The widely expected resumption of diplomatic engagement between Iran and the incoming administration of US President-elect Joe Biden in Washington has prompted an anticipatory foreign policy shuffle by powers across the Middle East. The return of th...

A Hong Kong boarding school catering to teenagers with drug and behavioural problems has put out a plea for donations to sustain its ailing model, but years of shrinking enrolment and stubbornly high overhead have raised questions as to its long-term...

Wearing a face mask has become a way of life during the coronavirus pandemic, but it can also cause us to inhale harmful plastic fibres, according to a new study by Chinese scientists.The researchers tested a wide range of mask products and found tha...

India’s market regulator ordered billionaire Mukesh Ambani and his conglomerate Reliance Industries to pay a combined penalty of 400 million rupees (US$5.5 million) for allegedly violating share-trading rules about 13 years ago.In its order dated J...

Iran plans to enrich uranium up to 20 per cent at its underground Fordo nuclear facility, international inspectors said on Saturday, pushing its programme a technical step away from weapons-grade levels as it increases pressure on the West over its t...

Self-exiled former opposition lawmaker Ted Hui Chi-fung has accused banking giant HSBC of abruptly cancelling credit cards belonging to him and his family due to “political considerations” and “unlawfully embezzling” their money.The as yet un...

It’s Saturday night at the HUNK club in Chengdu and men in gold Lycra shorts and black boots dance on stage. They wear kimonos, in an apparent tactical compromise, with new morality codes creeping into China’s “gay capital”.But across town, y...

Fosun International is acquiring a controlling stake in Sichuan Tuopai Shede Group, boosting its presence in the coveted baijiu liquor sector as the Chinese conglomerate led by billionaire Guo Guangchang pivots inward for growth.Fosun will buy a 70 p...

Hong Kong is expected to begin mass Covid-19 vaccinations next month, a top minister has said, as a leading government adviser revealed authorities planned to further expand the city’s testing capacity by deploying immigration and customs officers....

The idea is to wear down Japanese resistance over time – and so far it seems to be having an effect.In the last few years, China has been ramping up its civilian and military presence in the airspace and waters around a rocky, uninhabited group of ...

Pandemic-related travel restrictions have plunged Thailand’s tourism industry into crisis – but the doom and gloom has not stopped new hotel openings in Bangkok, particularly at the high end of the market.There were at least a dozen high-profile ...

South Korea will expand a ban on private gatherings larger than four people to include the whole country, and extend unprecedented social distancing rules in Seoul and neighbouring areas until Jan. 17, the health minister said on Saturday.Kwon Deok-c...

While China was the first country to report the coronavirus, evidence is growing that the pathogen emerged in multiple locations around the world, Chinese State Councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Saturday.“We raced to report the epidem...

Beijing has rebuffed the latest offer of talks from Taiwan, saying the government in Taipei was engaging in a “cheap trick” and provocation by seeking confrontation at every turn.Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen said in her New Year’s speech o...

China and the United States signed their long-awaited phase one trade deal in January, somewhat ending their 18 month trade war, but 2020 was dominated by the impact of the coronavirus.As a result, China’s economy shrank by 6.8 per cent in the firs...

As the world’s most populous Muslim country gears up to vaccinate its population against Covid-19, its top Islamic clerical body is playing a key role in helping it achieve herd immunity from a virus that has already torn through its 34 provinces.T...

I cracked up laughing when I came across a piece of news about a company in Dongguan, southern China, that fined its workers 20 yuan (US$3) each for taking two toilet breaks during their eight-hour shift.My reaction wasn’t because I was unsympathet...

Hong Kong customs officials seized HK$4.6 billion (US$593.3 million) in dirty money in 2020 – a four-year high – as transnational rackets turned to novel methods for smuggling cash into the city and handling criminal proceeds amid the Covid-19 pa...

The landmark investment treaty China and the European Union struck on Wednesday was nearly seven years in the making, giving the distinct impression of long, drawn-out negotiations.Indeed, for much of the previous six years, Beijing had dragged its f...

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When international travel returns, it’s likely tourists will have to use a second passport – a globally recognised one that shows all the vaccines they have taken. Even with the new documentation, however, the free movement of people that happene...

Hongkonger Chloe Ma is five months pregnant and looking for a domestic worker to help with the housework when her first child is born.Ma, 34, a marketing professional, started contacting employment agencies last month, hoping to hire a worker for her...

Claude Bolling, the French pianist, composer and arranger who attained a worldwide following through his melodic blend of jazz and classical influences and stayed on the Billboard classical charts for more than a decade with his 1975 album Suite for ...

Florence's Uffizi Gallery is showing illustrations from the Divine Comedy to mark the 700th anniversary of the death of author Dante Alighieri.The illustrations, by painter Federico Zuccari, date back to the end of the 16th century and can be viewed ...

The coronavirus pandemic changed the way many people celebrated the New Year's holiday, but in Rome, one tradition held on: taking a cold dip in the Tiber River.Several men kept the tradition alive on Friday. One of the brave souls was Valter Schirr...

