Hong Kong’s financial chief has revealed he plans to maintain or even increase levels of public spending in the forthcoming budget to protect livelihoods during the economic downturn, despite the heavy strain on government funds.Paul Chan Mo-po sai...

This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Heather Caygle, Sarah Ferris and Kyle Cheney on politico.com on January 9, 2021.Speaker Nancy Pelosi and senior Democrats are still weighing whether to impe...

China’s premier warned officials against any attempt to cover up or under-report the spread of the coronavirus as a northern province went into “wartime mode” for one of the toughest lockdowns since Wuhan early last year.Premier Li Keqiang told...

A Chinese technology company is trialling a performance-monitoring scheme with an unusual method of boosting the bottom line – data gathered via “smart” cushions given to workers to place on their office chairs.But the trial has backfired, afte...

Tokyo reported 1,494 new coronavirus infections on Sunday, the lowest number of daily cases since Tuesday, after Japan declared a limited state of emergency in the capital and three prefectures neighbouring the capital on Thursday to stem a surge in ...

US federal prosecutors have filed motions saying that Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez took bribes from drug traffickers and had the country’s armed forces protect a cocaine laboratory and shipments to the United States.The documents quote...

Ten babies were killed in a maternity unit in the Indian state of Maharashtra early Saturday when fire tore through a major hospital, a doctor said.Staff rescued seven of the newborn infants at the Bhandara district hospital but were beaten back befo...

A group of victims affected by the closure of a major conveyancing firm that had misappropriated client funds has demanded the swift return of HK$100 million (US$12.9 million) belonging to at least 79 families hoping to buy new homes.Last month, Wong...

Indonesia’s civilian maritime force ended 2020 by arming its vessels with machine guns amid continuing incursions by Chinese and Vietnamese fishing boats near Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone around its northern Natuna Islands. The move to eq...

The pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP) demanded on Sunday that the government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson pay billions of pounds in compensation to Scotland for Brexit-related costs and disruption.Brexit has strained the bonds that ti...

New Zealand’s central bank said on Sunday that one of its data systems has been breached by an unidentified hacker who potentially accessed commercially and personally sensitive information.A third party file sharing service used by the Reserve Ban...

Hong Kong recorded 31 new coronavirus infections on Sunday, the second-lowest daily caseload since the fourth wave of the crisis began in November, while 46 staff and elderly from a care home were ordered into quarantine after a worker tested prelimi...

Tears fill Gui Yuna’s eyes as she describes losing her right leg in a road accident aged seven and school bullies kicking away her crutch to make her fall.But they would not dare do that now – the 35-year-old is a prize-winning bodybuilder and fo...

This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Nancy Scola on politico.com on January 9, 2021.Silicon Valley is punching back.After more than 1,400 days of trying to placate and handle US President Donal...

A Chinese former journalist who once urged the United States to help “tear down” Beijing’s online censorship regime has been sentenced to a year and a half in jail, his wife said.Zhang Jialong’s sentence on Friday comes more than a year after...

Beauty workers are turning to home visits to stay in business during the Covid-19 pandemic, prompting an industry chief to plead with members to stop the practice for the sake of the public’s health.Social-distancing rules have forced businesses to...

For many observers, the 2016 bilateral agreement between Malaysia and Singapore to construct a high-speed rail (HSR) link was a seminal moment in the neighbours’ history.The pact was a capstone of sorts to the energetic efforts of Singapore’s Pri...

Foreign ministers from the United States, Canada, Britain and Australia condemned last week’s arrest of more than 50 opposition activists in Hong Kong, calling on China to respect the freedom of the people on the island.Hong Kong police made the ar...

While election officials in Georgia were verifying signatures on postal vote envelopes in one metro-Atlanta county, US President Donald Trump pressed a lead investigator to “find the fraud” and said it would make the official a national hero.The ...

When a coalition of two communist parties swept to power in Nepal three years ago, it was seen as a geopolitical win for Beijing over New Delhi in their competition for regional influence in South Asia.But Beijing may be about to lose that advantage ...

Thousands of Hong Kong residents have been making their way back to the mainland to be in time for Lunar New Year family reunions, even as Chinese authorities have tightened pandemic-related restrictions on travellers.Adding to the daily crowds at th...

Hong Kong wine lovers could soon reap an unexpected benefit from the souring of relations between mainland China and Australia: their favourite plonk from down under may become a bit cheaper.Australian reds and whites have found themselves on an expa...

Greenery is inching up the previously grey and barren slopes of Japan’s Mount Fuji, with experts linking the gradual reforestation of the nation’s most iconic peak to global warming. A study by Japanese scientists and published in the scientific...

Hong Kong’s ban on travellers from Britain has left hundreds of city residents stranded and facing a costly six-week journey if they want to get back anytime soon.Those desperate to return must spend three weeks in a country outside Britain before ...

Both China and the EU have hailed an investment agreement between the two sides as a breakthrough, but the course of future relations remains uncertain with many potential pitfalls ahead.European countries are still prepared to work with the United S...

