A two-metre-high bronze statue memorialising the Filipino women forced to become sex slaves by Japan’s military during World War II has gone missing in Manila, underscoring the country’s challenges in balancing diplomatic relations with its large...

Hong Kong’s finance minister has dropped the biggest hint yet that residents will not get another cash handout in the coming budget, despite a surge in stamp duty revenue alleviating what is still expected to be the city’s largest-ever budget def...

Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets in Myanmar’s major cities for a ninth day of anti-coup demonstrations on Sunday, after a fearful night as residents formed patrols and the army rolled back laws protecting freedoms.Engineering stu...

Four people have died of Ebola in the West African country of Guinea in the first resurgence of the disease in five years, according to the country’s health minister.Remy Lamah said officials were “really concerned” about the deaths, the first ...

Japanese bar owner Aoi Hoshino on Sunday swept up glass from whiskey bottles smashed in a strong earthquake the night before, as she recalled the devastating quake that hit the Fukushima area in 2011.The 7.3 magnitude quake struck before midnight, cr...

The United States will be looking to restore its security alliance with the Philippines, including a renewal of their military pact, as it seeks to build a stronger regional counterbalance against China, observers said.Washington has repeatedly pledg...

The YouTube video zooms in on a South Korean girl studying at a table, intently focused on her assignment while accompanied by the stark sounds of turning pages and the scratching of pencil on paper. The video is part of a bizarre internet trend in S...

China has pushed back at US criticism of the WHO and its investigation into the origins of the coronavirus, accusing Washington of “severely undermining” the world health body.The Chinese embassy in Washington said the United States suspended fun...

New Zealand’s largest city of Auckland will go into a three-day lockdown beginning just before midnight on Sunday following the discovery of three unexplained coronavirus cases in the community.Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced the move after...

Hong Kong’s Covid-19 vaccination programme will be delayed until early next month, a senior official has confirmed, as authorities completed a trial run in preparation for the arrival of the first jabs.Secretary for the Civil Service Patrick Nip Ta...

Africa is to have its first director general of the World Trade Organization, with Nigeria’s former finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala set to be confirmed as its head when members meet in the next few days. She will also make history as the first...

At the recent World Economic Forum virtual meeting, Chinese President Xi Jinping reiterated the importance of scaling up efforts to address climate change. As the world’s second-largest economy and the first country to emerge from the Covid-19 pand...

Rodelia Pedro Villar has seen enough of the struggles her fellow domestic workers in Hong Kong have faced during the coronavirus crisis that she decided to tackle the problem head on and launch a series of webinars specifically designed to help them ...

American and Egyptian archaeologists have unearthed what could be the oldest known beer factory at one of the most prominent archaeological sites of ancient Egypt, a top antiquities official said on Wednesday.Mostafa Waziri, secretary general of the ...

Hong Kong’s experiment with food trucks appears on the brink of collapse, generating only HK$1.21 million last year as most operators decided working was not worth their while.The total revenue was HK$10.27 million (US$1.32 million) in 2019, when t...

Singapore’s Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat has made no secret of wanting some normalcy this year after a coronavirus pandemic-riven 2020 in which he unveiled four budgets – and two supplementary sets of stimulus measures – that added up to nea...

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will host a virtual meeting of G7 leaders on Friday to call for action to ensure equal global distribution of Covid-19 vaccines, and to prevent future pandemics, Johnson’s office said.The meeting of the leaders ...

China and the US might play the North Korea card against each other, but Pyongyang might also use the same tactic to advance its nuclear weapons programme, observers say.US President Joe Biden did not mention North Korea in his first foreign policy ...

This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Meredith McGraw on politico.com on February 9, 2021.Former President Donald Trump on Saturday thanked his defence team and Republican lawmakers for voting a...

This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Kyle Cheney and Andrew Desiderio on politico.com on February 13, 2021.The US Senate voted on Saturday to acquit former president Donald Trump on an impeachm...

What is iron ore?Iron ore is mined raw material used to make crude iron, also known as pig iron, and nearly all of it is used to make steel.Roughly 1.5 tonnes of iron ore are required to produce one tonne of steel.The higher the iron content in the o...

Residents of Myanmar’s biggest city of Yangon said they banded together to patrol the streets overnight, fearing arrest raids by authorities and common crime following a military coup and after the junta ordered the release of thousands of prisoner...

Mario Draghi, a former head of the European Central Bank (ECB), was sworn in on Saturday as the head of Italy's new unity government.His appointment as prime minister is aimed at ending more than four weeks of political crisis in the coronavirus-stri...

The Biden administration raised new concerns on Saturday over the possibility of Chinese government interference in the World Health Organization’s (WHO) recent investigation into the origins of the coronavirus in Wuhan.“We have deep concerns abo...

Hong Kong’s Security Bureau has accused the Bar Association of causing “unnecessary misunderstanding” after the barristers’ group voiced concern over a proposed legislative amendment it said would empower immigration to ban anyone from leavin...

A strong earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.1 hit off the coast of eastern Japan on Saturday, shaking buildings and triggering widespread blackouts, but there appeared to be no major damage and no tsunami warning was issued.The epicentre of...

