Less than three years ago, residents of a small rural township in the US state of Michigan packed a community hall to celebrate what many saw as a victory for local democracy over a Chinese-headquartered battery manufacturer. The residents of Green C...

Hong Kong families cheered for Japan as it beat Tunisia 4-0 during a Sunday lunchtime broadcast of the Fifa World Cup, making for a memorable Father’s Day that combined the family tradition of yum cha with live football. The occasion highlighted th...

The artificial intelligence competition is by nature an energy competition. The conventional narrative focuses on faster chips, yet training and inference consume vast amounts of power. The harsh geographic paradox is that the regions most advanced i...

Top negotiators from the United States, Iran and Pakistan have arrived in Switzerland ahead of talks that aim to secure the fragile ceasefire and reach a deal on the future of Iran’s nuclear programme. The US team was led by Vice-President J.D. Van...

A taxi driver in central China won widespread praise online after racing an unconscious child to the hospital, running red lights and driving against traffic. The incident unfolded in Wuhan, Hubei province, on June 5, according to the mainland media ...

Mainland Chinese technology giants in cutting-edge fields are increasingly treating Hong Kong as a “strategic adaptation ground” to transform themselves into global multinational enterprises, the city’s finance chief has said. Following his tri...

Hong Kong will consider expanding priority community care to include dementia patients and carers aged over 60 of people with severe disabilities, the city’s welfare chief has said, in a bid to better identify high-risk cases vulnerable to tragedy....

Hong Kong residents living in the villages of Ho Sheung Heung and Yin Kong in Sheung Shui will be allowed to convert their entire houses into restaurants, guest houses or shops without prior application under a pilot scheme aimed at boosting rural to...

The South Korean government and defence players are making last-ditch efforts to win Canada’s next-generation submarine project worth up to 60 trillion won (US$39.14 billion), as Ottawa is expected to select a preferred bidder by the end of this mo...

For decades, moving Benin’s cotton harvest from the north of the country to its southern ports was a slow, difficult journey along unpaved roads. Benin is Africa’s largest cotton producer, but it lacked the infrastructure needed to connect its no...

Within a week of its release, Netflix’s new Korean drama Teach You a Lesson, directed by Hong Jong-chan, topped the platform’s global non-English rankings for the week of June 1 to 7. Adapted from the popular webtoon Get Schooled (2020), the 10-e...

A new round of negotiations over the Middle East war was set to kick off on Sunday as Iranian negotiators and US Vice-President J.D. Vance arrived in the Swiss host city, even as Tehran said it was closing the Strait of Hormuz again over Israeli atta...

Hong Kong is the only place in China capable of replicating the financing model of US tech giant SpaceX, which leverages market forces to grow rapidly, former leader Leung Chun-ying has said, urging the city to develop professional services for the e...

Theatre chain Golden Village (GV) and film distributor Clover Films have added eight more screenings of Dear You in its original Teochew language in Singapore. The additional screenings will take place from June 25 to 29 at GVmax at GV VivoCity. Tick...

Hong Kong families are turning away from long-standing summer school favourites in Britain and North America amid soaring airfares, with education consultants reporting a sharp surge in demand for alternatives in Asia. Applications for British summer...

Danny Loong did not fully grieve his father’s death until he became a parent himself. For two decades after his father’s passing, Loong remembered him mostly as a provider and disciplinarian: a man who pushed hard, cared quietly and offered littl...

Thailand’s crackdown on a loophole that effectively bypasses its restrictions on land ownership by foreigners is causing prospective buyers to delay purchase decisions on luxury villas in resort destinations such as Phuket and Koh Samui, according ...

US Donald Trump has sparred with most of his fellow Group of Seven leaders at some point. But Italy’s Giorgia Meloni this week did something none of them dared: she escalated. Unlike Spanish Socialist Pedro Sanchez, one of the few leaders in Europe...

A China-led team has developed an AI system to detect space hurricanes, a phenomenon in the Earth’s upper atmosphere that can disrupt satellite signals, radar and radio communications. While the hurricane-like atmospheric phenomenon can have major ...

Cross-border biotech deals between China and the United States are becoming more complicated and could face a modest slowdown as Washington steps up efforts to restrict investment and technology transfers, according to industry analysts. “There wil...

Hong Kong’s universities are often celebrated for their global rankings, research output and international reputation. Yet behind these achievements lies a quieter, more fundamental question: how do we define academic excellence and are we measurin...

Hong Kong election authorities have stopped compiling voter turnout data by age and sex, citing a lack of operational need, in a move that has raised concerns about undermining the transparency of polls. Analysts and politicians said such statistics ...

A former Chinese e-commerce executive in the final stages of a rare disease is still working 12-hour days, devoting what time he has left to accelerating the search for a cure. Cai Lei, 48, a former vice-president of JD.com, one of China’s largest ...

