The Hong Kong government was urged to improve its interpretation services by adding Chinese dialects into a database alongside other foreign languages, after the city’s ombudsman found the lack of these hindered people’s access to public services...

Local authorities in the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou are working around the clock to keep the city’s electricity and water supplies going as Henan braced for another round of heavy rain.Zhengzhou, the provincial capital, has been hit by sever...

Buried in a long US indictment accusing China of a global cyberespionage campaign was a curious detail: among the governments targeted by Chinese hackers was Cambodia, one of Beijing’s most loyal Asian allies. The target of the hack, which two sou...

Cathay Pacific is in talks with the Hong Kong government to remove the majority of quarantine restrictions on its flight crews now that most have been vaccinated against the coronavirus.The embattled airline has expressed optimism that mandatory isol...

The Chinese yuan is on course to become a much more influential part of the global financial system with almost a third of central banks planning to add the currency to their reserve assets, a closely followed survey showed.The Global Public Investor...

Hong Kong’s criteria for suspending passenger flights to the city should be tightened in the face of a rise in imported cases involving Covid-19 variants, two infectious disease experts have said.University of Hong Kong (HKU) microbiologist Dr Ho P...

Early in the coronavirus pandemic last year, London property developer Arnaud Touret bought a batch of 5,000 rapid Covid-19 tests from South Korea. He set up a laboratory to analyse the results, hired a chief medical officer and applied for UK accre...

Four former senior Apple Daily editorial employees detained under the national security law on Wednesday for allegedly colluding with foreign forces have been denied bail.West Kowloon Chief Magistrate Victor So Wai-tak, one of the handful of judicial...

Beijing will not accept the World Health Organization’s proposed second phase investigation into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic, accusing it of “arrogance” and a “disrespect for common sense” with its return to the “lab leak” theo...

China and the United States are shipping goods to each other at the briskest pace in years, making the world’s largest bilateral trade relationship look as if the protracted tariff war and coronavirus pandemic never happened.Eighteen months after t...

Norway on Thursday marks the 10th anniversary of the worst massacre in its modern history, as church bells toll for the 77 people murdered by neo-Nazi Anders Behring Breivik.The Scandinavian nation had been mostly spared from extremist violence until...

Problems continued to mount for Tokyo Olympic organisers on Thursday, as the city reported 1,979 new daily Covid-19 cases, the highest number since mid-January. Meanwhile, two more athletes at the Olympic Village tested positive for Covid-19 a day...

Seven men who joined a stick-wielding mob in storming a Hong Kong railway station and assaulting protesters and commuters two years ago have been sentenced to jail terms of up to seven years.Thursday’s sentencing concluded the first trial in one of...

While Covid-19 concerns have cast a pall on the run-up to the Tokyo Olympics, they have overshadowed a danger that has in recent days become more apparent – the risk of heatstroke.Many parts of Japan, including the capital region, are in the throes...

Hong Kong national security police arrested five people on Thursday on suspicion of conspiracy to publish and distribute seditious children’s books with the intent of inciting hatred against the government and instigating violence.The five suspects...

The Marina Bay Sands casino in Singapore will shut for two weeks after authorities detected a Covid-19 cluster, the latest to emerge in the city state after an outbreak at a fishery port that made the government reimpose social restrictions.Eleven Co...

China said on Thursday that the United States should correct its mistakes instead of making baseless comments, after US Trade Representative Katherine Tai (USTR) backed Australia in trade disputes with China.US comments are wrong, and the tensions in...

Our Tokyo Trail series looks at key issues and athletes in the run-up to the 2020 Olympics, which are scheduled for late July. This is the third of three stories on the use of technology and innovation at the Games.As soon as Tokyo was named the host...

US President Joe Biden expressed pointed frustration on Wednesday over the slowing Covid-19 vaccination rate in the US and pleaded that it’s “gigantically important” for Americans to step up and get inoculated for the virus as it surges once ag...

Shanghai’s only sperm bank has kicked off a sperm health competition among university students to raise awareness about reproductive health.The Shanghai Human Sperm Bank has invited university students in the city to get a free check-up of their sp...

The travel plans of Hong Kong students stuck in Britain and desperate to return home have been plunged into disarray by officials deciding against lifting Covid-19 entry bans in favour of focusing on reopening the border with mainland China.Some pare...

Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty in a Los Angeles courtroom on Wednesday to four counts of rape and seven other sexual assault counts.Sheriff’s deputies brought the 69-year-old convicted rapist into court in a wheelchair. He was wearing a brown ...

Britain’s decision to send two warships to permanently support US freedom of navigation operations in the Asia-Pacific could help broaden the influence of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, Chinese military observers said.Beijing-based naval expe...

In its latest press freedom rankings, Reporters Without Borders described South Korean President Moon Jae-in as “a breath of fresh air” after a decade of conservative rule that saw his predecessors, centre-right leaders Park Geun-hye and Lee Myun...

