, hotels and even quarantined guests themselves to cut the use o...

After a two-year hiatus, the annual “White Christmas Street Fair” held by Swire Properties returned to Hong Kong earlier this month – and this time it went green.The event, themed “Santa’s Whimsical Factory”, ran from December 2 to 5 in Q...

For more than 20 years, Hong Kong residents Shilpa Pednekar, 51, Rinny Ayu, 47, and Lany Chew, 50, focused on their jobs as airline crew with the city’s flagship carrier Cathay Pacific.All that changed last year when Covid-19 disrupted air travel. ...

One person is dead and five others survived after an avalanche on Saturday morning in the Silver Basin region of the Crystal Mountain ski area in Washington state.At around 10.50am local time, witnesses called ski patrol with a report that a group of...

If Hong Kong is to achieve its goal of becoming carbon-neutral by 2050, businesses, communities and the government must all step up their efforts.We can start with decarbonising our electricity. The government already has an agreement with power comp...

Two decades after Singapore began cracking down on a pan-Southeast Asia terrorist group calling itself Jemaah Islamiah (JI), the network’s operations leader, Hambali, remains at Guantanamo Bay awaiting trial. The evidence against him shows that he ...

Rescuers were desperately searching for survivors early Sunday after dozens of devastating tornadoes tore through six US states, leaving more than 100 people feared dead, dozens missing and towns in ruin.US President Joe Biden called the wave of torn...

Top diplomats from the Group of Seven industrialised nations met on Saturday in Liverpool for talks dominated by Russia’s build-up of troops near Ukraine’s border and what host country Britain called Moscow’s “malign behaviour” around the w...

China’s funding model for the Belt and Road Initiative in Africa is changing, as the worsened debt situation for many countries due to the coronavirus pandemic prompts Beijing to explore “innovative ways of financing”.China has traditionally ma...

French swimmer Yannick Agnel, who won two gold medals at the 2012 Olympics, was placed under investigation on Saturday on suspicion of “rape and sexual assault on a 15-year-old minor”, the Mulhouse prosecutor’s office told Agence France-Presse....

The Palestinian Hamas group said on Saturday that explosions that shook a refugee camp in southern Lebanon were caused by an electrical short-circuit in a storage area for oxygen bottles used to treat coronavirus patients.Later in the day however, a ...

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Austria on Saturday to protest against the anti-coronavirus measures imposed by the government.According to the police, 15,000 people gathered at the Heldenplatz square in the centre of Vienna for a ...

Olympic leaders aimed their ire at Fifa’s president over his push for staging more World Cups, during an International Olympic Committee (IOC)-hosted meeting that Tibetan students tried to interrupt on Saturday in a protest against the Beijing Wint...

Spain’s youngest bishop has been stripped of his church powers, the country’s Episcopal Conference said on Saturday, after he married a woman identified as an author of satanic erotica.“As is publicly known, Bishop Xavier Novell Goma, Bishop Em...

First, a steady crawl. Then a short clumsy slide across the slick stone floor at their home at the Beauval Zoo near Paris. Then, finally, the big show as the twin giant panda cubs took their first steps in public on Saturday.The female twins were bor...

Japan is considering not sending Cabinet ministers to next year’s Beijing Olympics in line with a US-led diplomatic boycott amid rising criticism over China’s human rights record, government and ruling coalition sources said on Saturday.Japan’s...

A Chinese health expert has hit back at a Canadian researcher’s claims of strong evidence that Covid-19 originated from a wholesale food market in central China, saying the suggestions do not stand up to scrutiny.Liang Wannian, the head of a Chines...

When Russian President Vladimir Putin touched down in New Delhi on Monday, it was only his second overseas trip since the pandemic began.Putin was in India to renew the “special privileged strategic partnership” between the two countries, a relat...

A British man taking an early morning walk at the Singapore Botanic Gardens said he was attacked by a pack of wild otters, leaving him with 26 wounds on his buttocks, legs and fingers.Graham Spencer, in his 60s, was on his usual 6am walk in the garde...

Cathay Pacific aims to stop pilots from leaving overseas hotel rooms with a one-time-use keycard to minimise Covid-19 risks, but the measure has stoked data privacy concerns as the airline steps up monitoring of staff flying abroad.Efforts by the cit...

