More than 1,000 fans swarmed three floors of a Hong Kong shopping centre on Friday to catch a glimpse of Canto-pop sensations Mirror and Error at an event kick-starting Olympic festivities in the city, with some arriving nearly 24 hours early to secu...

Reservations for Covid-19 vaccinations in Hong Kong have soared, with more than half of the city’s inoculation centres offering BioNTech jabs fully booked for the next two weeks, two months before they are set to close.Demand for the Chinese-made S...

The kimchi war between South Korea and China has just seen its latest twist.South Korea’s cultural authorities announced on Thursday that they have given popular dish kimchi its first official Chinese translation, prompting an angry reaction on Chi...

Before the devastating floods in China’s central Henan province, Dong Changwen never thought rain would become a matter of life or death.Her one-storey home in the village of Nanguanying in Hui County, about 26km (16 miles) northwest of the city of...

China has for the first time detailed the military’s responsibility to strengthen its bonds with the public to win wars, a move analysts said would improve its power and reach.Fostering ties with the public has long been an official priority for th...

US prosecutors sought on Thursday to drop their case against a Chinese researcher accused of concealing her ties to the Chinese military on a visa application so she could work in the United States.In documents filed in federal court in Sacramento, p...

Star rapper and singer Kris Wu Yifan lied about his relationship with a Chinese teen beauty influencer who accuses him of date rape, a police investigation has revealed.According to a statement from police in Beijing, Wu’s agent asked Du Meizhu to ...

Hong Kong police seized more than HK$107 million (US$13.7 million) worth of illegal drugs and arrested five suspects over the past two days in a series of operations against two local trafficking syndicates.The bulk of the drugs – nearly HK$79 mill...

Beijing has acknowledged the challenges of bringing “Chinese solutions” to Western e-commerce platforms after Amazon banned some of the biggest Chinese merchants on the platform for breaking its rules, dealing a heavy blow to China’s push into ...

Malaysia has confirmed one case of an individual being injected with an empty syringe in its national vaccination roll-out, categorising it as a human error.The government further identified two cases where individuals were given an extra dose of the...

Australia is prepared to take the economic hit from China’s trade measures to defend its sovereignty, trade minister Dan Tehan said, even as he pursues efforts to open dialogue with counterparts in Beijing.“If we have to pay an economic price for...

A veteran judge was named Hong Kong’s next surveillance commissioner on Friday, with the city’s leader expressing confidence he would oversee the city’s law enforcement agencies “most capably”.Mr Justice Wally Yeung Chun-kuen, a vice-presid...

Two leaders of a speech therapists union were charged with conspiracy to distribute seditious materials on Friday over a series of children’s books authorities said were written with the aim of inciting hatred against the government, sources say.Ch...

“Foreign forces” have been negatively influencing Hong Kong’s youth and fuelling anti-Beijing sentiment ever since the city’s return to Chinese rule, the chief executive has said, blaming their alleged meddling for a lack of patriotism among ...

“Zero Covid” economies in the Asia-Pacific region risk being left behind as the world recovers from the coronavirus pandemic, with years of potential border closures threatening their future prosperity, a report has warned.Hong Kong and Singapore...

The mayor of London has assured Hongkongers moving to the city that anti-Asian hate that has surged amid the coronavirus pandemic has no place in Britain’s capital, while stressing the importance of helping some new arrivals overcome the language b...

The global minimum corporate tax – agreed upon by Group of 20 finance ministers this month – is set to re-chart the course of international investment flows, creating new uncertainties for Southeast Asian nations that have been striving to lure f...

Fresh lockdowns and restrictions in Asia brought on by the faster-spreading Delta coronavirus variant are making the region’s pursuit of travel bubbles look like an increasingly fruitless endeavour.Air travel bubbles, corridors that allow movement ...

China is preparing to test blood samples from the period before its Covid-19 outbreak for evidence of infection, health authorities said on Thursday, a process which could uncover earlier cases of the disease.The research will be conducted in Wuhan, ...

As a dedicated skateboarder, Toma Shigeno said he was “super excited” when it was announced that Tokyo 2020 would be the first Olympic Games to include a skateboarding competition, and he started pestering his parents to apply for tickets to some...

After Singapore this week reimposed Covid-19 restrictions that were eased just days earlier amid raised hopes that the city state would adapt to living with the virus, the frustrations of whiplashed Singaporeans were laid bare on social media.On Face...

After more than a decade, President Xi Jinping returned to Lhasa on Thursday, leading a delegation to mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of the administrative and religious capital of the Tibet autonomous region.State news agency Xinhua said o...

Plans by the United States for a digital trade agreement covering Indo-Pacific economies may be a step toward Washington rejoining a regional trade deal that president Donald Trump exited in 2017, Australian trade minister Dan Tehan said.Details of t...

