The South Korean entertainer Jaejae has long inhabited the sort of celebrity bubble her legions of fans could only dream about. The free-spirited 30-year-old with short red hair would chat with actors like Song Joong-ki, or K-pop stars like EXO, and ...

The Japan Agricultural Cooperatives group and wholesalers are stepping up efforts to export rice to the world’s largest rice-consuming nation China as the domestic market shrinks.Those dealers are tying up with Chinese companies and promoting high-...

Six people were killed and 14 wounded in a knife attack in eastern China on Saturday.The authorities in Anqing, a city in Anhui province, said a 25-year-old unemployed man from Huaining county named Wu had been arrested over the attack.“He killed o...

Alfie would normally be working in his salon in Yangon but he, like many other young people in Myanmar, has abandoned his regular life to take up arms against the military junta that seized power in February.The 26-year-old hairdresser has cultivate...

Air pollution in many parts of Hong Kong reached “serious” levels on Sunday under the influence of a high-pollution background airstream, the city’s environmental department said.On Sunday afternoon, the Air Quality Health Index reached the hig...

El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele plans to send a bill to Congress next week to make bitcoin legal tender in the Central American nation, touting its potential to help Salvadorans living abroad send remittances home.“In the short term this wil...

The trade relationship between the two largest economies in the world has a “significant imbalance” and the Biden administration is committed to levelling it, according to the US trade representative Katherine Tai.“There are parts of this trade...

Security concerns raised by the US about Huawei Technologies are not necessarily shared by other developed countries as the Chinese firm continues its plan to build a 5G equipment plant in France, according to a new report.In a study released on Wedn...

Asia-Pacific economies are racing to develop home-grown Covid-19 vaccines as supply shortages threaten to upend containment efforts and prolong the pandemic.Japan, South Korea, India, Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam are all betting on multipl...

The Salvation Army has pledged to probe a complaint against one of its schools in Hong Kong after a senior teacher and the principal were accused of telling a Muslim pupil she could not wear a headscarf, or hijab, in school.A female Muslim teaching a...

Former US president Donald Trump on Saturday sharply attacked infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, demanded reparations from China and denounced an investigation into his finances in a speech in North...

Hong Kong confirmed seven new Covid-19 cases on Sunday, including one involving the mother of a 17-year-old schoolgirl carrying a variant strain of the virus.The 53-year-old woman was the sole local case and test results showed she carried the more i...

On Tokyo’s already futuristic skyline, the Nakagin Capsule Tower stands out. But it may not do so for much longer.On the western edge of the upmarket Ginza district, the 13-storey building catches the eye as a complex of 140 cubed capsules stacked ...

A wave of people leaving Hong Kong in the wake of 2019’s social unrest and the later introduction of a controversial national security law has proved insufficient to dampen the city’s famously lofty property market.Home prices, which took a small...

Hong Kong’s taxi operators have accused the city’s transport chief of failing to deliver on a promise to introduce harsher penalties for their rival Uber, with necessary changes to the law unlikely to be introduced this year.An industry source to...

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will call on fellow leaders at the G7 in Cornwall to pledge to vaccinate the world's population against coronavirus by the end of 2022.With the face-to-face gathering of leaders due to take place on Friday, Boris ...

This is the 15th in a series of stories about China’s once-a-decade census, which was conducted in 2020. The world’s most populous nation released its national demographic data in May and the figures will have far-reaching social policy and econo...

A federal judge has overturned California’s three-decade-old ban on assault weapons, calling it a “failed experiment” that violates people’s constitutional right to bear arms.US District Judge Roger Benitez of San Diego ruled on Friday that t...

A Turkish air strike killed at least three people on Saturday at a camp for displaced people in northern Iraq, said Rashad Kelali, a Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party official.The strike on the camp housing thousands of Kurdish refugees from Turkey ...

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has repeatedly said Australia’s national interests are the sole guide of his government’s policy on China. To help decide where those interests lie, Morrison and his cabinet have relied on a roster of key advisers an...

An investigation has been opened into possible witness-tampering in connection with a long-running investigation into whether former French president Nicolas Sarkozy received campaign money from Libya for his successful presidential run in 2007.Five ...

China has just unveiled its new policy to encourage married couples to have up to three children. This policy alone won’t be enough to boost population growth, and more supportive measures and structural changes will also be needed. The alarm bell...

Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Budapest on Saturday to protest against the Hungarian government’s plans to build a satellite campus of Shanghai’s Fudan University in the city.Organisers estimated 10,000 people marched, despite ...

The body of one miner was found on Saturday at a small coal mine in a northern Mexico border state that flooded and collapsed, leaving six miners still missing. There had been complaints for years about unsafe conditions at mines in the area.The fede...

Turkey’s president promised on Saturday to rescue the Marmara Sea from an outbreak of “sea snot” that is alarming marine biologists and environmentalists.A huge mass of marine mucilage, a thick, slimy substance made up of compounds released by ...

