The chairman of Chinese vaccine maker Sinovac has insisted its Covid-19 vaccine is highly effective as he sought to clarify the results of its trials in Brazil after the firm’s Brazilian partner a day earlier announced efficacy of only 50 per cent....

Hong Kong’s privacy watchdog on Wednesday renewed its push to pressure the parent company of the messaging platform WhatsApp to postpone controversial changes to the way it shares users’ personal data, and demanded answers as to what sort of info...

More than 20 workers are still trapped hundreds of metres underground three days after an explosion at a gold mine in eastern China, state media reported on Wednesday.A blast erupted on Sunday afternoon at the Hushan mine in Qixia, Shandong province,...

A former speaker of the Philippines’ House of Representatives has sparked outrage on social media after announcing his intent to form a new political grouping named after world-famous South Korean boy band BTS.Alan Peter Cayetano, an ally of Presid...

A Kansas woman was executed on Wednesday for strangling an expectant mother in Missouri and cutting the baby from her womb, becoming the first female inmate to be put to death by US federal authorities in nearly seven decades.Lisa Montgomery, 52, was...

A Hong Kong subdivided flat used for storing and packaging drugs has been found stashed with HK$5.6 million (US$722,100) worth of heroin and cannabis, during a customs operation leading to the arrest of a suspected dealer.A 33-year-old man accused of...

Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC emerged as the most active state-owned investor in the world last year, outranking larger state funds from China, Norway and Japan, as other investors downshifted amid the volatility brought on by the coronavirus...

The elderly leader of a secretive religious sect at the centre of South Korea’s early coronavirus outbreak was cleared Wednesday of hindering the government’s Covid-19 prevention efforts, reports said.Lee Man-hee was convicted, however, of embezz...

One of Japan’s largest breweries has apologised after it was forced to cancel the launch of a limited-edition beer due to a spelling mistake.Sapporo Breweries Ltd halted the release – scheduled for January 12 – of its new Kaitakushi Beer Tailor...

The world has lost tropical forest equivalent to the size of California over a 13-year period, green group WWF said on Wednesday, calling for Covid-19 recovery plans to revitalise conservation efforts.In a new report, WWF analysed 24 deforestation ho...

Police were called to two residences in northern Hong Kong in the span of about an hour on Tuesday night after tenants returned home to find their safes – which together held an estimated HK$680,000 (US$88,000) in cash and valuables – had been st...

Hong Kong’s appeal judges have overturned a lower court ruling that a policy entitling male indigenous villagers to build houses only applies to private land, concluding that the privilege is “constitutional in its entirety”.Wednesday’s Court...

Israeli night raids targeting arms depots and military positions in eastern Syria killed at least seven soldiers and 16 allied fighters, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Wednesday.The Israeli air force carried out more than 18 strikes ...

Hong Kong health officials are racing to contain a growing coronavirus outbreak in four old tenement buildings amid a rebound in new infections, as the city confirmed 42 new Covid-19 cases on Wednesday.Mandatory testing for residents and recent visit...

Raped at 14, Shazia took the rare and courageous step of reporting the crime to police in Pakistan, only to face a traumatic “virginity test” – a long-standing practice that denies justice to victims.The teenager was still in a daze after she w...

Fewer than 9 million passengers passed through Hong Kong International Airport last year, the lowest level since 1985, new data is expected to show this week.The dismal numbers reflect nearly a full year in which the closing of borders due to the Cov...

Taiwan has been caught off guard by the last-minute cancellation of a visit by Kelly Craft, the United States’ ambassador to the United Nations, after the US state department halted all planned diplomatic travel to focus on the change of government...

The United States on Tuesday announced all air travellers entering the country will need a negative Covid-19 test before departure, as the country hit a record of nearly 4,500 deaths in a single day.The policy takes effect on January 26 and expands a...

Covid-19 vaccines will be subject to robust safety procedures before they are distributed to the Hong Kong public, a senior official has pledged after one brand procured by the city was found in a study to be significantly less effective than expecte...

The US House of Representatives approved a resolution on Tuesday calling on the vice-president Mike Pence and cabinet members to wrest power from Donald Trump over his incitement and handling of the deadly storming of the Capitol last week by his sup...

Extremely low temperatures, in some areas reaching record-breaking levels, swept central and eastern Spain on Tuesday, with the big freeze complicating efforts to clear countless roads blocked by snow.With much of the country still blanketed in white...

China needs to ramp up its nuclear power capacity if it wants to meet its carbon neutral target by 2060 and after missing its 2020 goal, according to energy analysts.Chinese President Xi Jinping announced the country’s ambitious target to be carbon...

New US legislation passed by Congress last month to support Tibetans, even those in Nepal, and India’s vaccine diplomacy will fuel a simmering geopolitical contest for influence in the landlocked country, analysts say. On one side is Beijing, whic...

Indonesian President Joko Widodo on Wednesday received the first Covid-19 shot in a televised ceremony, as the country began what’s set to be Southeast Asia’s largest inoculation programme.The CoronaVac vaccine from China’s Sinovac Biotech, ...

The sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un condemned the South for taking a “hostile approach towards fellow countrymen in the North” by spying on Pyongyang’s activities, state media said on Wednesday, as he pledged to strengthen his country...

After 35 rounds of talks, the marathon negotiations on the China-EU investment agreement have passed the finishing line. This encouraging landmark achievement is thanks to all our colleagues and friends who have supported the negotiations over the pa...

A parcel of prime land at Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour to be sold in a rare tender process that values design merits as much as cost is likely to be transformed into a vibrant waterfront hub blending office and retail facilities with bustling publi...

This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Sarah Ferris, Heather Caygle and Kyle Cheney on politico.com on January 12, 2021.US congresswoman Liz Cheney, the No. 3 House Republican, said on Tuesday sh...

A Hong Kong judge’s demand that court attendees and a lawyer remove their face masks during a hearing this week because they were yellow in colour – the hue associated with anti-government protesters – has ignited a debate among legal scholars ...

Former American national security adviser John Bolton disputed assertions that President-elect Joe Biden’s administration will be easier on China than President Donald Trump, saying that the outgoing US leader “could have done a 180” if Chinese...

Local governments across China are shutting down funerals and weddings to cut the risk of Covid-19 spreading across rural areas.China reported 55 newly confirmed cases by the end of Monday, including 13 imported cases and 42 locally transmitted ones....

For most, marriage holds the potential for a lifetime of love, family and partnership. Across rural China and around its periphery, however, women are being lured by false promises of good jobs and a better future, only to be trapped in forced marria...

The US Justice Department has opened criminal investigations on more than 170 individuals for their involvement in the storming of the US Capitol by President Donald Trump’s supporters, and investigators aim to charge people with assault and sediti...

The US counter-intelligence chief said on Tuesday he was worried about threats from China and Russia to disrupt the coronavirus vaccine supply chain in the United States.William Evanina, director of the US National counter-intelligence and Security C...

A Boeing 777 was chartered by China’s government to fly Huawei Technologies executive Meng Wanzhou back home last May, in the mistaken expectation that she was about to be freed, a Canadian court heard on Tuesday, in a dramatic hearing that feature...

The US state department said on Tuesday that it had called off all of its travel for the final eight days of the Trump administration, including US ambassador to the UN Kelly Craft’s planned trip to Taiwan, a sudden change of plans that the departm...

Brazilian port operator Grao Para Multimodal’s executive director, Paulo Salvador, knows there is plenty of untapped high-grade iron ore in northern Brazil, but a mix of bureaucracy and limited capital have stymied efforts to begin production for y...

This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Nick Niedzwiadek on politico.com on January 12, 2021.At least three Democratic members of Congress have tested positive for Covid-19 since sheltering with R...

British companies will need to switch their supply chains away from Xinjiang under a new raft of policies announced by Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab on Tuesday, as international actions grow over allegations of human rights violations by China again...

US investors look to the Biden administration for guidance on Washington’s policy toward Chinese companies as President Donald Trump resorts to executive actions to solidify his hardline stance against Beijing in his final days.Trump continued to t...

A Chinese vaccine has been found to be significantly less effective than previous data had suggested, even as the Brazilian research institute that conducted the phase 3 clinical trials urges the public not to focus on the new efficacy rate.The São ...

Kwok Lam-sang, who swivelled his hips for nearly three decades as Hong Kong’s own “King of Rock ‘n’ Roll”, died of kidney failure on December 29, the local branch of the International Elvis Presley Fan Club said on Tuesday.The Elvis imperso...

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Tuesday, without providing hard evidence, that al-Qaeda had established a new home base in Iran and the United States had fewer options in dealing with the group now it was “burrowed inside” that country....

A team of World Health Organization (WHO) scientists investigating the origins of the coronavirus will fly to the central Chinese city of Wuhan from Singapore on Thursday, according to China’s foreign ministry.Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian confirm...

Scientists have criticised the way data from the trials of a vaccine made by the Chinese drug company Sinovac has been released, saying it has caused confusion.The complaints have prompted the pharmaceutical company’s Brazilian partner, the Butanta...

China’s top diplomat Wang Yi has met the most senior aide of Indonesian President Joko Widodo as he begins the latest leg of a regional tour widely seen as an attempt by Beijing to strengthen its position in Southeast Asia ahead of the inauguration...

China’s air force has revealed a new twin-seat version of its most advanced fighter jet in a music video marking 10 years since the J-20’s first flight.Four of the computer-generated warplanes can be seen briefly flying in formation during the cl...

Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire mogul and power broker who built a casino empire spanning from Las Vegas to China and became a singular force in domestic and international politics has died after a long illness, his wife said on Tuesday.Miriam Adels...

Hong Kong’s Law Society has insisted that it had to shut down a large law firm and freeze its accounts last month “to protect the public and clients” from impropriety, but it stopped short of saying how much longer those affected would have to ...

A Hong Kong university student charged with carrying petrol bombs to a protest more than a year ago has been acquitted after the magistrate found investigators had mishandled the evidence.Tuen Mun Court on Tuesday cleared Li Ki-lun of possessing offe...