Prince William will begin his first official visit to Saudi Arabia with a meeting on Monday with host Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, as London seeks to deepen economic cooperation with the Gulf nation. The visit comes as daily revelations from the...

China has showcased a range of uncrewed platforms – including a drone for anti-submarine warfare – at the World Defence Show in Saudi Arabia, as demand grows in the region for autonomous systems. More than 770 exhibitors from 76 countries are tak...

A woman has quit her job as a senior manager for a large Beijing company to work on an uninhabited island in the East China Sea. Despite paying just 3,000 yuan (US$430) a month, the remote job has sparked an outpouring of envy online. Yue Li, who was...

Japan’s ruling coalition secured a commanding victory in Sunday’s general election, but analysts warn that Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s embrace of a hardline conservative agenda could narrow her party’s support base and ultimately weaken i...

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi won a landslide election victory, and the nation’s first single-party supermajority since World War II, after a campaign centred on cutting taxes and boosting defence spending amid a dispute with China. Takaic...

The median monthly household income in Singapore rose to S$12,446 (US$9,250) last year, up from S$11,558 the year before, an increase of 6.8 per cent after adjusting for inflation. After accounting for household size, the median monthly household inc...

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has her work cut out for her. Among the daunting challenges confronting her after winning a resounding victory in a parliamentary election on February 8, tackling the rising cost of living is at the top of her p...

The United States’ latest trade deal with India may be linked to a freeze on discounted Russian oil purchases, but analysts say it is unlikely to upset New Delhi’s decades-old defence ties with Moscow. Announcing the agreement last week, US Presi...

Mathematician Ngo Bao Chau, who made history in 2010 as the first Vietnamese recipient of the prestigious Fields Medal, will join the science faculty at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) as a chair professor in June. Ngo, 53, currently distinguished ...

Thousands gathered across Australia on Monday to protest the arrival of Israeli ‍President Isaac Herzog, who is on a multi-city trip aimed at expressing solidarity with Australia’s Jewish community following a deadly mass shooting last year. Herz...

China has been working to cut the use of soybean meal in animal feed – the primary end-use of imported soybeans – as part of its strategy to reduce external dependence, but the latest industry data suggests these efforts have made limited headway...

A Hong Kong court has remanded another Japanese man in custody over charges of conspiring to steal more than 27 million yen (US$171,678) in connection with a robbery outside a currency exchange shop last month in which 51 million yen was taken. Koki ...

Chinese electric vehicle (EV) maker Nio plans to add another 1,000 battery swapping stations to its network this year, adding to its US$2.6 billion bet on the technology despite a challenge from fast-charging batteries as it touts its 100 millionth s...

Hong Kong authorities are looking beyond a shelved reclamation project near Lantau Island and considering options for a fourth cross-harbour tunnel, which lawmakers say is crucial for alleviating persistent congestion and sustaining the city’s grow...

South Korea grounded an ageing fleet of military helicopters on Monday after a chopper crashed during a training exercise and killed two people on board. The AH-1S Cobra was training for emergency landings when it “crashed due to an unidentified ca...

As US President Donald Trump continues to wage war against renewable energy, a new Chinese study revealing the strain that renewable integration places on power transformers could give him fresh technical ammunition. The researchers discovered that h...

Young Chinese people have created a new dating trend called “ex-partner referrals” in which they treat former lovers like job candidates. The young people share detailed profiles, personal feedback and previous relationship “usage reports” wi...

SpaceX is putting its long-standing focus of sending humans to Mars on the back burner to prioritise establishing a settlement on the moon, founder Elon Musk said on Sunday. The South Africa-born billionaire’s space company has found massive succes...

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim on Monday warned against allowing disputes over “illegal” houses of worship to spill into communal confrontation, after police detained 19 people linked to a planned rally in central Kuala Lumpur that author...

Abandoned for months on their fishing boat off West Africa, Indonesian sailor Surono and his shipmates face a dilemma: return home without almost a year’s wages or stay on the docked vessel. He is among a growing number of migrant workers abandoned...

We have put together stories from our coverage last weekend to help you stay informed about news across Asia and beyond. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. US accuses China of secret nuclear testing after ...

Hong Kong police have arrested a 60-year-old truck driver after his vehicle hit and fatally injured a 65-year-old woman in Kwun Tong on Monday morning. Police received a report at 5.55am that a medium goods vehicle was travelling along Kwun Tong Road...

In the world of tick-borne illnesses, Lyme disease gets the headlines. For example, Greg Yang, one of the 12 original co-founders of Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence start-up xAI, said in late January that he was stepping back from the company a...

Malaysia’s ringgit may have rebounded against the Singapore dollar, but its recent strengthening has done little to deter cross-border shoppers from flocking across the causeway for Lunar New Year bargains. Traders at festive markets across Johor B...

A growing number of Hong Kong-listed companies are tapping strong equity market sentiment to issue convertible bonds, a trend bankers expect to continue. Eleven companies raised US$7.4 billion through convertible bonds in the first five weeks of 2026...

