Japan is to add another layer to its defences against incoming missiles with the development of an advanced railgun system, raising suggestions that Tokyo is responding in “desperation” to the advances made by China and North Korea in nuclear-cap...

Alibaba Group Holding chairman and chief executive Daniel Zhang Yong has resigned from the board of directors of Weibo, the microblogging platform operator announced on Monday, days after Zhang left the board of ride-hailing firm Didi Chuxing.Zhang�...

A Russian-led military bloc will begin withdrawing its troops from Kazakhstan in two days’ time after fulfilling its main mission of stabilising the Central Asian country after serious unrest, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said on Tuesday....

Beijing is trumpeting the urgency of its infrastructure construction push, as leaders admit that stabilising the national economy in the first half of this year will be an uphill battle.The fresh calls for increased consumption and more effective inv...

Alibaba Group Holding founder Jack Ma made a rare public appearance on Monday, participating in a ceremony at a primary school in the tropical island of Hainan, his first public showing since returning to China in November from a European study trip....

Genome sequencing has shown that an ongoing Omicron coronavirus outbreak in Tianjin has a different source to earlier imported cases, according to a senior official at the city’s centre for disease control and prevention.Zhang Ying, deputy director...

A Hong Kong student urged others not to “let hate breed” as he admitted in court on Tuesday to slashing a police officer’s neck with a box cutter during the social unrest of 2019.Hui Tim-lik, who has been remanded in custody for 27 months, refl...

Four more Covid-19 cases have been detected in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, bringing the total in eight in the latest outbreak, traced to imported goods.The Shenzhen Health Commission said they all belonged to the same chain of transmission...

A foray into smartphones by Japan’s Balmuda Inc, best known for its high-end toasters, has cratered its stock price with the firm announcing this week it has halted sales of its poorly received handset.Shares in Balmuda, which listed on Tokyo’s s...

Mexico’s president announced he has come down with Covid-19 a second time, as coronavirus infections spike in Mexico and virus tests become scarce.President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador wrote that he tested positive, after he had sounded hoarse at a...

In a scene straight out of a Bollywood tear-jerker, lawyers in a New Delhi court rustled up 100,000 rupees (US$1,350) to help two sisters who were in court because their father refused to pay for their studies.During a virtual hearing of the Delhi Hi...

David Sassoli, the Italian journalist who worked his way up in politics while defending the downtrodden and repressed to become president of the European Union’s parliament, died at a hospital in Italy early Tuesday, his spokesperson said.EU Counci...

At his family’s small rice factory in Hunan, Zhou Di has invested more than 200,000 yuan (US$31,350) over the past three years to arm it with automation, including machines for sorting and packing.“All rice-processing factories I know of have bee...

Two Oklahoma death row inmates facing executions in the coming months offered firing squad as a less problematic alternative to the state’s three-drug lethal injection, one of their lawyers told a federal judge on Monday.The two inmates – Donald ...

The Pacific may well be the part of the world most likely to see “strategic surprise”, the US Indo-Pacific coordinator Kurt Campbell said, in comments apparently referring to possible Chinese ambitions to establish Pacific-island bases. Campbell...

The United Nations on Monday criticised Kazakhstan after government soldiers there were seen wearing the UN peacekeepers’ blue helmets during last week’s violent unrest.“We have conveyed our concern to the Permanent Mission of Kazakhstan direct...

The United States reported at least 1.13 million new coronavirus infections on Monday, according to a Reuters tally, the highest daily total of any country in the world as the spread of the highly contagious Omicron variant showed no signs of slowing...

Key points:– In-person classes to be suspended at kindergartens and primary schools from January 14 until end of Lunar New Year holiday– New HK$4 billion round of pandemic relief funding to be distributed to businesses affected by new social-dist...

Japan will extend its border measures until the end of February, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on Tuesday, as virus cases surge after the country kept infections low for months.Spooked by the rapid spread of the Omicron variant, the government in...

Real estate heir and convicted murderer Robert Durst, who was jailed for life for the killing of his best friend, died Monday in a California prison.Multimillionaire Durst was the subject of an explosive HBO documentary The Jinx, which ultimately led...

Students at a primary school in a poor region of southwestern China have received piglets as a reward in an effort to encourage the pupils to study hard and to revitalise the local economy.Last week 20 piglets were given to families of 20 students fr...

North Korea appeared to test fire a ballistic missile on Tuesday that may be more capable than the “hypersonic missile” it launched less than a week earlier, South Korea’s military said, as Pyongyang pursues increasingly advanced weapons.The la...

Pro-Beijing newspapers and the pro-establishment camp have been doubling down in defending the Hong Kong officials and lawmakers caught in an infamous birthday party-turned-political scandal amid an Omicron outbreak.More voices also emerged to lay bl...

Fast food giant McDonald’s has again halted sales of large and medium-sized portions of French fries in Japan, citing problems in its supply chain, although fans have been quick to share a workaround.The solution for anyone who cannot go without a ...

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was under fire on Tuesday after it emerged his private secretary had invited over 100 people to a “bring your own booze” party in the garden of Downing Street during the first coronavirus lockdown.Johnson, who...

