Cryptocurrency exchange Huobi has suspended bitcoin mining services and sales of mining equipment in mainland China, becoming one of the first Chinese-founded platforms to do so, as the price of bitcoin continues to fall after the central government ...

The United States has given South Korea free rein to develop missiles that can reach beyond the Korean peninsula, a move analysts say has brought a US frontline ally with fast-developing weapons technology deeper into the mounting rivalry between Was...

Samoa was plunged into a constitutional crisis on Monday when the woman who won an election last month was locked out of Parliament and the previous leader claimed he remained in charge.The fast-moving events marked the latest twist in a bitter power...

Myanmar’s deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi appeared in person at a court hearing on Monday for the first time since her government was overthrown by the military in a February 1 coup, her lawyer said.Suu Kyi looked in good health and held a face-to-...

Hong Kong Disneyland has no plans to ask the government for a cash infusion after posting a historic high net loss last year that added heavily to its chronic financial woes, the city’s commerce minister has said.Speaking in a Legislative Council p...

Using a long needle, Chinese artist Yin Yue diligently pokes a piece of wool onto a pink-purple elephant made out of wool felt in her studio in Beijing.She stumbled into wool felt art about a decade ago, and has turned it into a career. Her current e...

Taiwan has chastised the World Health Organization for excluding it from the World Health Assembly, saying it would create a gap in the global health system while the island dealt with a widening Covid-19 outbreak.The self-ruled island had been seeki...

China on Monday staged a funeral for Yuan Longping, the agronomist known as “the father of hybrid rice”, with large crowds gathering in the central city of Changsha.Yuan died on Saturday aged 90. The funeral ceremony, held at Mingyangshan funeral...

As the United States scales back its military presence across the Middle East to focus on great power competition with China and Russia, it risks giving those two countries a chance to fill the gap and expand their influence around the Gulf, the top ...

Previous Covid-19 infections that still produce positive readings for the coronavirus should be recorded separately from newly transmitted ones as a way of boosting Hong Kong’s prospects for reopening borders, according to infectious diseases exper...

Singapore authorities have provisionally approved a Covid-19 breathalyser test that aims to show whether someone is infected with the coronavirus in under a minute, according to the local start-up that developed the product.Breathonix, a spin-off com...

Global crises have often given rise to sweeping changes. The United Nations was ushered in after the world wars. The G7 and G20 blocs formed in the wake of major financial crises. Now the question is whether Covid-19 will spark the creation of a powe...

Taiwan’s government on Monday nullified a decision by an island that sits close to mainland China to mandate Covid-19 tests for all arrivals, rebuking it for not following the law even as authorities deal with a rise in domestic infections.Taiwan i...

In a series of tweets, SoftBank Group’s founder and CEO Masayoshi Son expressed bewilderment and concern about the Tokyo Olympics going ahead amid Japan’s slow-going vaccination drive during the Covid-19 pandemic.“Currently more than 80 per cen...

Parents spoke of their relief on Monday as Hong Kong schools and kindergartens returned to full capacity for the first time in more than six months under a relaxation of Covid-19 rules, with about 900,000 pupils welcomed back on campus for half days....

This is the fourth in a series of stories about the impact of India’s Covid-19 crisis on the Indian and Chinese economies and the global initiative to restructure supply chains.O.F., a 44-year-old mariner who works for a Hong Kong-based shipping ma...

Employees in Hong Kong have received the lowest average pay rises in more than a decade, according to a survey by a major jobs portal, and analysts predict salary adjustments will remain stagnant because of the Covid-19 pandemic.Average pay went up b...

On Christmas Eve last year, four executives from Indonesian unicorns Gojek and Tokopedia dialled into a Zoom conference to hash out a US$18 billion merger, the largest in the country’s history.On the call were Gojek’s co-chief executives (CEOs) A...

Ever since a digital clip of the Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James dunking the ball sold for a whopping US$200,000 in the form of a non-fungible token (NFT) earlier this year, a Hong Kong cryptocurrency start-up has seen the potential to broaden t...

Those who apply to join the Hong Kong Police Force can expect to be assessed for their patriotism, values and commitment to serving the city, according to its head of recruitment.The force is holding its biggest ever recruitment day at the Hong Kong ...

Nearly 30 per cent of people polled across five countries said they would reduce or stop consuming wildlife products due to the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a WWF survey.And almost 60 per cent believed wildlife was the main source of the coronavir...

Two images of Sheikha Latifa, a daughter of the ruler of Dubai, have appeared on Instagram in recent days, three months after the BBC broadcast a video message in which she said she was being held captive in a barricaded villa.The images, if verified...

A cancer treatment that helped former Hong Kong beach volleyball player Kelvin Lau Tsz-ho beat leukaemia is now being offered to patients at the city’s public hospitals.Called CAR T-cell therapy, it gives hope to patients who do not respond well to...

Members of George Floyd’s family, and others who lost loved ones to police encounters, joined activists and citizens in Minneapolis on Sunday for a march that was one of several events planned nationwide to mark the one-year anniversary of Floyd’...

Torrents of lava poured into villages after dark in eastern Congo with little warning, leaving at least 15 people dead amid the chaos and destroying more than 500 homes, officials and survivors said on Sunday.The eruption of Mount Nyiragongo on Satur...

