Taiwan’s parliament is set to prioritise review of a disputed NT$1.25 trillion (US$40 billion) special defence budget bill when its new session begins on Tuesday, as pressure mounts from Washington. But US President Donald Trump’s recent remarks ...

US software company OpenMind, according to founder and CEO Jan Liphardt, caused a commotion last year at a park in San Francisco where the firm shot a promotional video. “A crowd of people came, children came running, cars stopped and the police ca...

Relatives, colleagues and residents gathered in a county in central China on the weekend to pay tribute to six firefighters who died after putting out a blaze during the Chinese New Year holidays. The firefighters were killed on Thursday afternoon wh...

As political pressure on the US Federal Reserve intensifies in Washington, the reverberations are rippling across the globe. Gregory Peters, co-chief investment officer of fixed income at PGIM, has noted that bringing political pressure to bear on th...

The acquisition price for properties damaged in Hong Kong’s deadly Tai Po fire will be “far lower” if homeowners reject the government’s buy-back offer and authorities are forced to use legislation to acquire the remaining properties, a senio...

A 34-year-old chef has been arrested for allegedly dripping an unknown liquid on three female pedestrians near Hong Kong’s Tai Wai MTR station in separate incidents during the Christmas and Lunar New Year holiday periods. The first incident took pl...

Having electrified its highways, China is mobilising its shipbuilding prowess and battery giants such as CATL to overhaul some shipping fleets, betting that the revolution in green transport can float as well as it drives. The shift towards clean ene...

Young people in Japan are using artificial intelligence (AI) to make before-and-after cosmetic surgery photographs which look like they are two “different” versions of themselves in a single setting. Data suggests the country is relatively relaxe...

The Australian frigate HMAS Toowoomba sailed through the Taiwan Strait on Friday and Saturday, monitored closely by the People’s Liberation Army, which remained on alert throughout the transit, according to a mainland Chinese media report. The Glob...

US envoy Steve Witkoff said on Saturday that President Donald Trump is questioning why Iran has not “capitulated” in the face of Washington’s military build-up aimed at pressuring them into a nuclear deal. The United States and Iran this week r...

Resorts are near capacity in Pattaya, Bangkok restaurants are doing a roaring trade and the strict time slots to visit the Louis Vuitton pop-up “hotel” in the Thai capital are fully booked. As this year’s Lunar New Year holiday draws to a close...

When an ibuprofen dance challenge went viral on the Chinese social media platform Douyin in late 2022 during the Covid-19 pandemic, shares of the country’s leading ibuprofen maker surged more than 200 per cent in two weeks. Now profits at Shandong ...

Hong Kong must exercise fiscal prudence, carefully weighing social needs while maintaining adequate reserves to guard against unforeseen circumstances, the finance chief has said as he outlined the principles of the budget he will deliver on Wednesda...

US President Donald Trump said on Saturday he was sending a hospital boat to Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory that he has long coveted and threatened to seize by force. Trump’s rhetoric has ratcheted up tensions between the United States a...

Hong Kong authorities froze HK$261 million (US$33.4 million) in suspected criminal proceeds linked to money laundering and drug trafficking last year, but experts say it may take as long as seven years for any of the funds to reach government coffers...

On the top floor of a trendy anime-themed mall near Beijing’s Chaoyang Park, a three-minute trailer gave a taste of what is expected to be China’s next blockbuster role-playing video game. On the large screen, characters called Eastern Heretic, W...

North Korea aired a new propaganda film on TV about a failed assassination attempt on the country’s supreme leader, with South Korean media describing it as an “unprecedented work addressing a taboo”. The film Days and Nights of Confrontation, ...

Yik Wai Chee doesn’t think of himself as a believer. The 33-year-old senior executive at a Malaysia-based AI company is the kind of person who deals in data and decision-making frameworks, not destiny. Yet for years, he has consulted bazi, the anci...

Deeper regulatory ties and a shared push for new growth sectors are expected to give fresh impetus to cross-border investment flows between China and the Middle East, according to industry players and a United Arab Emirates (UAE) regulator. Hong Kong...

Tehran resident Hamid struggles to sleep as fears of renewed conflict haunt the Iranian capital after last year’s 12-day war with Israel. “I don’t sleep well at night even while taking pills,” Hamid said, as he expressed concern for his “fa...

When the results of China’s gruelling National Higher Education Entrance Examination – or gaokao – were released last summer, Lin Gangming was surprised to learn that he had scored high enough to attend some of the country’s top universities....

The surge in gold prices has brought a wave of new investment-focused bullion retailers to Hong Kong’s prime shopping areas, adding a distinct segment alongside traditional jewellery merchants. These retailers – which sell gold coins and bars, ra...

When Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office director Xia Baolong recently described Hong Kong’s executive-led system as a distinct governance model, he elevated it from an administrative arrangement to constitutional doctrine. A doctrine is not merely ...

Hong Kong’s coming annual budget must address critical bottlenecks in technology and talent attraction to pave the way for the city’s first five-year development framework in line with national priorities, according to observers. The budget, to b...

A chubby seven-year-old boy in China who agreed to skip rope exactly in line with the number of thumbs-up a video of him doing so got has seen his video clip liked by more than 1.8 million internet users. The clip released by the father, surnamed He,...