A pilot scheme to check sewage in Hong Kong for the presence of the coronavirus will have its screening capacity doubled, after successfully uncovering hidden carriers in two housing blocks.A team of experts at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) has a...

The leading Democrat in the US Congress, Nancy Pelosi, said she spoke to the nation’s top general on Friday about taking precautions to prevent an “unhinged” President Donald Trump from accessing nuclear launch codes in the final days of his te...

At a luxury Melbourne hotel in September 2009, crime boss Gary Butcher made Glen Weaven an offer that promised to make his problems go away.Weaven had been helping Butcher ply his criminal trade for several months in Australia’s second-largest city...

The US government will lift its internal restrictions on how American officials may interact with their Taiwanese government counterparts, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced on Saturday, the latest move by the outgoing Trump administration seek...

Pope Francis said on Saturday he planned to be vaccinated against Covid-19 as early as next week and urged everyone to get a shot, to protect not only their own lives but those of others.“I believe that ethically everyone should take the vaccine,�...

It is an aggressive plan and if it works out, China will have a fleet of battleships to match its ambitions for a blue-water navy over the next decade.As part of that plan, in 2019 alone, China launched two dozen large warships, from destroyers to hu...

A major technical fault in Pakistan’s power generation and distribution system caused a massive power outage that plunged the country into darkness overnight, the energy minister said.Hours after the late Saturday outage, Energy Minister Omar Ayub ...

Qataris began entering Saudi Arabia on Saturday via a border crossing that was opened just days after a deal was reached to end a years-long regional diplomatic dispute.Leaders of three Gulf countries – Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE)...

Federal agents arrested two more Capitol Hill rioters whose images had gone viral, of one carrying off the House Speaker’s lectern and another who wore horns and a fur pelt, while a top Democratic lawmaker called on mobile carriers to preserve soci...

Indonesian authorities on Sunday located the black boxes of the Sriwijaya Air jet that crashed into the sea soon after taking off from the capital Jakarta, as human body parts and suspected pieces of the plane were retrieved.“Hopefully, we can retr...

Jordan said on Saturday it has approved China’s Sinopharm coronavirus vaccine for emergency use, after giving the Pfizer-BioNTech jab the green light.“Emergency use of the … Sinopharm vaccine against the novel coronavirus has been authorised,�...

Four people died in Spain as Storm Filomena caused travel chaos across the country, blanketing Madrid in the heaviest snowfall in decades and forcing authorities to mobilise troops to rescue trapped motorists.Rescue services reached 1,500 people trap...

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth and her husband Philip, both in their nineties, have received vaccinations against Covid-19, Buckingham Palace said on Saturday.“The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh have today received Covid-19 vaccinations,” the palac...

They bankrolled Donald Trump. They applauded his tax cuts. They cheered as the stock market soared. Now, the sound coming from some of the president’s wealthiest donors is this: silence.As chaos engulfs the White House and Democrats talk of impeach...

Beijing should be prepared for but also restrained in response to any unexpected hardline moves by US President Donald Trump against China, especially on Taiwan, in his last days in office, Chinese observers said.With just over a week to go until pre...

This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Alex Isenstadt on politico.com on January 8, 2021.Donald Trump was meeting then-campaign manager Brad Parscale and other political aides in the White House ...

A Chinese soldier who accidentally crossed the contested border in the Himalayas is waiting to be handed over by the Indian army, both sides said on Saturday.Tensions escalated along the frontier in the Indian region of Ladakh last year with the two ...

Popular Chinese novelist and screenwriter Guo Jingming may have finally apologised for plagiarising another writer’s work on the last day of 2020 – some 14 years after a court ordered him to do so – but has he been forgiven?A recent blockbuster...

Hong Kong police have invoked the national security law for the first time to block a local website dedicated to publishing first-hand accounts of the anti-government protests in 2019 and the personal details of officers and pro-Beijing figures, the ...

An inquest jury has reached an open verdict on the death of a Hong Kong student who fell inside a car park near a protest two years ago, as they were unable to determine whether the case was an accident or homicide.Saturday’s majority verdict of 4-...

China is “enthusiastic, open and supportive” about a visit to Wuhan by a WHO team to investigate the source of the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, a top Chinese health official said on Saturday.Zeng Yixin, deputy director of the National Health...

Hong Kong product designer Steve Yeung Siu-hong was at an amusement park with his son last November when the nine-year-old boy pointed at a plastic mask holder on a shop shelf and said: “Daddy, it’s your design!”Yeung’s heart ached as he repl...

China’s decision to hold back the Mekong River’s water flow at a hydropower dam for close to a month will disrupt fisheries and local livelihoods along the waterway that is a lifeline for 60 million people, watchers and activists have warned.The ...

Indonesian authorities were conducting an intensive search in the waters off Jakarta on Saturday night after they lost contact with a Boeing 737-524 carrying 62 people, all Indonesian citizens.The Sriwijaya Air flight, SJ 182, took off at 2.36pm loca...

China’s ongoing battle to boost its population is having a knock-on effect on its efforts to ensure gender equality in the workplace, with female applicants increasingly being told they are unsuitable for roles for “unsubstantiated” reasons, in...