UBS predicts a 5 per cent drop in Hong Kong’s lived-in home prices, becoming the second investment bank to forecast a decrease in the world’s most expensive property market after Morgan Stanley.A mass emigration wave, the slowdown in mainland Chi...

China’s tech sector faces a tough 2022 amid regulatory pressure and weak economic growth, a UBS Securities analyst said on Monday, offering another dour outlook for the year ahead after a rough 2021.Weak consumption in China this year will make it ...

In this series, we answer frequently asked questions about China’s zero-tolerance approach to Covid-19, including entry restrictions, the length of quarantine and testing requirements for travellers. Is there a question you want us to tackle? Send ...

In a medical first, US doctors transplanted a pig heart into a patient in a last-ditch effort to save his life, and a Maryland hospital said on Monday that he is doing well three days after the highly experimental surgery.While it is too soon to know...

Pfizer expects a Covid-19 vaccine targeting the Omicron variant to be ready in March, the company’s head said Monday.Pfizer Chief Executive Officer Albert Bourla told CNBC that Pfizer is already manufacturing doses due to keen interest from governm...

The pilot of a small plane averted death twice in a span of minutes on Sunday, first when he crash-landed onto railroad tracks, then when Los Angeles police rescued him just before a commuter train smashed into the aircraft.Bodycam video showed the o...

New York’s Covid-19 infections may have reached a peak, about a month after the city’s first case of the Omicron variant was identified.The seven-day average of people visiting New York emergency departments with Covid-like illness has dipped sig...

Nearly 700 people died due to natural disasters in the contiguous United States in 2021 – the most since 2011, said a federal weather agency in a report released on Monday.The year “was marked by extremes across the US, including exceptional warm...

Russia and the United States gave no sign that they had narrowed their differences on Ukraine and wider European security in talks in Geneva on Monday, as Moscow repeated demands that Washington says it cannot accept.Russia has massed troops near Ukr...

Canada and Taiwan will begin talks on a foreign investment arrangement, their governments have announced, in what Taiwan said was a milestone for trade relations as it tries to shore up its ties around the world.Ottawa’s international trade ministe...

A New York man was criminally charged on Monday with threatening to kill former US president Donald Trump, who he once referred to as “Hitler”.Prosecutors said the defendant, Thomas Welnicki, 72, of Rockaway Beach, threatened to do “everything ...

Heavily indebted developer China Evergrande Group has moved from its previous headquarters in Shenzhen to its own property, in an attempt to save costs as it battles a financial crisis.The company’s logo on the building where it was previously hous...

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has described anti-government protests in Kazakhstan as terrorism and pledged to protect the country against foreign interference, which the Kazakh authorities have blamed for the unrest.China would help the Kazakh go...

The last seven years have been the hottest on record globally “by a clear margin”, the European Union’s climate monitoring service reported on Monday, as it raised the alarm over sharp increases in record concentrations of methane in the atmosp...

The United States’ oldest living veteran, Lawrence Brooks, died Wednesday at the age of 112, the World War II Museum in New Orleans announced.The National WWII Museum “will forever cherish the memories we shared with Lawrence Brooks,” its presi...

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian is to visit China later this week, local media reported, as pressure grows to resurrect the Iran nuclear deal.Amir-Abdollahian’s trip, reported by Iran Press news agency, will be the first to China ...

China’s manufacturers of Covid-19 testing kits are racing to keep up with surging demand, both domestically and abroad, as the world grapples with a spike in cases caused by the highly infectious Omicron and Delta variants.“We’ve hired more tha...

JD.com, the second-largest e-commerce platform in China, has opened two “robotic” shops in the Netherlands as it tests a new shopping model in the European market.Branded as Ochama, combining the concepts of “omnichannel” and “amazing”, t...

A recent birthday party attended by Hong Kong government officials and lawmakers in the middle of an Omicron outbreak is proving to be a major epidemiological headache for authorities as a number of guests remain unaccounted for, have hidden their wh...

Natural disasters caused economic losses of US$280 billion globally in 2021, making it the second-costliest year on record, according to Munich Re, the world’s largest reinsurer.Less than half this amount was covered by insurance, the company said....

Two non-fungible token (NFT) projects with links to Taiwanese pop star Jay Chou and Hong Kong actor Edison Chen have soared to the top of the world’s biggest NFT marketplace’s 24-hour sales chart, as celebrities in Greater China join the gold rus...

Senior Malaysian opposition figures have criticised the leadership of the country’s anti-corruption commission, after top deputies in the agency offered a full-throated backing of their boss over allegations that he engaged in improper share tradin...

More Chinese regions are discouraging travel during the Lunar New Year holiday for a second year in a row, with one city of nine million people offering cash handouts to people who stay put as the first Omicron cases are detected in the world’s sec...

Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg warned Russia on Monday of “severe costs” if it launches a further attack on Ukraine, saying he hoped crunch talks could chart a way towards a diplomatic solution.“We are working hard for a peaceful political path an...

The value of Taiwan’s exports to mainland China and Hong Kong hit an all-time high of US$188.9 billion in 2021, thanks to the resilient demand for the island’s computer chips, according to the latest data released by the island.Taiwan’s finance...