Australia has emerged as an alternate defence partner to long-time US ally the Philippines amid mounting uncertainty over American commitment to security in the Indo-Pacific. Canberra’s evolving ties with Manila hinge on its own strategic interests...

A Hong Kong court sentenced former media boss Jimmy Lai Chee-ying to 20 years in prison on Monday for violating the national security law, closing a chapter on what has become a geopolitical flashpoint between China and the West. In a hearing that la...

To err is human. But when an error funnels through a system that has safeguards, the error is supposed to be caught and rectified. Checks and balances are written into the Basic Law, Hong Kong’s mini constitution. Hong Kong has an executive-led sys...

China has almost finished building the US$10 billion Pinglu Canal to deepen trade ties between its southwestern provinces and Southeast Asia. Now, it is considering an even more ambitious – and expensive – project further inland. The Xianggui Can...

A secondary school pupil in southern China has trended on social media for carrying a large amount of luggage neatly packed on his back. The youngster’s bag-carrying exploits have received praise from internet users who have lauded his independence...

Hong Kong authorities will submit a draft law by the end of this year to strengthen enforcement against fire safety violations, including issuing fixed penalties alongside existing prosecution options that can take months to carry out. Responding to ...

Hong Kong needs to consider widening the Stock Connect schemes and step up promotion in Southeast Asia and the Middle East to attract more international firms to list in the city, according to a government think tank. Rocky Tung Yat-ngok, newly appoi...

Japanese police officers who had to be disciplined hit a 10-year high last year, prompting calls for an overhaul for the force. Figures released by the National Police Agency on Thursday showed that 337 personnel had to be disciplined over the course...

Hong Kong and Singapore are set to be the biggest winners in attracting new capital inflows as global investors diversify their asset allocations amid geopolitical risks and trade tensions, according to the top executive at DBS Group. The two Asian f...

Venezuela’s Nobel peace laureate Maria Corina Machado said on Monday that armed men “kidnapped” a close ally shortly after his release by authorities, following ex-leader Nicolas Maduro’s capture. The country’s Public Prosecutor’s Office ...

Luuk van Middelaar is the director of the Brussels Institute for Geopolitics, a think tank he co-founded in 2022. A political theorist and historian by trade, he has written several books and was in the cabinet of the first European Council president...

We live in an interesting time. It has become clear that many Hong Kong couples would rather have a pet than a child. Small families are now the norm: a 2022 survey by the Family Planning Association showed that childless families made up 43.2 per ce...

US President Donald Trump criticised American Olympic ‌skier Hunter Hess as a “real loser” on Sunday, days after the athlete expressed ‍mixed feelings about representing the United States at the Winter Olympics in northern Italy. Freestyle sk...

Moderate Socialist Antonio Jose Seguro secured a landslide victory and a five-year ‍term as Portugal’s president in a run-off vote on Sunday, beating his far-right, anti-establishment rival Andre Ventura. Seguro, who received backing from promine...

Norway’s ambassador to Jordan and Iraq has resigned after an investigation was launched into her ties to late US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the foreign ministry said on Sunday. Mona Juul, who played a key role in the secret Israeli-Palestinian n...

The presidents of Argentina and Romania said on Sunday they have been invited to attend the inaugural meeting of US President Donald Trump’s controversial “Board of Peace” in Washington on February 19. Originally designed by Trump as a mechanis...

The death toll in a building collapse in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli on Monday climbed to 14, a civil defence official said - the second such incident in weeks. The state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported “the collapse of an old bui...

Iran sentenced Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi to over seven more years in prison after she began a hunger strike, supporters said on Sunday, as Tehran cracks down on all dissent following nationwide protests and the deaths of thousands a...

[The content of this article has been produced by our advertising partner.] For most Hong Kong residents, Towngas is felt in those everyday moments—turning on the hob to cook dinner or firing up the boiler for a hot shower. After more than 160 year...

In a world first, Chinese researchers have flight-tested new streamlined thrust technology in a high-speed drone, capping nearly two decades of research in the area for the lead scientist. The lighter and simpler aerodynamic thrust vectoring system a...

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, ‍quit on Sunday, saying he took responsibility for advising Starmer to name Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US despite his known links to Jeffrey Epstein. After new file...

If American users of TikTok think its transition to majority US ownership would make it more secure and freer, they are sorely mistaken. Rather, they should expect the opposite. Some 170 million TikTokkers received a pop-up message telling them that ...

Tickets for most of the new high-speed rail destinations in mainland China from Hong Kong have sold out for the weekend preceding the Lunar New Year holiday, according to a check by the South China Morning Post on Sunday. The official 12306 train ser...

A memorial for the victims of a deadly New Year’s fire in Switzerland itself caught fire early on Sunday, likely sparked by candles left burning inside, police said. It was a makeshift tribute to the 41 people killed and the 115 injured in the Janu...

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer recently concluded his four-day visit to China, during which he met President Xi Jinping. He was accompanied by a sizeable delegation of prominent British business leaders across finance, pharmaceuticals, clean ene...