What is China’s services sector?China’s services sector is made up of various industries, including warehousing and transport services; information services; securities and other investment services; professional services; waste management; healt...

In the city of Zhenjiang in eastern China, shops cook noodles with an unusual feature: a small wooden lid floating in the water.Known fittingly as pot-lid noodles, or guogaimian, the dish has been around for 300 years. Locals take pride in the unconv...

Hong Kong’s two-year run of declining retail sales has extended into the first month of 2021, as the government pins the sector’s recovery on the success of the citywide Covid-19 vaccination programme.Retail sales were worth a total of HK$32.6 bi...

Foreign investors held more than 2 trillion yuan (US$309 billion) worth of Chinese government bonds for the first time in February, data showed on Wednesday, even as premiums over US debt shrank as a bond sell-off dented global markets.Total holdings...

South Korean authorities said on Wednesday they are investigating the deaths of two people, both with pre-existing conditions, who died within days of receiving AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine.A 63-year-old nursing home patient with cerebrovascular ...

Hongkongers may have to wait three to six months to travel again, albeit subject to certain conditions, despite the city recently launching its Covid-19 vaccination programme and the health crisis appearing to ease, according to a top official at the...

Defence lawyers for a group of 47 opposition politicians and activists arrested under the national security law on Wednesday sought to have statutory restrictions on media reporting lifted on their clients’ marathon bail hearings, now in their thir...

Israel’s military is facing a challenge on the home front unrelated to traditional threats against the Jewish state: it is over facial hair, and activists say the army’s future is at stake.Bar Pinto and Gilad Levi, two red-bearded 29-year-olds, h...

A lawmaker from Singapore’s ruling People’s Action Party is being investigated for allegedly taking part in an illegal public assembly, according to a Wednesday police statement.In June last year, member of parliament Louis Ng visited a hawker ce...

An award-winning Chinese schoolteacher has been discharged from duties after discriminating against students based on the incomes and positions of their parents.The middle school teacher surnamed Xiao, from China’s eastern Tianjin municipality, was...

Taiwan will stage six rounds of missile tests this month along with other military drills to step up its defence capabilities, as the People’s Liberation Army conducts a month-long exercise in the South China Sea.From Wednesday, the government-fund...

At least six people were killed as Myanmar security forces fired on pro-democracy protesters on Wednesday, after the junta hit half a dozen detained journalists, including an Associated Press photographer, with criminal charges.The country has been i...

Hong Kong’s coronavirus vaccination programme should not be suspended following the death of a chronically ill man after receiving the Sinovac jab, according to medical experts.But there were signs the death of the 63-year-old with pre-existing hea...

Hong Kong police arrested a motorist for driving under the influence of drugs and seized HK$300,000 (US$38,600) worth of illegal narcotics after a 6km car chase in the New Territories in the early hours of Wednesday.The pursuit began shortly before 1...

US President Joe Biden suffered his first cabinet defeat on Tuesday as he pulled an ill-fated nomination, the clearest signal yet that immensely powerful moderates in the deadlocked Senate can imperil his administration’s ambitious agenda.Biden was...

Australia’s attorney general on Wednesday outed himself as the unnamed cabinet minister accused of raping a 16-year-old girl, denying the decades-old allegation and trying to draw a line under a crisis that has consumed the country’s conservative...

Pakistan’s offer to Sri Lanka to join its multibillion-dollar trade and infrastructure scheme with China under Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative has raised concerns in Indian policy circles, as New Delhi seeks to secure its influence in a region...

A 16-year-old student, the youngest person to plead guilty to rioting during Hong Kong’s anti-government protests, has been sentenced to up to six months in a detention centre, becoming the first confessed rioter to avoid actual prison time since t...

It is the sort of chance that comes along just once in a blue moon: a Japanese billionaire is throwing open a private lunar expedition to eight people from around the world.Yusaku Maezawa, an online fashion tycoon, was announced in 2018 as the first ...

Growth in the once-booming business of educating Chinese students in the United States has slowed dramatically as the US’ handling of the coronavirus and American visa restrictions have taken their toll, according to a report by a Beijing-based thi...

The World Health Organization (WHO) believes it is unlikely the coronavirus pandemic will come to an end in the coming months.“I think it will be very premature and unrealistic to think that we are going to finish with this virus by the end of the ...

China’s services sector activity grew at its slowest pace in 10 months in February as firms struggled with sluggish demand and high costs, a private sector survey showed on Wednesday, prompting them to cut jobs.The Caixin/Markit services purchasing...

The commander in charge of United States military operations in the Indo-Pacific has asked the US Congress for more than US$27 billion in extra funds for new military construction and to boost cooperation with allies to maintain an edge over China.Su...

When the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the world’s largest bank by asset size, started to auction 657 million yuan (US$101.5 million) of its non-performing assets in six tranches on Monday, it drew strong interest from bad loan di...

Japan has announced plans to develop a new generation of diplomats and experts with the skills required to head international bodies, amid fears it is losing out to China and South Korea – whose citizens have been considered for top roles in the Un...