Billy Fung Jing-en was once the poster boy of radical student activism. The former student union leader of the University of Hong Kong clashed with the institution’s management over its hiring decisions and led protests against its governing counci...

The Biden administration on Thursday announced a new round of sanctions against the besieged Cuban government for its violent crackdown on demonstrators.Officials said the sanctions target specific members of the communist-ruled island’s government...

South Korean athletes competing at the Tokyo Olympics have been urged to ignore diplomatic tensions between their government and the host nation, which have included calls for boycotts and threatened to disrupt preparations for the event.“We’ve b...

Actors, workers for Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) and a flash mob all turned out for the premiere of comedy Off the Rails on Thursday, the first major red carpet event in London since most coronavirus restrictions were lifted in England.D...

A dog owner in China was accused of starving the animal for three days and then beating it nearly to death with an iron bar after it ate one of his chickens.The man, a Dalian resident in northeast China, is accused of locking the animal in a cage and...

An important US-China meeting this weekend comes at a key moment for the relationship between the two nations as both recalibrate six months into Joe Biden’s presidency, according to Chinese experts.US deputy secretary of state Wendy Sherman is due...

The United States and Iraq are expected to formalise the end of Washington’s combat mission in Iraq by the end of the year and continue the transition toward training and advising Iraqi forces, US officials said on Thursday.There are currently 2,50...

Venice and Budapest narrowly escaped being classified as World Heritage Sites in danger on Thursday after Unesco refrained from placing the two leading European tourist attractions on its list of endangered cultural and natural sites at its meeting i...

This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Paul McLeary on politico.com on July 22, 2021.The US defence industrial base should find a way to wean itself off of rare earth minerals from China, accordi...

Israel’s prime minister on Thursday called upon hundreds of thousands of citizens who have not yet been vaccinated against the coronavirus to get the shot. His appeal came as new infections climbed precipitously in recent weeks.Naftali Bennett’s ...

A court in Rwanda said on Thursday that it would issue its verdict next month in the trial of detained Hotel Rwanda activist turned government critic Paul Rusesabagina, who is charged with terrorism in a case denounced as political by his supporters....

This month, Russia and China commemorated the 20th anniversary of the Treaty of Good Neighbourliness and Friendly Cooperation, a cornerstone document which Russian President Vladimir Putin calls a “fundamental international legal act” that has gu...

London’s mayor on Thursday sent a message of support to Hong Kong people fleeing Beijing’s crackdown on opposition lawmakers and activists to seek a new life in the United Kingdom, saying his office will spend £900,000 pounds (US$1.2 million) to...

A Chinese prosecutor has been accused of travelling to America to direct a harassment campaign against a US resident and his family, and then ordering the destruction of evidence related to those actions, according to the US Justice Department.A supe...

Britain on Thursday sanctioned the son of Equatorial Guinea’s president for misappropriating millions of dollars which London said was spent on luxury mansions, private jets and a US$275,000 glove worn by Michael Jackson.Foreign Secretary Dominic R...

A year’s worth of rain in just days – an intensity not seen in decades – has caused devastating floods in Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan in central China.The death toll across the province reached 33 on Thursday, and authorities said more than...

China has pledged to commit more resources to help Xinjiang as the far-western region faces tough US sanctions.Wang Yang, who heads the Communist Party’s leading group on Xinjiang affairs, attended a meeting on “pairing assistance” – a dec...

A plan to tap into Hong Kong’s private developers’ land reserves has received its first application 14 months after it was launched, with plans to offer more than 1,600 flats, over half of which are for public housing.Nan Fung Development is the ...

Hong Kong government advisers are considering the use of the official Disaster Relief Fund to support Henan after the central province in China was hit by heavy rain and serious floods, with the city’s business and political groups also launching f...

Business owners and residents in the city of Zhengzhou, which has been hit by severe flooding, have given a helping hand to those affected by the natural disaster.The extreme weather in Zhengzhou and neighbouring areas has left at least 33 people dea...

Devastating floods destroyed towns in Germany and Belgium. A ruthless heatwave broiled the Western US and Canada. Heavy rains paralysed a Chinese industrial hub home to 10 million people. These recent weather phenomena are being intensified by the ch...

Typhoon In-fa is expected to make landfall in eastern China this weekend with forecasters warning that up to 300mm (11.8 inches) of rain could fall in some areas between Saturday and Monday.Zhejiang’s provincial meteorological centre said In-fa was...

China’s rebuff of the World Health Organization’s planned second phase investigation into the origins of Covid-19 highlights the difficulty it faces in operating amid political pressure from its most powerful members.WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Gheb...

In central China, Xinxiang resident Yuehai was out buying food on Wednesday afternoon when the sky opened up.The water started pooling around her ankles as she raced home. “It seemed that if it kept raining like that, I’d have to swim back,” sh...