Cambodia said it will start inoculating people against Covid-19 on Wednesday, using vaccine doses donated by China.The first batch of vaccines, developed by state-owned Sinopharm, would arrive on Sunday, Prime Minister Hun Sen said, adding that he wo...

China has appointed a former assistant commerce minister, described as a “highly capable and effective technocrat”, as the country’s ambassador to the World Trade Organization (WTO) as Beijing prepares for a different approach from the United S...

A brand of imported Australian cherries has become the latest to fall prey to counterfeiters, with Hong Kong customs seizing nearly 200 boxes of the fruit bearing a forged trademark on Thursday.Senior Inspector Chu Po-ting, of customs’ intellectual...

A Hong Kong housewife jailed for running a large-scale prostitution ring with the aid of her two domestic workers must pay back HK$33 million in earnings or face 10 more years in prison.District judge Amanda Woodcock on Friday issued a confiscation o...

Pro-establishment lawmaker Elizabeth Quat on Friday dismissed the need for a fresh public hearing on Hong Kong’s proposed immigration law that would tighten the procedures to claim asylum and grant officers new powers to carry guns and steel batons...

Scores of netizens in the Indian state of Kerala have flooded tennis star Maria Sharapova’s social media pages with apologetic messages for trolling her in 2014 after the Russian said in an interview at the time that she did not know who cricket ic...

Yoo Myung-hee, the South Korean candidate to lead the World Trade Organization (WTO), has dropped out of the race, effectively opening the door for Nigeria’s Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to become its first African leader.In a statement, Yoo, the South Kore...

The leaders of Indonesia and Malaysia on Friday said they were seeking a special meeting of foreign ministers from Asean to discuss the situation in Myanmar, where an elected government was overthrown in a military coup earlier this week.Indonesian P...

The number of Covid-19 infections in Tokyo may have jumped by nine-fold since last summer, coronavirus antibody tests showed, as Japan tries to rein in the country’s third and most lethal wave of the pandemic ahead of the Olympics in July.Random te...

Coronavirus deaths in the United States surpassed 450,000 on Thursday, and daily deaths remain stubbornly high at more than 3,000 a day, despite falling infections and the arrival of multiple vaccines.Infectious disease specialists expect deaths to s...

Malaysia’s Covid-19 protocols for Lunar New Year celebrations amid a lockdown to contain the pandemic has attracted criticism and jokes online – even from within the ruling government.The standard operating procedures announced on Thursday limit ...

The BBC came under fire from Chinese officials and social media on Friday, a day after Britain’s media regulator revoked the television licence of Chinese state media outlet CGTN.Britain and China have been exchanging barbs for months over China’...

Russian officials faced growing outrage at home and abroad over the jailing of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny and a crackdown on protesters, with the US threatening to take action over Moscow’s behaviour.EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said du...

A Covid-19 patient in Hong Kong who fled from hospital only to be captured more than two days later has been jailed for six months and condemned by a judge for his “very selfish” act, after he told a court he feared the jabs and treatment.Kowloon...

An international human rights advocacy group has awarded a “gold medal” for sexism to Japan after the president of the Tokyo Olympic organising committee drew controversy earlier this week by saying women talk too much.“Women in Japan are gross...

A police officer escaped unscathed when a patrol car he was driving burst into flames near the entrance of Hong Kong’s Eastern Harbour Tunnel on Friday.The officer was driving the car back to police headquarters in Wan Chai from the Kowloon Bay veh...

Taiwan’s effort to raise its international profile with the support of the United States has been seriously disrupted with Guyana abruptly calling off a plan for the island to open a diplomatic office, less than a day after Taipei said it had signe...

Hong Kong’s largest teachers’ union on Friday demanded education authorities drop a plan that would tie the resumption of face-to-face classes with their willingness to get regular Covid-19 tests as the city confirmed 37 new cases.Of the fresh in...

Hong Kong police have made their biggest-ever seizure of ketamine, uncovering a 682kg stash with an estimated street value of HK$437 million (US$56 million).The haul, shipped into the city from Pakistan in packages labelled “macaroni”, contained ...

Principals and teachers can be held responsible if they ignore or fail to stop violations of the national security law by their pupils, Hong Kong’s education minister has said in explaining controversial new guidelines for schools covering the Beij...

Almost a decade ago, the son of Singapore pigment mogul Goh Cheng Liang set his sights on gaining control of Japan’s biggest paint maker. He finally succeeded, and that is been a boon for the family’s wealth.Their Wuthelam Holdings Pte. took a ma...

A week after China and New Zealand completed a review and expansion of their free-trade agreement, national carrier Air New Zealand has opened cargo flights from Auckland and Christchurch to Guangzhou for the first time.The airline will operate three...

China tested its capability of knocking out an incoming missile during midflight on Thursday, with the defence ministry declaring the exercise a success. It is the second country to develop the technology after the US.“The test was defensive in nat...