She was among five girls in Japan believed to have beaten a boy so severely that he required hospital treatment. Yet her most pressing concern was how much money the group should demand from him. To find an answer, she turned to artificial intelligen...

Orchard Towers, a building in Singapore once notorious enough to earn the nickname “Four Floors of Whores”, has found an unlikely new tenant. On weekends, the site of former nightclubs, illegal massage parlours and at least one murder is now floo...

Britain’s Observer newspaper said Prime Minister Keir Starmer was expected to resign on Monday and set out a timetable for his departure, though a government source said Starmer remained focused on getting on with the job of governing. The threat t...

In late April, China’s top intelligence agency claimed that foreign forces were weaponising the concept of “lying flat” to dispel young people’s “belief in striving” and undermine social values. Once a niche subculture, “lying flat” h...

⁠Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said ⁠on Saturday that Ukrainian drones had struck an oil refinery in Russia’s Tyumen Region in western Siberia, more than 2,000km (1,200 miles) from Ukraine. He also said Ukraine had ‌developed new lon...

US President ⁠Donald Trump said on Saturday that much of the water at the newly renovated Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington “probably” has to be drained for repairs following what he called “vandalism” of the site. “We met wi...

Claude Guillemot, who ⁠co-founded French video-game ⁠publisher Ubisoft with ⁠his brothers in 1986, has died, the company said on Saturday. “Ubisoft was deeply saddened to learn of the death of ‌Claude Guillemot, co-founder of the group and ...

Russia has freed 24 Filipinos who have been detained for months without charges in a Siberian city, after Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr raised concerns about them in a meeting with President Vladimir Putin, Philippine officials said on Sa...

One of Iceland’s two remaining whaling ships set out this week to hunt the giant mammals after a two-year hiatus, local media and campaigners reported on Saturday. Iceland is one of only three countries that still openly permit whaling, alongside N...

Hong Kong police have arrested a man in connection with three burglaries in Ma On Shan involving losses of more than HK$700,000 (US$89,750). Police said on Saturday that they received three burglary reports between April 26 and June 3, concerning two...

Iran on Saturday said that it closed the Strait of Hormuz because of Israel’s attacks in Lebanon and warned that while negotiators were going to Switzerland for talks with the US on their interim agreement, not much likely will happen if the fighti...

Hong Kong’s rail giant has launched an investigation after a woman was injured when a ceiling panel fell and hit her leg at Telford Plaza in Kowloon Bay. The MTR Corporation, which also manages the shopping centre, said on Saturday that a section o...

As the US voluntarily dismantles its global hegemony, China has neither the will nor the capacity to fill the role, a prominent Chinese foreign policy expert has argued. Beijing was forging an alternative path rooted in sovereign equality and multila...

US President Donald Trump escalated a diplomatic row with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Saturday, accusing her of repeatedly seeking a photograph with him and linking the dispute to tensions over Iran and Nato. The clash has opened an unus...

A motorcyclist was killed in Hong Kong following a collision with a KMB double‑decker bus on Saturday afternoon. Police said the crash occurred at about 4pm on New Clear Water Bay Road outside the Shun Lee Disciplined Services Quarters in Sau Mau P...

US President Donald Trump’s announcement that he will visit China “at some point” this year sets the stage for an unusually frequent series of face-to-face meetings between the American and Chinese leaders – potentially up to four encounters ...

A Spanish court has ordered the wife of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, Begona Gomez, to stand trial by jury for corruption and banned her from leaving the country, according to a court order released on Saturday. The case is one of several corruption ...

Shipping services in Guinea are being upended as the West African country ramps up iron ore exports for China’s “green steel” production lines to take advantage of much higher prices. Vessels that usually ship bauxite from Guinea have been dive...

Hong Kong police have arrested a man in connection with an attempted robbery at Kai Tak Cruise Terminal, where the victim was allegedly attacked with a rock early on Saturday. Police said that a 36‑year‑old man reported that he had been assaulted...

Beijing will make maritime surveys in the waters east of Taiwan a routine matter as it seeks to assert its sovereignty following talks between Japan and the Philippines, state media reported on Friday. An article published by Yuyuan Tantian, a social...

At least 30 people have died since the start of May in one camp for displaced civilians in northeastern Congo, a death rate that camp officials said was unprecedented, with some confirmed to have died from Ebola in a sign the disease could be spreadi...

One person died after two freight trains collided on a bridge in Munich overnight, causing loaded cars to plunge to the road below, police said on Saturday. Two cars of one train fell about 5 metres (16 ft) from a bridge and came to rest at round 1.4...

Taiwan’s first International Booker Prize-winning novel has reignited debate over the island’s shifting identity, with its portrayal of a distinctly Taiwanese historical experience at odds with narratives long promoted by Beijing. The attention s...

Hong Kong police have arrested seven people in connection with a robbery involving 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 wer...

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 take the lead in setting standards, analysts have said, weighing in on how the city can contribute to Beijing’s global governance reform following the publication of a ...