Hong Kong police have arrested seven people over robbery of six gold bars worth HK$7 million (US$893,102), with some suspects believed to have fled to mainland China. The force said on Saturday that four men and three women were arrested on Thursday ...

Led by Japan, East Asia seems to be setting off along a road to nowhere – beyond tension and maybe eventual conflict. This may seem a harsh indictment yet consecutive Japanese leaders have shown a lack of vision on the constructive role their count...

A 77-year-old man in southeastern China has spent nearly six decades turning homesickness, hardship and family duty into letters sent across the sea. Jiang Mingdian, from Quanzhou in Fujian province, is regarded as one of China’s last active profes...

Hong Kong could position itself as a magnet for international organisations and lead on setting standards, according to analysts who have weighed in how the city can contribute to Beijing’s global governance reform after the publication of a new wh...

Bolivia’s crisis intensified on Saturday as President Rodrigo Paz declared a state of emergency, enabling wider military ‌deployment to clear blockades and restore order after protests brought the economy to a halt over the past 50 days. The emer...

Hong Kong will review the age threshold of elderly residents in need to better identify priority cases and prevent more tragedies from happening, the welfare chief has vowed following the latest suicide of an elderly resident. Secretary for Labour an...

The Trump administration’s indictment of former Cuban president Raul Castro and sanctions on his successor, Miguel Diaz-Canel, suggest Washington now views regime change in Havana as a viable policy objective. This adds to Cuba’s mounting woes. T...

More areas within the Northern Metropolis could benefit from new measures to the ease the cross-border flow of data, materials and capital, with pilot initiatives set to launch this year in the innovation zone Hong Kong shares with Shenzhen. The deta...

Thousands of residents have flocked to a military base of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Hong Kong Garrison as it opened its barracks to the public to celebrate the coming 29th anniversary of the city’s return to Chinese rule. The Ngong Shuen...

As Southeast Asia grapples with energy supply uncertainty, fallout from the Iran conflict and intensifying rivalry between the United States and China, Russia appears to be presenting itself as a viable “third power” option for the region, analys...

US ⁠envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi were both headed to Switzerland for ⁠talks, Axios said on Friday, as a ceasefire in Lebanon appeared to revive efforts to turn an interim Iran war pact into a lasting regional dea...

Hong Kong should do more to leverage its traditional festivals to draw international visitors and build its competitive advantage in cultural tourism, Shangri-La Group chairman and group CEO Kuok Hui Kwong has said. Kuok, the daughter of Malaysian ty...

Celty arrives at a cosplay venue in Kuala Lumpur and does not look the part yet, dressed in jeans and a plain t-shirt. He finds a toilet, locks a cubicle door, transforms his looks and is ready to turn heads – dressed from head to toe in a helmet, ...

China has tested what it calls the world’s first intelligent squid fishing robot that can mimic the motions performed by humans to attract the deep-water creatures to the surface. The smart machine is currently undergoing sea trials aboard the Song...

Everyone knows the story: when Spanish conquistadors rode into the New World, Native Americans were stunned by a towering, four-legged creature they had never seen before. Horses, the theory goes, were a European import to the Americas. But a new fos...

Scientists have detected the H5 strain of bird flu in Australia for the first time, meaning the highly contagious variant has now spread to every continent. Australian Agriculture Minister Julie Collins told a press conference on Saturday that the di...

The runway at Clark International Airport was built to launch American air power across Asia. Now, it is being repurposed to project German industrial ambition. Analysts say the multimillion-dollar deal to develop the former US military base in the P...

South Korean e-commerce companies are increasingly turning to Chinese platforms to help sellers tap rising demand for Korean products, offering a lower-cost route into China and other overseas markets without building local operations. 11street, one ...

Carl Jung was a big fan of the I Ching, also known as the Book of Changes. He was also a close friend of Richard Wilhelm, whose German translation was probably the most influential Western version of the ancient Chinese text in the last century. But ...

Norway is imposing a near ban on the ⁠use of generative ⁠AI tools by junior ⁠school pupils while also restricting their use in the education of older children to prevent a negative impact on learning, the country’s prime minister has said. Fa...

In the second of a two-part series tracing new trends in illegal betting in Hong Kong amid excitement over the football World Cup, Connor Mycroft looks at the rise of prediction markets and the risks. Read part one here. When 25-year-old Jean Pierre*...

A three-month-old infant in China suffering from poisoning had to be admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU) after his parents fed him with baby milk formula prepared with vegetable juice. The baby boy was rushed to Zhongshan Women and Children’s ...

In the mist-wrapped hills of northern Thailand, where cacao trees erupt from the rich, nutrient-dense soil, three little words are spreading fear through a community of farmers. “There is no way to know for certain,” Koranut Rattanayanyong told T...

For much of the 20th century, many were accustomed to thinking of people as an ever-expanding resource. As the number of people grew, so did labour markets, consumer markets, scientific communities, production systems and armies. In 1950, the world�...

Emergency services rushed to the scene of a collision between two trains north of London on Friday afternoon that killed at least one person. A passenger reported that he was thrown forward by the impact then saw fellow travellers with broken bones a...

