During the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, authorities around the world asked people to put their lives on hold for a period of days or weeks to “flatten the curve” and save lives.More than a year into the global crisis, governments continue...

Swedish fashion retailer H&M is facing a new protest, this time from social media users in Vietnam who accuse it of kowtowing to China over a map of disputed territories in the South China Sea.The controversy began on Friday when the Shanghai branch ...

India’s biggest cities braced for stricter lockdowns and other Covid-19 curbs on Saturday as infections hit a six-month high, as a month-long surge continued in the country third-worst hit by the pandemic.India’s richest state, Maharashtra, accou...

When the Biden administration unveiled a US$2.3 trillion infrastructure plan on Wednesday, some economists could hardly ignore its similarities with China’s economic stimulus therapy. According to the American Jobs Plan announced by United States P...

A bus passenger in Hong Kong was injured after a window of a double-decker suddenly shattered while the vehicle was travelling along a major bypass on Saturday.At around 9am, the Citybus vehicle was on the Island Eastern Corridor in Chai Wan when a w...

A newlywed husband and wife who expressed interest in fighting for Islamic State group were arrested on Thursday at a port near New York City as they attempted to board a cargo ship that an undercover law enforcement officer said would take them to Y...

European countries are providing help for Taiwan’s indigenous submarine project, the island’s defence ministry said, in a rare admission that the sensitive programme is not getting assistance solely from the United States.Taiwan, which Beijing re...

Multimedia journalist Shahid Tantray does not tell people his name any more, unless he really has to. He stopped after being attacked by an angry mob in New Delhi last year for the “crime” of being Muslim.The Indian capital’s northeast had just...

Myanmar security forces opened fire on pro-democracy protests on Saturday killing five people, a protester and media said, as the military reinforced its bid to end dissent with arrest warrants for online critics and internet blocks.Despite the killi...

A vetting committee set up under Beijing’s overhaul of Hong Kong’s electoral system to screen out candidates deemed “unpatriotic” will consider previous actions and words by an individual, the city’s justice minister has said, adding howeve...

Nursery schools and kindergartens in Japan are struggling to teach preschoolers about sexual minorities, a challenge highlighted by the case of a six-year-old boy who stopped attending a nursery after being bullied for dressing in girls’ clothing.T...

Hong Kong recorded just two new Covid-19 infections on Saturday, the lowest in about a week, while bookings for the BioNTech vaccines resumed following a 12-day suspension over defective vials.Of the two new cases, one was linked to a previous infect...

Physical Education (PE) classes are famous for jogging around a track, dodgeball and the occasional competitive sporting match. But a primary school in the central city of Xian is finding success with a much older activity: a centuries-old Chinese m...

In January, Malaysian media professional Wong had just marked two years of working in Singapore when she realised she had to leave in 30 days. Her employment pass – covering executive, managerial and specialised roles – was about to expire, and c...

The United States, South Korea and Japan on Friday committed to “concerted trilateral cooperation” to achieve the denuclearisation of North Korea, as the Joe Biden administration inched closer to completing a review of its policy on the hermit st...

With both China and the US stepping up engagement with their partners and allies, other countries risk being drawn into taking sides as the rivalry between the two powers escalates.Diplomatic observers said that while China may not be forming its own...

The United States reaped the fruits on Friday of its vaccination campaign against Covid-19 as it became the first nation to reach 100 million people, but Europe’s roll-out faced fresh impediments and South America tightened restrictions in the face...

While browsing a bookstore in St Petersburg, Russia, back in the golden days of 2019, when we could leave our Zoom bubbles, I searched for a translated copy of any of my four books. Russia is known for its illegal knock-offs.Yet, if I had found one o...

Chinese state media has accused former officials in Xinjiang of colluding with terrorist groups in a documentary defending its policies in the far-western region.The programme, with subtitles in English and Chinese, was aired on Friday amid growing i...

On an unseasonably warm autumn day last October, the world’s largest coal-fired power plant fired up in the Anhui provincial city of Huaibei in eastern China.Sitting in an economic development zone carved out of verdant paddy fields, phase two of S...

 A Chinese writer who collects and sells the inspirational and moving life stories of people has become an online hit, amassing 300,000 followers.Seeking her own inspiration as a freelance writer, Cong Pingping, launched an online shop in 2012 askin...

Beijing formally kicked off its plans to remake politics in Hong Kong on Tuesday, when China’s top lawmaking body approved sweeping changes to the city’s electoral system to ensure the central government has critical control over how its leader a...

American Olympic snowboarding champion Chloe Kim has revealed she receives racist abuse on social media on a daily basis amid a surge of anti-Asian violence in the United States.The 20-year-old 2018 Olympic half-pipe gold medallist, whose parents are...

Water seeps through the wall, the broken back door does nothing to block the sound of barking stray dogs and, frequently, rats and cockroaches scuttle across the floor. This flat in Hong Kong’s Kowloon City has been home to Wareerat Kanchat for 16 ...

For Philippine defence officials, it was a replay of an old nightmare. Early last month, more than 200 Chinese fishing vessels were sighted anchored off the Whitsun Reef, a boomerang-shaped coral formation within Manila’s exclusive economic zone (E...