Organisers of the Eurovision Song Contest say the lead singer for the Italian rock band that won has asked to take a drug test to refute speculation that he sniffed cocaine during the show.A statement on Sunday from the European Broadcasting Union sa...

Iran’s hard-line parliament speaker said on Sunday a temporary deal between Tehran and international inspectors to preserve surveillance images taken at nuclear sites had ended, escalating tensions amid diplomatic efforts to save the Islamic Republ...

Belarus on Sunday forced a Ryanair flight carrying a wanted opposition activist to land in Lithuania, provoking a furious outcry from world leaders who described it as a “hijacking” and an “act of state terrorism”.Belarusian state television ...

A cable car taking visitors to a mountaintop view of some of northern Italy’s most picturesque lakes plummeted to the ground on Sunday and then tumbled down the slope, killing 14 people. A young child was hospitalised in serious condition with brok...

Four years after a New Zealand teacher died in Japan, where he was restrained to a hospital bed for more than a week, his family remains committed in their campaign to call for the end of the practice they believe killed their son.Kelly Savage died i...

Martin Bashir, the former BBC journalist who tricked princess Diana into giving an explosive interview, on Sunday apologised to Princes William and Harry, but said claims linking his actions to her death were “unreasonable”.A report by retired se...

American hair salon owner Nik Smith-Serrano has been desperate for any signs that a border half a world away will reopen soon.Smith-Serrano’s Azul Hair Collection salon in Atlanta, Georgia, is running out of stock of premium lace wigs, which are us...

China’s central bank has no plans to alter its exchange rate mechanism, one of its deputy governors said on Sunday, dismissing speculation that the yuan might be allowed to move more freely against other currencies.The existing “managed floating ...

China’s top diplomat will visit Russia next week for strategic talks as the two countries try to strengthen ties in the face of tensions with the United States.Yang Jiechi, a member of China’s Communist Party Politburo, will co-chair the 16th Chi...

A hiker died as the persistent heatwave hitting Hong Kong reached its peak on Sunday afternoon when temperatures rose above 36 degrees Celsius (96.8 degrees Fahrenheit), making it the hottest day in May on record.The Observatory recorded a temperatur...

The Soviet Union in 1972 sought to settle a territorial dispute with Japan by handing over two of four disputed islands off Hokkaido, in response to improving China-Japan ties, declassified documents obtained by Kyodo News showed on Sunday.It is the ...

Hong Kong’s last-minute decision to leave neighbouring Guangdong province off a list of destinations deemed medium-risk for Covid-19 was made before former city leader Leung Chun-ying publicly weighed in, according to sources familiar with the matt...

How did the trade war start?During his 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump promised to reduce the trade deficit with China. He claimed it was based in large part on unfair Chinese trading practices, including intellectual property theft, forced...

Five people died on Saturday when a man drove his car at high speed into a crowd of pedestrians in the city of Dalian in northeast China.A 32-year-old suspect, identified only as Liu, has been detained, police said. He is reported to have said that h...

One Instagram post pays tribute to the marriage in 1973 between Pushpa Karekar and Shahadat Pathan, a Hindu and a Muslim.“My parents worked together at the RTO [Road Transport Organisation] and couldn’t have been more different,” says the post,...

Hong Kong’s top officials have presented a united front to drum up public support for a controversial plan to ease admission rules for non-locally trained doctors, amid increasing resistance from the local health sector.On their respective blogs on...

It was a first, when Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor hosted a 40-part television show to explain Beijing’s massive overhaul of Hong Kong’s electoral systems.The series, Get to Know the Election Committee Subsectors, comprised short epi...

When police in China seized 3,000 fake Covid-19 vaccines and made 80 arrests across several cities earlier this year, they halted a months-long international scam. But it may have been a sign of more to come.Interpol and other law enforcement-related...

More than 100,000 Hongkongers have signed a petition urging prison authorities to roll out special measures such as the provision of cold water for inmates, as the city swelters under exceptionally hot weather.The drive, which reached its goal of ama...

Tributes have flowed for Yuan Longping, a Chinese agronomist who died aged 90 on Saturday after making leading contributions to food security.In the city of Changsha where Yuan, “the father of hybrid rice”, was hospitalised before his death, traf...

More than 125,000 schoolteachers in Myanmar have been suspended by the military authorities for joining a civil disobedience movement to oppose the military coup in February, an official of the Myanmar Teachers’ Federation said.The suspensions have...

Hong Kong’s sluggish Covid-19 vaccination rate puts it in an “unfavourable” position compared with other places, a top official has warned, with a medical adviser adding that mask-wearing rules could be lifted if 70 per cent of residents are in...

China is the biggest generator of plastic waste, with one-fifth of the world’s single-use plastic coming from the country in 2019, according to an Australian study.In its inaugural Plastic Waste Makers Index published on Tuesday, the Perth-based Mi...

Mask-wearing Vietnamese went to the polls on Sunday, with tens of millions expected to select a largely rubber-stamp legislature amid a rapidly spreading Covid-19 outbreak.Fewer independent candidates than before are standing in the election for the ...

China is funding and building a growing number of government and parliament buildings, police headquarters, military housing and presidential palaces in Africa, helping cement its relations across the continent.The latest is a new building to house K...