The proposed conversion of five parcels of commercial land at the former international airport site to residential use would incur a loss of 4.5 million square feet of office space, a move that could deal a blow to the role of Kai Tak in the transfor...

A China-linked cyberespionage group has been remotely plundering email inboxes using freshly discovered flaws in Microsoft mail server software, the company and outside researchers said on Tuesday – an example of how commonly used programs can be e...

Despite years of talks about stemming the rising tide of short-sightedness in schoolchildren, China’s myopia epidemic continues.Nearly 60 per cent of students aged six to 18 across China are myopic – also known as short-sighted or nearsighted –...

Rising investor and activist pressure to end fossil fuel financing led to Japan’s Mitsubishi Corporation pulling out from a US$2 billion power plant project in Vietnam last week, but a smaller project backed by both Tokyo and Hanoi still looks to b...

US President Joe Biden said on Tuesday that his administration has now secured enough coronavirus vaccine for every adult in the US to be inoculated by the end of May, as he announced that Merck & Co will help make rival Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-1...

Thirteen people were killed on Tuesday when an SUV carrying 25 people and a semitruck collided on a Southern California motorway near the US-Mexico border, authorities said.Twelve people were found dead when first responders reached the motorway, whi...

China’s political elite will gather in Beijing this week for the year’s biggest legislative set piece facing a number of major political challenges, including the aftermath of the coronavirus and the ongoing rivalry with the United States. In thi...

Goh Cheng Liang, one of Singapore’s richest men, recently reaped windfall gains to his already considerable wealth when his Wuthelam Holdings finally acquired a majority stake in Japan’s biggest paint maker, Nippon Paint Holdings. Worth US$12 bil...

This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Kyle Cheney on politico.com on March 2, 2021.FBI Director Christopher Wray said on Tuesday that the January 6 insurrection has been “an inspiration to a n...

Meghan Markle, Britain’s Duchess of Sussex, was awarded £450,000 pounds (US$630,000) on Tuesday as a provisional payment towards her legal costs after she won a privacy claim against The Mail on Sunday, which had printed extracts of a letter she w...

One of America’s most prominent national security advisers told lawmakers on Tuesday that Washington does not need to change its “strategic ambiguity” policy towards Taiwan to a more explicit defence guarantee, while also calling for a larger m...

Warning: graphic content followsA Chinese university lecturer in Britain was viciously attacked last week, renewing fears of violent anti-Asian racism in the country amid the coronavirus pandemic.Peng Wang, who teaches financial management at the Uni...

They are beloved by generations of early readers for their wacky rhyming tales and mischievous plot lines, but six Dr Seuss books are being pulled because of imagery now considered racist.Dr Seuss Enterprises – the publisher of the bestselling chil...

China’s top court has awarded a record 159 million yuan (US$24.6 million) compensation payout to a chemical producer in a trade secrets case, a ruling that comes after Beijing has repeatedly vowed to improve protection of intellectual property righ...

The three founders of 2014’s Occupy Central movement engaged in what was merely a “conspiracy to inspire”, not one to create a public nuisance – the actual charge they were convicted of five years later – their lawyers have argued on appeal...

Hong Kong health authorities on Tuesday night revealed that they were investigating the death of a chronically ill man two days after he received China’s Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine, but cautioned that no connection had been ascertained yet.The Depart...

Some Hong Kong school heads want education officials to defer the revamp of the liberal studies syllabus for senior secondary students this September, with frontline teachers still divided over the controversial subject’s proposed overhaul.The appe...

The United States on Tuesday imposed sanctions on senior Russian officials in a coordinated action with the European Union as US intelligence concluded that Moscow orchestrated the near fatal poisoning of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.In his f...

China has no plans to forge a military alliance with Russia, the defence ministry said on Monday, responding to speculation that Beijing and Moscow could develop a united front against Nato.“China-Russia military relations are ... an important supp...

Former Hong Kong leader Leung Chun-ying has said Hong Kong’s residents have to recognise it is not an independent country like Singapore, and must respect Beijing’s authority.Leung, in his second video speech in a week, also said while the opposi...

Most Chinese-Australians feel a great or moderate sense of belonging to Australia, according to the largest survey ever undertaken of the community, but close to four in 10 say they have been “treated differently or less favourably” in the past y...

India is ready to offer incentives to ensure Tesla’s cost of production would be less than in China if the carmaker commits to making its electric vehicles in the south Asian country, transport minister Nitin Gadkari said.Gadkari’s pitch came wee...

A Chinese company has unveiled a new military micro drone that could rival the Black Hornet Nano used by the United States.The tiny surveillance drone – named Fengniao, or Hummingbird – is just 17cm long and weighs 35 grams.Its developer, private...

Hong Kong can set up a border checkpoint in the new Huanggang port on the mainland side for HK$1,000 a year in nominal rent, according to the city’s security minister, under an agreement between neighbouring governments to site their immigration fa...

Hong Kong’s eight publicly-funded universities last year recorded the highest number of dropouts since at least 2004, with more than 2,100 students quitting school amid the double whammy of social unrest and the Covid-19 pandemic.New figures releas...