The Democratic-led US House voted Thursday to discipline a congresswoman who embraced QAnon conspiracy theories and endorsed violence, capping weeks of mounting turmoil over holding to account a lawmaker whose extremist rhetoric caused a rupture in R...

President Xi Jinping’s call for a city run by patriots does not mean an absence of constructive criticism, the leader of Hong Kong’s largest pro-Beijing party said on Thursday.Insisting Beijing welcomed policy recommendations, Starry Lee Wai-king...

China should encourage the free movement of digital information across borders and consider setting up regional data security pacts with Southeast Asian nations, a government think tank has suggested as part of the country’s plan to boost its digit...

With Beijing insisting only “patriots” can run Hong Kong, what does the future hold for the city’s fragmented opposition? In the second of a two-part special report, we examine the state of the opposition and whether it can survive the politica...

The military coup in Myanmar came as a shock to Sai Purng, a 36-year-old from Myanmar’s Shan State who works at the Human Rights and Development Foundation in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai.“Since the 2015 general election, those whom the m...

Landlords of Hong Kong’s “Ginza-style” high-rises are struggling to retain tenants as restaurants and bars – normally their bread and butter – battle to stay afloat during the pandemic.Four such buildings – typically found on narrow lots ...

Hong Kong has gone through two chaotic years, roiled first by social unrest and then a global pandemic. The city’s economy is at a standstill, not just for private businesses but also public corporations like Ocean Park. Due to poor management, amo...

This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Mark Scott on politico.com on February 4, 2021.Officials in Europe would mostly like to forget the Donald Trump era, but one holdover from the former US adm...

A knock at the door jarred Susan Li out of bed on a chilly morning in Beijing last month.“Nucleic acid test,” proclaimed the woman outside Li’s home. And then her neighbour’s home. Then the next home. And so on, with the knocks stretching wel...

The US military must prepare for the “very real possibility” of a nuclear attack as China and Russia rapidly expand their arsenals, the head of America’s nuclear weapons has warned.The warning from Admiral Charles Richard, chief of the US Strat...

Donald Trump has resigned from the Screen Actors Guild after the union threatened to expel him for his role in the US Capitol attack in January.In a letter dated Thursday and addressed to SAG-AFTRA president Gabrielle Carteris, Trump said he was resi...

In his first foreign policy address, US President Joe Biden on Thursday described China as the “most serious competitor” to the United States and vowed to confront Beijing on various fronts, including human rights, intellectual property and econo...

French President Emmanuel Macron warned Thursday about the lack of information about China’s coronavirus vaccines, saying they might even encourage the development of variants if they are not effective.Speaking to the Atlantic Council think-tank, M...

This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Andrew Desiderio and Sarah Ferris on politico.com on February 4, 2021.Donald Trump will not testify in the Senate’s upcoming impeachment trial, a spokesma...

Nonviolent resistance to Myanmar’s military coup gathered steam on Friday, with public protests extending to several regions, including the tightly controlled capital, Naypyidaw.The military has tried to quash opposition with selective arrests and ...

Criticism of the Indian government’s handling of farmers’ protests, which have lasted for weeks, grew on Thursday, with the US publicly backing the protests and opposition lawmakers expressing shock at the way the protesters have been treated.Ten...

The Covid-19 pandemic fuelled a 26 per cent jump in the number of reports made to the city’s consumer watchdog last year, with complaints concerning face masks shooting up nearly 640-fold as the accessories became essential to daily life. The Cons...

Key points:Lower primary• Learn how to sing and respectfully listen to the national anthem and observe flag-raising etiquette• Know the people and institutions protecting Hong Kong (for instance, police, the People’s Liberation Army and health ...

Doctors trained overseas will be able to fully practise in Hong Kong without going through a licensing exam as long as they work in the public sector for at least five years , according to a government proposal which aims to plug a severe shortage of...

A joint venture between the world’s largest electronic payment messaging system and the department responsible for China’s proposed central bank digital currency is being viewed as a sign that Beijing is exploring the global use of its planned so...

China’s top climate diplomat, Xie Zhenhua, has been reappointed as a special envoy, according to people familiar with the situation.Xu Huaqing, director of the National Centre for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation, said on messa...

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Thursday said that before she and financial market regulators took any action, they needed to “understand deeply” what happened in the trading frenzy involving GameStop Corp and other retail stocks in recent ...

Authorities in Russia are deploying facial recognition cameras to identify protesters during rallies in support of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny in Moscow, human rights groups said, warning that the technology is being used to stifle peaceful dissent...

The Hong Kong Association of Banks has instructed members to stop recognising British National (Overseas) passports as valid identification for opening or renewing accounts.The city’s correctional services authority has also started requiring inmat...

The Hong Kong government this year plans to introduce a bill in the Legislative Council that will better protect residents living in subdivided flats, the city’s leader has said.Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor also agreed to allow pro-es...

The government has secured broad political backing for Denmark’s largest construction project, a 210-billion kroner (US$34 billion) “clean energy island” in the North Sea that will help the country reach its goal of achieving climate neutrality...