Nicholas Burns, a career diplomat and Harvard professor, is the front-runner to become the next US ambassador to Washington, according to media reports.Citing sources, political news website Axios reported that Burns, one of the foreign policy advise...

A Hong Kong student has been sent to a rehabilitation centre for trashing a local branch of a Chinese teahouse chain last year after the High Court found his original sentence of community service “manifestly inadequate”.The Court of Appeal on Fr...

Hong Kong publishing tycoon Jimmy Lai Chee-ying has been jailed for one year for his role in an unauthorised assembly that took place during 2019’s anti-government protests, while Democratic Party founding chairman Martin Lee Chu-ming was g...

Chinese carrier drills and stepped-up incursions into Taiwan’s air defence zone in recent weeks are meant to send a message to Washington to stand down and back off, security sources in Taipei say.The increased activity – which Beijing, unusuall...

Hong Kong’s security chiefs have ramped up warnings against the spread of “pro-independence propaganda” and “fake news” in response to media coverage of events marking National Security Education Day, and said police would make arrests wher...

At least eight people were killed in a shooting in the US city of Indianapolis by a gunman who is believed to have then killed himself, police said.The victims were all found at a FedEx facility near the international airport where the shooting took ...

On a grey and rainy morning, Chen Si patrols the Nanjing bridge soaring above China’s Yangtze River, determined to stop the desperate from jumping into the swirling waters below.Every weekend for 18 years, Chen has volunteered to scout the 3km (two...

A team of US scientists working under the US Department of Defense has unveiled a chip that it said can detect signs of the new coronavirus in human bodies within minutes when it is implanted under the skin. Retired Colonel Matt Hepburn said that the...

The Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) has come under fire again in China for removing a statement on its website about forced labour in Xinjiang without explanation.The world’s largest cotton sustainability programme, which covers 14 per cent of globa...

A Singaporean activist who for years had been paying small instalments of the S$150,000 (US$112,000) damages awarded to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in a defamation suit said on Friday he had raised the full amount through a crowdfunding campaign.�...

After more than a decade of experimenting, a trio of Malaysian farmers say they have found the right concoction of nutrients and treatments to successfully grow Japanese muskmelons, one of the world’s most expensive fruits.The farmers at Malaysian ...

In a sweeping reshuffle, South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Friday replaced the prime minister and six other cabinet members in a bid to revive his party, after devastating local election defeats, and his policy agenda.Moon named Kim Boo-kyum, a f...

Friday’s trilateral climate meeting involving Chinese leader Xi Jinping is seen as an attempt by France and Germany to prevent broader relations from “falling apart”, after weeks of mounting EU-China tensions. The Chinese foreign ministry said ...

There was a “low to medium” risk that Russia would invade Ukraine over the next few weeks, the top US general in Europe said on Thursday, in the first such military assessment amid mounting concern about Russian troop movements toward Ukraine’s...

Citigroup plans to hire up to 500 people in its wealth management business in Hong Kong as it focuses on “wealth centres” in Asia under new CEO Jane Fraser and significantly revamps its consumer banking business in the region.The expansion will i...

When Fatimah Abdulghafur began speaking out about the treatment of Uygur Muslims in China’s Xinjiang several years ago, few Australians she spoke to had any idea what she was talking about.“People would say, ‘This is the 21st century, are you m...

Hong Kong will still be able to vaccinate residents with BioNTech jabs, albeit on a smaller scale, after its community coronavirus inoculation centres have closed in September, a top official has said. Civil service chief Patrick Nip Tak-kuen, who ov...

Chicago officials on Thursday released to the public a graphic body-camera video showing a police officer shooting and killing a 13-year-old boy while he appeared to be raising his hands in an alley more than two weeks ago.The nine-minute video from ...

Alex White thought he was watching a huge worm writhing in plastic-wrapped lettuce he’d just brought home from a Sydney supermarket – until a snake tongue flicked.“I kind of completely freaked out when I saw this little tongue come out of its m...

A senior Bank of Japan (BOJ) official downplayed the potential for China’s digital yuan to threaten the US dollar’s position as the world’s main reserve currency.“The dollar’s status as the key global currency won’t change so easily,” s...

Japan is set to expand quasi-emergency measures to 10 regions on Friday as a fourth wave of Covid-19 cases spreads, casting doubt on whether the Summer Olympics can be held in Tokyo.Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura told reporters that the governm...

Beijing may consider sending a peacekeeping force to Afghanistan if the security situation in the South Asian country poses a threat to the neighbouring Chinese province of Xinjiang after American troops pull out, analysts said.US President Joe Biden...

Members of Britain’s royal family at Prince Philip’s funeral will wear civilian clothing, Buckingham Palace says, reportedly to avoid awkwardness about which princes are entitled to wear military uniform.Queen Elizabeth, 94, will pay her last res...