Kneeling on George Floyd’s neck while he was handcuffed and lying on his stomach was top-tier, deadly force and “totally unnecessary”, the head of the Minneapolis Police Department’s homicide division testified Friday.“If your knee is on a ...

A court in Thailand on Friday annulled a 2016 order by the country’s finance ministry for former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra to pay 35.7 billion baht (US$1.1 billion) in compensation for losses incurred by a money-losing rice farming subsidy...

The talks began as far back as May last year.At the time Chile had one of the highest coronavirus totals in Latin America, with some 70,000 confirmed cases pushing the country’s health system “very close to the limit”.That is when the country�...

Pope Francis presided at a scaled back “Way of the Cross” service held in an empty St Peter’s Square on Friday due to coronavirus restrictions, listening as children recounted their fears and dreams.It was the second consecutive year that the �...

After China revised its Criminal Procedure Law in 2013, coerced confessions, even if true, are no longer admissible at trial. This followed the exclusionary rules adopted in 2010 by the Supreme People’s Court to guide courts and provide safeguards ...

Lawyers for a Temple University professor said Friday they plan to appeal a federal court ruling that threw out most of his legal claims against the US government and an FBI agent that had accused him of giving trade secrets to China, then dropped ch...

The United States on Friday lifted sanctions on International Criminal Court prosecutor Fatou Bensouda that drew international criticism after they were imposed by the administration of former president Donald Trump.The move, announced by US Secretar...

A retired Iraqi judge who presided over the trial of Iraq’s late dictator Saddam Hussein has died after battling Covid-19, the country’s top judicial body said on Friday.According to Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council, Judge Mohammed Oreibi al-Kha...

One Capitol Police officer was killed and another was injured when a vehicle drove into them and a barricade near the US Capitol in Washington, the department’s acting chief said on Friday.The suspected driver, who exited the vehicle brandishing a ...

Prince Bandar bin Sultan, a senior Saudi royal, has sold a large English country estate to the King of Bahrain’s family, according to people with knowledge of the deal.The former ambassador to the US sold Glympton Park in the scenic Cotswolds regio...

Just as the world watched the saga of the Evergreen container ship in the Suez Canal, at the other end of Asia another major maritime waterway was witnessing its own worrying events.In the South China Sea, some 200 Chinese civilian vessels were moore...

A string of energy-rich economies appear to be moving closer into China’s orbit, expanding economic ties and potentially fuelling the rise of the petroyuan, analysts say.Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi ended a week-long tour on Tuesday of Saudi Ar...

Four people were arrested for rebellion, assault and battery against police officers, and failure to comply with coronavirus measures following an illegal party in a Brussels’ park.Water cannon and mounted police officers dispersed a crowd of some ...

The double whammy of packaging defects and more adverse reports on the possible side effects of Covid-19 vaccines in Hong Kong have caused a 35 per cent drop in overall inoculations in the city, and health experts warned it might take more than a yea...

Officials from Tehran and Washington will travel to Vienna next week as part of efforts to revive the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and global powers, although they will not hold direct talks, diplomats said on Friday.Even without face-to-face talks...

It may have been the subject of news headlines around the world in recent weeks, but Xinjiang was not on the agenda for an informal meeting of the Turkic Council on Wednesday.The Cooperation Council of Turkic-speaking States, as the group is official...

Last Wednesday morning, 25-year-old Indonesian university dropout Zakiah Aini wrote a letter saying goodbye to her family and headed out of the house.As morning turned to dusk, the quiet millennial’s parents began to worry – there had been no wor...

Vietnam has appealed to diplomats from the United States, European Union and Japan to help it secure supplies of Covid-19 vaccines, as part of efforts to acquire the 150 million doses needed to cover its adult population.Vietnam has received about 93...

In an extensive report released this week, a WHO-backed team of scientists aimed to lay out all the known evidence to answer a critical question: where did the virus that caused the Covid-19 pandemic come from?The 300-page-plus document provides inte...

To meet the country’s carbon neutrality pledge made by President Xi Jinping last September, China needs to invest about 138 billion yuan (US$21 billion) to remove carbon from its energy system by 2060, according to a study from Tsinghua University ...

A military website launched an April Fool’s Day joke with a spoof report saying China had developed a super submarine capable of carrying “ginormous” nuclear-powered torpedoes. After the report sparked wide and attention and mockery, including ...

Beijing’s foreign ministry has accused the United States’ envoy to Hong Kong of “blatantly supporting anti-China troublemakers” and making threats a day after he said its drastic overhaul of the city’s electoral system would neither produce...

Beijing has said it will support a special meeting of Southeast Asian leaders to mediate in the current crisis in Myanmar as it stepped up patrols along the border following a Covid-19 outbreak.The question of how the Association of Southeast Asian n...

Police in Italy have seized computers and other devices allegedly used by four Italians to send death threats and offensive emails to the country’s health minister to protest his firm stance on coronavirus lockdowns.The Carabinieri health police sa...

Excessive use of antibiotics could ruin China’s booming seafood industry, a new study has warned.China produces more than 80 per cent of the world’s mariculture products, but the seafood farms are responsible for dumping large quantities of antib...