A British man has been charged in the United States in connection with a Twitter hack last summer that compromised the accounts of prominent politicians, celebrities and technology moguls, the Justice Department said on Wednesday.Joseph O’Connor, 2...

Weather forecasters had predicted heavy rainfall ahead of the devastating floods that hit central China this week, but issued a warning for the wrong place and wrong time.Su Aifang, deputy director of Henan’s meteorological service, said on Wednesd...

This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Quint Forgey on politico.com on July 21, 2021.Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin on Wednesday said he had “tremendous faith and confidence” in General Mark ...

Visitors now need a special Covid-19 pass to ride up the Eiffel Tower or visit French museums or cinemas, the first step in a new campaign against what the government calls a “stratospheric” rise in Delta variant infections.As the new rule came i...

Australia’s increased wine shipments to new and existing markets were not able to offset the 45 per cent decline in sales to mainland China in the financial year that ended in June, industry group Wine Australia’s latest export report shows.While...

At least 800 people in Uganda were given fake coronavirus vaccines – some injected with water – in a scam that involved “unscrupulous” doctors and health workers, government officials said on Wednesday.The counterfeit jabs were administered o...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday rejected two Republicans tapped by House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy to sit on a committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection, a decision McCarthy denounced as “an egregious abuse of power�...

This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Quint Forgey on politico.com on July 21, 2021.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will meet US President Joe Biden next month in Washington, the White Ho...

Victims’ families and those who suffered losses in the collapse of a 12-storey oceanfront Florida condominium will collectively receive a minimum of US$150 million in compensation initially, a judge said on Wednesday.That sum includes insurance on ...

Director Chloe Zhao, fresh off her Nomadland best film win at this year’s Academy Awards, will sit on the jury of the upcoming Venice Film Festival, organisers said on Wednesday.The annual international festival, to be held on the glitzy island of ...

Ajab Khan was working up to four hours a day after school delivering food to pay for his sister’s university fees, only quitting a month before the start of his Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (DSE) exams.The 20-year-old student – one of...

A group of US senators introduced legislation on Tuesday that would strengthen defence ties between Washington and Taiwan, adding pressure on a front that Beijing considers to be a “red line”.The Taiwan Partnership Act, sponsored by Illinois Demo...

The British government said on Wednesday that post-Brexit trade rules it negotiated with the European Union “cannot go on” and need a major rewrite, straining already tense UK-EU relations.The government said Britain would be justified in unilate...

India reported what could be its first case of human death due to bird flu after a 12-year-old succumbed to the disease.The boy who died at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi was infected with avian influenza, according to a...

China has appointed Yue Xiaoyong, a veteran diplomat with experience in the US and Middle East, as its new special envoy to Afghanistan.Yue is replacing Liu Jian, who was only appointed to the post a year ago. Diplomatic observers said his appointmen...

While most of the nearly 50,000 candidates of Hong Kong’s university entrance exams finish off their papers within just a few hours, Ching Chun-ho needs almost twice as long.The 20-year-old student from Hong Kong Red Cross John F Kennedy Centre –...

A Hong Kong girl has testified against five of her family members for using what she said were different means of preventing her from “telling the truth” about her father, who was at the time on trial for sexually assaulting her.She told the High...

Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Wednesday said a referendum would be held to gauge domestic support for a controversial LGBT law, after the European Commission launched legal action against Budapest over the measure.“Brussels has clearly...

Senior Beijing officials have urged Hong Kong to improve its international image on the arts and culture front, tapping into China’s larger heritage rather than being limited by a local focus, to keep up with rivals such as South Korea.At a forum o...

Tencent Holdings and Alibaba Group Holding are among several tech companies on the receiving end of a lecture by the increasingly powerful Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) for allowing “soft child porn” emoji stickers to spread on their p...

After months of political uncertainty, Nepal had a change of leadership last week in a move that analysts say could hit the reset button on the Himalayan nation’s ties with India and China.Sher Bahadur Deuba, 75, became Nepal’s prime minister for...

A Singapore court on Wednesday ruled in favour of liquidating Hyflux Ltd, following a years-long saga in one of the city state’s most high-profile distressed cases.The ruling came in a hearing that was adjourned from July 12 after Utico FZC, one of...

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga will meet US First Lady Jill Biden on Thursday as part of a string of bilateral talks with world leaders and other foreign dignitaries in the lead-up to the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics, the foreign mi...

More than 500 flights were cancelled at a major airport in eastern China on Wednesday after more than a dozen workers at the facility tested positive for Covid-19.Health authorities in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, said routine testing detected the coro...

The case of a 68-year-old man who was allegedly slapped in the face and strapped to his wheelchair before dying in a nursing home in northeastern China has reignited concerns over the vulnerability of senior citizens in long-term care facilities.The ...

China should focus on increasing the soft power of the yuan as part of its internationalisation strategy, rather than looking solely at the liberalisation of its restrictions on the capital account, according to a senior government adviser.Renmin Uni...