The vapes used to be obvious. Bright displays of flavoured liquid, a shop just down the road, a transaction as unremarkable as buying shampoo. Batrisyia, 28, remembers how easy it was. Those days are gone. Or rather, in Malaysia at least, the trade h...

While K-pop has conquered almost every corner of the globe, South Korea’s entertainment industry remains largely locked out of the Chinese market due to a geopolitical chill that has lingered for a decade. China unofficially banned South Korean ent...

Arab and Muslim nations on Saturday sharply condemned comments by the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, who said Israel has a right to much of the Middle East. Huckabee made the comments in an interview with conservative commentator Tucker Carl...

The 2026 Spring Festival Gala, one of the world’s most-watched television events, featured a dazzling array of humanoid robots. They performed martial arts, executed intricate sword dances and even took part in a comedy skit alongside human celebri...

A tour bus carrying Chinese tourists plunged through the ice on Russia’s Lake Baikal, killing eight people, officials said. One of the Chinese tourists managed to escape from the bus, which was crossing the frozen lake on Friday, Irkutsk regional G...

Nasa’s new moon rocket suffered another setback on Saturday, almost certain to bump astronauts’ first lunar trip in decades into spring. The space agency revealed the latest problem just one day after targeting March 6 for the Artemis II mission,...

A day after his stunning loss at the US Supreme Court, President Donald Trump said on Saturday he is raising from 10 to 15 per cent a temporary tariff rate on imports from all countries. “I, as President of the United States of America, will be, ef...

Some homeowners displaced by the deadly Tai Po blaze were disappointed by Hong Kong authorities’ decision to buy back their flats instead of resettling them at the original site, even as the acquisition offer was described by a surveyor as “gener...

Germany’s ruling conservatives on Saturday passed ⁠a motion to ban social media use for under 14s and introduce more stringent digital verification checks for teenagers, building momentum for such limits in Germany and elsewhere in Europe. At a p...

Campers and hikers have urged Hong Kong authorities to step up public education, law enforcement and impose foot traffic limits at campsites after some areas were flooded with visitors during the Lunar New Year holiday. A visit by the South China Mor...

China’s push to sell its J-35 fifth generation fighter jet in the Asia-Pacific was likely to face stiff competition from US rival the F-35 as well as cheaper alternatives, military analysts said after the plane featured at this year’s Singapore A...

Hong Kong police are investigating the death of a 66-year-old man who fell from bamboo scaffolding, with drugs discovered in the flat he climbed out of. The force said the man, surnamed Yip, was found unconscious on a platform at 3 Nelson Street in M...

India and Brazil agreed to boost cooperation on critical minerals and rare earths on Saturday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said after talks in New Delhi with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. “The agreement on critical minerals and ra...

Major Chinese technology companies, including ByteDance and Baidu, are aggressively expanding their US-based research and development teams, targeting high-level artificial intelligence and semiconductor recruits in key American tech hubs. The overse...

US President Donald Trump may find himself wielding less leverage when he heads to China in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling that overturned his signature tariff policy, Chinese analysts and exporters say. They said the court’s decision could wea...

As Malaysians flock to Ramadan bazaars and breaking fast gatherings, the health ministry is reminding the public to observe tuberculosis (TB) precautions, especially in crowded and enclosed spaces. In a statement issued on Saturday, the ministry said...

Hong Kong’s Ocean Park has temporarily closed its Arctic Fox Den after the enclosure’s last two remaining animals, “Siu Go” and “Trinity”, died of old age. The theme park announced on Saturday that Siu Go and Trinity had both died at the ...

At least 30 people in Iran are facing the death penalty in connection with the recent mass protests in the country, according to the human rights group Amnesty International. A death sentence had already been passed in eight cases, the organisation r...

The first prize for the Year of the Horse’s Mark Six snowball draw on Saturday is set to be split across five winning bets, with each garnering a payout of about HK$42.2 million (US$5.4 million). The total turnover for the draw reached HK$402.3 mil...

At a rehearsal studio in Hong Kong on an early February morning, a group of 12 dancers gathered around a table, hands on deck and eyes locked in intense glances. They slammed the counter in unison. Then they twisted and turned their bodies with fierc...

Researchers in China have been excluded from the European Union’s most advanced collaborative technology programmes. However, specialists in the sectors affected say the impact of the ban may be limited because some areas of collaboration are alrea...

Five European nations have announced a new programme to produce low-cost air defence systems and autonomous drones using Ukrainian expertise hard-won over the past four years of war against Russia. Friday’s initiative of the E5 nations – France, ...

The Philippines has fallen in a global corruption perception ranking, as allegations of financial wrongdoings and court cases surrounding a multibillion-peso flood-control programme have deepened doubts about its governance and dented investor confid...

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is at last showing a bit of spirit. While it might not yet be attacking the egregious economic and financial antics of US President Donald Trump, it is at least turning its attention to the fiscal foibles of Japa...

Chinese railway giants look set to scout Eurasia in the years ahead to build high-speed train lines as the domestic market matures and some countries are more prepared than others for capital-intensive yet transformative ventures, analysts said. Insp...