Hong Kong’s frustrated bar owners have urged the government to let them reopen “as soon as possible”, with some saying they are on the brink of closing for good while many have already shut amid the Covid-19 heath crisis.Lan Kwai Fong Group cha...

Thai pro-democracy protesters scaled a massive Bangkok monument on Saturday, draping it in a crimson cloth and calling for the kingdom to abolish its draconian royal defamation laws.Momentum for the youth-led movement calling for an overhaul to Premi...

Beijing has hit out at the European Union over its “irresponsible comments” on Hong Kong affairs after the public broadcaster in the financial hub stopped carrying BBC world news.The diplomatic spat began when British media regulator Ofcom revoke...

This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Alex Isenstadt on politico.com on February 12, 2021.The Lincoln Project, the anti-Donald Trump political outfit, imploded Friday evening amid mounting criti...

The American military has started a delayed joint exercise with India in what analysts said was Joe Biden’s first move to use its Quad partners to assert pressure on China.The two-week-long annual Yudh Abhyas exercise, which was initially slated to...

The European Union on Saturday called on China to reverse its ban on the BBC World News television channel imposed in apparent retaliation for Britain’s pulling of the licence of state-owned Chinese broadcaster CGTN.The EU said in a statement that ...

Early on Friday, the first day of the Lunar New Year, shops in the central Chinese city of Wuhan were selling out of chrysanthemums as residents bought them to take to the grave or home of a deceased family member.Throughout Hubei province, of which ...

The University of Oxford will begin testing the Covid-19 vaccine it developed with AstraZeneca on children, a potentially key step in ending the global pandemic.The Oxford trial plans to enrol 300 children aged six to 17, the university said in a sta...

Beijing and North China were blanketed in heavy smog for a third consecutive day on Saturday, as the government blamed fireworks set off to celebrate the Year of the Ox.Serious air pollution has been recorded in several provinces in northern and cent...

Unemployment in Hong Kong could surpass 7 per cent after the Lunar New Year holiday to hit a new 16-year high, the labour and welfare minister has warned as the city still struggles against its fourth wave of the coronavirus.But Law Chi-kwong rejecte...

Two 11-week-old white tiger cubs that died in a Pakistani zoo last month appear to have succumbed to Covid-19, officials said.The cubs died in the Lahore Zoo on January 30, four days after beginning treatment for what officials thought was feline pan...

As vlogger Ning Nanshan stares down the camera and launches into a lecture about China’s push for technological self-reliance, a flood of “bullet comments” begins floating across the screen.“Go our own way and corner the rest of the world!”...

Hong Kong oyster farmers are struggling to keep their tradition alive in the face of multiple challenges, including labour shortages resulting from Covid-19 travel restrictions.Now they are counting on a scientific study of Deep Bay, in Lau Fau Shan,...

Just weeks into the roll-out of vaccines to combat Covid-19, researchers are shifting their focus to a new class of potential shots to take on the threat posed by fast-spreading mutations.Dangerous coronavirus variants identified in Africa, Europe an...

The dissolution of a Skull and Bones-style private club of some of China’s most famous tycoons has raised concerns over what roles entrepreneurs will play in the country’s next phase of modernisation.The Taishan Club – a private club with about...

Medical student Ahmed Suhail, 22, returned to India on an evacuation flight from Wuhan, China, last February when the coronavirus broke out and the city was placed under complete lockdown. A year after, he wishes he had chosen to stay put.Suhail, who...

Hong Kong police are investigating a case of suspected animal cruelty after receiving a tip-off about a video showing a woman swinging around a dog tied to a tree branch.The force received a report at 9.17am on Saturday and sent officers to Wu Kai Sh...

China Global Television Network has lost permission to air in Germany, just days after the Chinese state channel’s broadcasting licence was revoked in Britain.The media authority of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia said CGTN could no long...

Myanmar’s army on Saturday ordered the arrest of seven well-known backers of protests against this month’s coup, including Min Ko Naing, who has been a leading pro-democracy activist since bloodily suppressed protests in 1988.The announcement was...

For the first 28 years of his life, Shuhei Matsuo Post was ignorant about the impact of a patriarchal society on women and girls.The 35-year-old Tokyo businessman spent most of his adolescent years in the United States, and when he returned to Japan,...

Hong Kong’s daily coronavirus caseload fell to a three-month low of 12 infections on Saturday, as the city’s No 2 official described as encouraging an uptick in downloads of a contact-tracing app and sought to allay privacy concerns.But health au...

China’s plans to use Ukrainian expertise to fast-track is aviation technology have suffered a setback, as Kiev tries to improve relations with the new US administration.Late last month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky imposed sanctions on Sk...

All theories about the origins of the virus that causes Covid-19 are still under investigation, the head of the World Health Organization said on Friday after international researchers wrapped up a near month-long trip to the site of the disease’s ...

A rural leader has drawn a prophecy urging the Hong Kong government to be more decisive when formulating policies, warning that a Lunar New Year fortune stick has sounded an alarm for officials and any wrong moves could worsen the city’s problems.K...