President Joe Biden turned to his old boss, former President Barack Obama, on Saturday to help him encourage Americans to sign up for “Obamacare” health care coverage during an expanded special enrolment period in the pandemic.Biden used his week...

The Department of Justice said on Saturday it would no longer seek source information from reporters in leak investigations after recent revelations that former President Donald Trump’s administration had secretly obtained phone and email records f...

China’s leading academic institutions are accelerating efforts to promote the study of the role of government in economic development, given that the nation’s own government-led rise in the last 40 years has been hailed internally as a miracle bu...

Suspected jihadists have massacred at least 138 civilians in Burkina Faso’s volatile north in the deadliest attacks since Islamist violence erupted in the west African country in 2015, officials said on Saturday.President Roch Marc Christian Kabore...

Beijing has called on Moscow to make a united stand against “perverse” actions by Washington as leaders of Russia and the US prepare for a meeting later this month.Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi issued the call during a phone conversation with ...

Foreign keyboard criminals with scant fear of repercussions have paralysed US schools and hospitals, leaked highly sensitive police files, triggered fuel shortages and, most recently, threatened global food supply chains.The escalating havoc caused b...

The United States, Britain and other leading nations reached a landmark deal on Saturday to pursue higher global taxation on multinational businesses such as Google, Apple and Amazon.The Group of Seven said it would back a minimum global corporation ...

At least 20 people were killed by Myanmar’s security forces in the Ayeyarwady river delta region on Saturday after villagers armed with catapults and crossbows fought back against troops searching for weapons, local media and residents said.That wo...

What is the nature of China’s debt?Broadly speaking, China’s debt can be divided into domestic debt and foreign debt.China’s domestic debt, denominated in yuan, consists of three components: corporate, household and government debt. Corporate d...

An 82-year-old swimmer on Saturday drowned off a Hong Kong beach where lifeguard services had been suspended because of the coronavirus pandemic.The Fire Services Department said it received a report of the drowning at Approach Beach in the New Terri...

Beijing has warned Western governments against “playing with fire” a day after their diplomatic missions in Hong Kong took the unprecedented step of lighting candles at their windows to mark the June 4 anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown.The v...

New World Development has reported another sell-out property launch, as Hong Kong’s real estate investors piled into the city’s biggest weekend sale since November, their confidence boosted by a tapering coronavirus situation in the city.The deve...

The building has stunning Manhattan skyline views, its spa offers deep-tissue massages, and the fancy restaurant off the lobby serves up prime steaks. Best of all, many flats at the Trump World Tower are selling at a deep discount – assuming the bu...

A Chinese navy unit has completed a far-ranging month-long training exercise in the Pacific Ocean – a move that suggests the People’s Liberation Army is expanding its focus away from its immediate neighbourhood.The Southern Theatre Command of the...

Those considering throwing their hats into the local political arena must not only have a “stern stance on patriotism”, but also be “courageous” in combating anyone who would undermine the city’s constitutional order, an official with Beiji...

Japan is planning to provide Covid-19 vaccines to Vietnam and Malaysia, the Yomiuri newspaper reported on Saturday, without saying where it got the information.Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s administration is preparing to dispatch the vaccines as ...

If India wants to win friends and influence people to counter China in the Indian Ocean, then why is it antagonising the people of Lakshadweep?That is the question the government’s critics are asking.The archipelago of 36 tiny but strategically imp...

More than 200 bottles of French wine – each one worth over HK$20,000 (US$2,578) in mainland China – were among some HK$10 million worth of goods seized on Hong Kong’s Lantau Island in the latest crackdown on cross-border smuggling.A senior cust...

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday urged the Catholic Church to “take responsibility” and release records on indigenous residential schools under its direction, after the discovery of remains of 215 children in unmarked graves. He ...

The Chinese health authorities have approved the emergency use of coronavirus vaccine for children as young as three, according to the producer.On Friday, Yin Weidong, the chief executive officer of the Beijing-based vaccine maker Sinovac Biotech, to...

Taiwan reported 37 new Covid-19 deaths on Saturday – its highest single-day total.Taiwan’s Central Epidemic Command Centre said 476 new local cases and 35 cases delayed by a reporting backlog had been reported, bringing the total number of cases ...

Hundreds of boats, a majority of them Chinese, have hidden their movements near Argentinian waters in the past three years, potentially fishing illegally in one of the world’s most lucrative fishing grounds, according to a US conservation group.Ana...

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un made his first public appearance in about a month, with state media showing him at a party meeting that discussed ways to improve the country’s deteriorating economy.Kim, wearing his signature black Mao suit, said it...

Mike Lo is mad about lucky phone numbers, and loves it when they run in sequence, such as 123456, or include repetitions, like 8887878. At one point, he amassed more than 300 smartphone SIM cards with numbers he fancied, but managed to whittle his h...

Ridhima Pandey was just nine years old when she filed a petition against the Indian government over its lack of action to mitigate climate change. She recalls her horror in 2013 when her home state of Uttaranchal was devastated by floods.“Watching ...