China should be on guard about a “grey rhino” crisis caused by shortages of primary commodities such as agricultural products, minerals and fuel, the country’s senior economic policymaker has warned.Han Wenxiu, a deputy director of the Communis...

Chinese foreign policy experts are divided over whether Joe Biden’s approach to China is more predictable or conciliatory than that of Donald Trump, but they are united in predicting a rocky year ahead for relations, with Taiwan the biggest likely ...

At least 50 people were likely to have been killed in a devastating outbreak of tornadoes that ripped through Kentucky and several other US states late on Friday and early on Saturday, including workers at an Amazon factory in Illinois.Edwardsville P...

Hong Kong’s homebuyers snapped up a collection of flats on offer over the weekend in Kowloon Bay, shrugging off higher prices as they piled into the area’s newest supply of private homes in decades.Hang Lung Properties sold 78 of the first batch ...

Teenage pilot Zara Rutherford landed in Seoul on Saturday from Russia, the first Asia stop on her attempt to become the youngest woman to fly around the world solo.In August, the 19-year-old British-Belgian departed from Kortrijk-Wevelgem Airport in ...

As Beijing continued its common prosperity push at the Chinese Communist Party’s sixth plenum last month, Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po almost simultaneously asserted that Hong Kong must “make the cake bigger” to achieve the national goal...

A top Chinese respiratory scientist has urged China to learn from the West about advanced mRNA vaccine technology, and called on all countries to be open-minded about working together.Speaking at the Greater Bay Science Forum in Guangzhou on Saturday...

The Hong Kong Brands and Products Expo made a comeback on Saturday after being postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic last year, attracting thousands of consumers hunting for bargains who nevertheless had to use the government’s Covid-19 risk-ex...

Voters in the South Pacific archipelago of New Caledonia are set to decide on Sunday whether to break away from France, a referendum that is important for French geopolitical ambitions and is being closely watched amid growing Chinese influence in th...

Friends and supporters of jailed Chinese citizen journalist Zhang Zhan have begun to release interviews with her recorded before her arrest, in the hope of drawing the world’s attention to her plight.Sentenced to four years in prison for “picking...

Major international schools in Hong Kong are shortening their year-end and other breaks to give expatriate staff a longer summer holiday to return home and still meet the city’s strict quarantine requirements.The schools are worried that teachers u...

A 27-year-old woman who was among eight people injured after a car crash in one of Hong Kong’s busiest nightlife spots died on Saturday evening.The French woman, who had been in critical condition in Queen Mary Hospital after the Friday night crash...

They were big in Hong Kong cinema in the 1990s and 2000s – and now these male actors are finding a new audience and fans in China.Stars like Jordan Chan Siu-chun and Michael Tse Tin-wah (both 54), made famous in the Hong Kong triad film series Youn...

Scientists have discovered a planet 10 times as massive as Jupiter orbiting a pair of stars in another solar system, according to new research.The research, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, points to the discovery of a planet named b Centau...

A US State Department envoy has conveyed his concerns to top Cambodian officials about bilateral and regional issues, including the crisis in Myanmar and the construction of Chinese military facilities at a Cambodian naval base.The visit by Counsello...

Hong Kong needs to strengthen intellectual property (IP) protections for new inventions if it hopes to become the region’s innovation and technology hub, a leading researcher has said, noting scientific infrastructure alone will not be enough to ac...

Lui Che-woo, one of Hong Kong’s wealthiest men with a casino, hotels and apartments under his belt, met his match in late 2016 when his company K Wah International lost a bidding war to a Chinese airline that was on a land grab in the world’s mos...

A rare bronze Chinese wine jar that may be upwards of 3,500 years sold for US$1.52 million at a Christie’s online auction on Wednesday.Called a zun, this Chinese ceremonial vessel was probably owned by Shang dynasty (1600-1046 BC) aristocrats and i...

Ten months after the military coup in Myanmar, investors from China, who fund over half of the garment factories in their country’s Southeast Asian neighbour, are contemplating relocation.Chinese investors have been caught up in the turmoil since t...

New Zealand health authorities have launched an investigation after a man allegedly got vaccinated against Covid-19 up to 10 times in one day, local media reported.It is thought the man was paid for the jabs on behalf of other people, news website St...