A deadly fire at a public housing estate in Hong Kong’s Kwun Tong district on Friday morning killed four members of a single family, including a two-year-old girl, whose grandfather was left fighting for his life in hospital.A preliminary investig...

China’s economy grew by 18.3 per cent in the first quarter of 2021 compared with a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced on Friday. This is the highest quarterly year-on-year growth rate since data first began being publis...

The daughter of Philippine leader Rodrigo Duterte says there’s no chance she’ll run for the presidency next year. Her father says the presidency is no job for a woman.But few are convinced by either of them as campaigns grow to back Sara Duterte-...

The US House of Representatives Judiciary Committee formally approved a report accusing Big Tech companies of buying or crushing smaller firms, Representative David Cicilline’s office said in a statement on Thursday.With the approval during a marat...

In January, a 21-year-old Indonesian woman quietly flew into Semarang, the capital of Central Java province, where she was met by several people from non-governmental organisations and driven to her home some 80km away in the regency of Temanggung.Di...

China will feature prominently in Friday’s summit between US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, with the two sides expected to announce new efforts to isolate Huawei Technologies from 5G networks and discuss deteriorati...

At least four bodies handed corporate votes to elect members of an influential committee tasked with overseeing Hong Kong’s major polls are led by directors based mostly in mainland China, with a few also in Taiwan and the US, an investigation by t...

President Jair Bolsonaro has written a letter to his US counterpart Joe Biden pledging to end illegal deforestation in Brazil by 2030 and seeking “considerable” financial help to get there, officials said on Thursday.The letter comes a week befor...

Since 2019, dozens of Chinese officials and companies have been sanctioned or blacklisted by the West over alleged human rights abuses against Uygurs and members of other minorities in China’s western Xinjiang region.In January, alleged widespread ...

In most places a traffic signal in the middle of the desert, especially one for camels, may well be a mirage, but in this case it is all too real. At the Mingsha Mountain and Crescent Spring Scenic Spot in Gansu province, northwest China, a traff...

US President Joe Biden said on Thursday after announcing sanctions against Russia that for both countries “now is the time to de-escalate”.Biden described the sanctions, which are aimed at the Russian economy and dozens of individuals, as a “me...

Sexual violence is being used as a weapon of war in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, where girls as young as eight are being targeted and some women have reported being gang-raped over several days, UN aid chief Mark Lowcock said on Thursday.He told the U...

US President Joe Biden will meet South Korean President Moon Jae-in in Washington next month, Moon’s office and the White House said, in talks that will include how to push forward efforts to stem North Korea’s nuclear programme.The Biden adminis...

She has been hailed as a groundbreaking researcher who helped cure Ebola, bringing accolades and worldwide attention to Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory.For the past two years, however, Dr Qiu Xiangguo has been receiving a different kind o...

A sketch on a popular Italian television show mocking Chinese people has launched a debate about racism, and satire, in Italy.While Asian and black people took to social media to share their experiences with racism growing up in Italy, including how ...

China’s commercial aviation industry is lagging behind international competitors, with the country’s military-civil fusion strategy stifling innovation and state dominance of the sector hampering efficiency, according to a report from the Shangha...

People of Hong Kong origin in Canada have been urged to declare themselves as Hongkongers, and not only Chinese, on the national census next month, in an effort by activists to preserve the diaspora’s “unique identity”.The “I Am Hong Konger�...

Prince William and Prince Harry won’t walk side-by-side on Saturday as they follow their grandfather’s coffin into the church ahead of Prince Philip’s funeral, minimising the chances of any awkward moments between the brothers, who are grapplin...

China on Thursday summoned Japan’s ambassador over Tokyo’s “wrong decision” to release more than 1 million tonnes of treated water from the Fukushima nuclear plant into the ocean.Assistant foreign minister Wu Jianghao “lodged solemn represe...

Legal experts have urged anyone who handles biological materials in China to take the country’s first biosecurity law seriously after it took effect on Thursday, with certain activities now deemed criminal acts.The law applies to a long list of act...

Mr Zhang runs a cotton-processing plant in the middle of Xinjiang province. Every year, from September to November, he purchases raw cotton locally and processes it into ginned cotton – separating the seeds and the fibres – and then sells it to t...

[Sponsored article] With a strong emphasis on joyous lifelong learning, the Invictus School Hong Kong has opened its doors to welcome students to its newly opened Secondary School for the next academic year.  As part of the Invictus family of scho...

China tried to wage an “undeclared war” against India through cyberattacks and indicated that it was “my way or no other way”, New Delhi’s most senior military official said on Thursday about the drawn-out border stand-off between the neigh...

Hong Kong’s politicians have joined international condemnation of Tokyo’s decision to dump waste water from a nuclear plant into the sea, but they remain divided on whether the city should ban food imports from Japan.They raised concerns on Thurs...