Rescuers on Friday found a dead body and continued searching for nine other people, including a toddler and a 13-year-old, still missing days after a mudslide destroyed homes in a Norwegian village, the authorities said.An entire hillside collapsed i...

Hundreds of Chinese agricultural experts are working with farmers and specialists across Africa to help them improve crop yields after Beijing promised to buy more of their produce.Wu Peng, director general of the Africa affairs department at China�...

Some 2,500 partygoers attended an illegal New Year rave in northwestern France, violently clashing with police who failed to stop it and sparking concern the underground event could spread the coronavirus, authorities said on Friday.The revellers had...

In his final weeks in office, US President Donald Trump has issued a wave of controversial pardons to family members, close allies and Blackwater guards who killed Iraqi civilians.But controversial presidential pardons are hardly unique for outgoing ...

All agreements involving the European Union, a supranational entity comprising 27 member states, are bound to be complex and laborious. However, China managed to cut through the complexity and concluded an investment agreement with the EU in the last...

The US Congress on Friday voted overwhelmingly to override US President Donald Trump’s veto of a sweeping defence bill. The humiliating blow in his last days in office was the first time lawmakers have done so during his presidency.By a lopsided vo...

Alexei Savvin, a local resident, stumbled upon an unprecedented find walking near the Tirekhtyakh River in Yakutia, Siberia last August: an almost perfectly preserved woolly rhino carcass.Most of the rhino's hooves, teeth and internal organs were sti...

The United States has recorded more than 20 million cases of Covid-19, Johns Hopkins University said on Friday in its real-time tally, as the New Year brought another grim milestone underlining the country’s struggle to quell the virus.The US has s...

Trying to resolve a humanitarian disaster, the Bosnian military set up tents on Friday for hundreds of migrants who have been stuck in a burned refugee camp that has no facilities to fend off freezing winter weather.Bosnia has faced international cri...

With Germany’s long-time leader Angela Merkel due to step down this year, China will turn its attention to Emmanuel Macron in 2021 as he takes over as the European Union’s interlocutor-in-chief.The latest sign of France’s growing importance in ...

Celebratory gunfire to ring in the new year killed a Syrian woman living as a refugee in eastern Lebanon and struck a plane parked at Beirut’s airport in two separate incidents, Lebanon’s official news agency said on Friday.The Syrian woman died ...

Hundreds of birds died after many people set off fireworks in the Italian capital on New Year’s Eve, animal rights groups said Friday, calling it a “massacre.”Footage of streets near Rome’s main railway station showed dozens and dozens of bir...

A senior deputy director of public prosecutions in Hong Kong has been appointed to the top job in an acting capacity following the resignation of David Leung Cheuk-yin after a dispute with the justice minister over the running of the division. Senio...

Throughout the course of the pandemic, US President Donald Trump lashed out at his son-in-law Jared Kushner over testing and mask-wearing, according to a report by The New York Times.According to The Times, during a meeting of top aides in the Oval O...

British doctors warned on Friday that hospitals around the country face a perilous few weeks amid surging new Covid-19 infections that have been blamed on a new variant of the virus.A day after the UK posted a record 55,892 new infections and another...

China said it would take necessary measures to safeguard its sovereignty as it warned against the British navy dispatching warships to the disputed South China Sea.The remarks were made in response to expectations that Britain’s newest aircraft car...

Pakistan and Hungary were among the string of countries lining up to order coronavirus vaccines from China as Chinese regulators approved the country’s first Covid-19 shot.The vaccine, developed under state-owned Sinopharm, was approved for conditi...

Hong Kong’s iconic Queen’s Pier could be reinstated away from its original home in Central, authorities have revealed more than a decade after the structure, a famed landmark of the city’s colonial past, was dismantled.The latest development on...

Hong Kong’s leader has lauded the Beijing-imposed national security law for helping to bring calm to the city, saying she hopes the harmony will continue this year so projects and policies to solve housing and other socio-economic problems can be p...

If you are poor in China, you are more likely to smoke, a study by Beijing Normal University shows.Researchers found more than 23 per cent of households with at least one smoker were poverty-stricken, which was double that of non-smokers.Lead researc...

Iran’s judiciary chief warned on Friday that Qassem Soleimani’s killers will “not be safe on Earth”, as the Islamic republic began marking the first anniversary of the top general’s assassination in a US strike.Ebrahim Raisi, speaking at an...

Pipi already dines well.The plump, black-and-white street cat lives near a night market in a neighbourhood of Taipei where volunteers have fed and taken care of strays for years. But Pipi and his fellow street cats got an upgrade to their dining situ...

Family portraits, travel snaps and military memories were on display for Chinese President Xi Jinping’s New Year’s address on Thursday night, as the annual broadcast delivered a message of seasonal cheer and party loyalty.The selection of the pho...

When Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte signed the country’s largest budget yet, totalling 4.5 trillion pesos (US$93.7 billion) for 2021, he pledged it would boost growth in an economy rendered comatose by prolonged movement restrictions and fund...

Housing and education problems remained the most pressing issues faced by underprivileged children in Hong Kong over the past year, with the coronavirus pandemic piling on more challenges, according to a new survey by a rights group.The Children’s ...