A new Air Force One gifted by Qatar as a replacement aircraft for ferrying US presidents was unveiled on Friday by the US Air Force. “The Air Force’s VC-25B Bridge aircraft has officially arrived at the Presidential Airlift Group and will commenc...

Poland’s nationalist President Karol Nawrocki announced on Friday he was stripping Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky of the country’s top award, escalating a row between the neighbours and allies over World War II massacres. Relations between Warsaw...

A clear majority of Keir Starmer’s cabinet believe it is now inevitable Andy Burnham will take over as prime minister, according to people familiar with the thinking of more than 15 cabinet ministers, who spoke on condition of anonymity on Friday. ...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday that a week ⁠should be enough ⁠for Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko to ⁠remove equipment from his country used by Russia in its attacks on Ukraine, adding a threat of Ukrainian action ...

Iran sought to assert control over Strait of Hormuz by saying that ships need its permission and mandatory insurance to cross, even as the US said that 20 ships sailed through overnight via a route it recommends along Oman’s coast. The conflicting ...

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz signalled a major shift in Berlin’s economic relations with Beijing on Friday, saying the Chinese currency was undervalued by 30 per cent, well above the International Monetary Fund’s estimate of “about 16 per c...

A Hong Kong taxi fleet has terminated its collaboration with a driver after a cab stopped in the middle of the road in Tsuen Wan for two passengers to alight and take their suitcases out from the boot, with authorities requesting a report from the op...

In the Moscow district of Maryino on Friday, shopkeeper Andrei Kondratyev braced for more Ukrainian attacks and possible petrol shortages, saying Russians needed to “get used to” a new reality. A day earlier, Kyiv set an oil refinery ablaze in th...

Authorities in Indonesia’s tourist island of Bali foiled an attempt to illegally trade 21 protected green sea turtles, police said on Friday. Bali police seized the live animals during a raid on the Pegametan coast of the island on June 10, after l...

A Chinese hypersonic missile faster than five times the speed of sound, racing just above the sea surface, while staying below the radar horizon. Could this be a new nightmare for the US Navy? Possibly, if a new ambitious low-altitude hypersonic flig...

Hosting the Asian debut of the Hyrox World Championships could bring more high-spending visitors to Hong Kong and the city’s selection as host may have been driven by its proximity to the vast mainland China market, experts have said. The announcem...

Hong Kong’s education authorities are likely to miss the deadline for unveiling a concept plan for a proposed university town in the first half of this year, as the project must align with the city’s inaugural five-year plan, which is set to be r...

A British court sent two men to prison on Friday for setting fire to property linked to Prime Minister Keir Starmer in a plot orchestrated by a mysterious Russian-speaking figure. Ukrainian national Roman Lavrynovych, 22, and Stanislav Carpiuc, a 27-...

The son of Myanmar’s jailed pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has said his mother’s “spirit cannot be caged”, in a moving video greeting for her 81st birthday – a milestone she again marks while confined by the junta. Suu Kyi, Myanmar�...

An exodus of private business jets from China since the days of Covid-19 appears to be stabilising this year amid a potential shift in demand across industries, suggesting that sales by cash-strapped owners of the multimillion-dollar assets have larg...

We’ve never had it so good. The S&P 500 and Nikkei 225 have hit record highs this month. SpaceX had its spectacular initial public offering, the largest in history. The company raised an eye-popping US$75 billion and saw a sharp rise in its share p...

Italy’s foreign minister on Friday cancelled a visit to the United States over reported comments by US President Donald Trump that appeared to mock Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. “The grave and offensive words of President Trump … offend the wh...

Chinese authorities will promote the further integration of AI and consumption, according to a plan released by the Ministry of Commerce and seven other ministries. It includes 17 new measures that aim to create new drivers of consumption growth by e...

⁠Iran’s ⁠Strait of ⁠Hormuz body said on Friday it would waive planned fees to use ‌the strait during a 60-day negotiation period under the memorandum of understanding signed with the United States ⁠this week. Ships seeking passage through...

Hong Kong police have arrested nine people in connection with two burglaries at a farm in Tin Shui Wai, with some of the stolen items already pawned in Macau and the total losses exceeding HK$2.7 million (US$344,500) in cash, watches, jewellery and g...

A Vietnamese national deported to South Sudan by Donald Trump’s administration under its controversial third-country deportation programme was repatriated to Vietnam on Friday after spending more than a year in detention. South Sudan’s Ministry o...

Hong Kong’s pet funeral service providers have urged the government to allow animal ashes to be placed alongside those of their owners, citing a growing demand for such arrangements amid a rapidly expanding afterlife market for furry friends. Petme...

The Chinese embassy in the UK has called on the British government to “stop its acts of slander and suppression” after a court jailed two men linked to the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in London for up to 10 years for spying on activists. ...

Arsenio Butil Jnr fell to his knees and began to pray when last week’s deadly 7.8-magnitude earthquake began shaking his home on the coast of the southern Philippines. When he opened his eyes, he saw a once-familiar shoreline changing in real time,...