Near the centre of Manila, construction workers are now rushing to complete a US$69-million China-funded bridge by the end of this year after repeatedly missing deadlines.The Binondo-Intramuros Bridge is set to be among the first to be completed out ...

More than 1,000 Afghan troops fled into neighbouring Tajikistan in the early hours of Monday after clashes with the Taliban, the Central Asian country’s national security committee said.Taliban militants have launched several major offensives in no...

Taiwan’s plan to allow Covid-19 vaccines to be given out before they have completed the final stage of clinical trials has already led to the resignation of one expert, but supporters of the move say it is necessary to get the island out of its wor...

Parts of Indonesia lack oxygen supplies as the number of critically ill Covid-19 patients who need it increases, the nation’s pandemic response leader said on Monday, after dozens of sick people died at a public hospital that ran out of its central...

Police arrested a 19-year-old student on Monday in connection with an arson attack near Government House – the official residence of Hong Kong’s chief executive – last Thursday.The woman, the second suspect arrested in three days, was picked up...

Travel restrictions were imposed on residents in the Chinese border city of Ruili on Monday morning and a new round of mass testing was started after the city reported three new locally transmitted Covid-19 infections.The city in southwestern Yunnan ...

The hackers suspected to be behind a mass ransomware attack that affected hundreds of companies worldwide demanded US$70 million to restore the data, according to a posting on a dark website.The demand was posted on a site typically used by the REvil...

Several cities with advanced vaccination programmes are vying to become the first in China to reach herd immunity.But questions remain about when exactly that tipping point – at which a population is largely protected from Covid-19 even though not ...

Police have arrested a Hong Kong businessman on suspicion of animal cruelty after his pet dog fell to its death from a flat on Sunday night.A security guard called police at about 10.47pm when he found the dead schnauzer outside a building on Broadwa...

Singapore’s plan to shift away from its zero-case coronavirus strategy could leave Hong Kong exposed to a higher risk of importing variant strains when its long-awaited travel bubble with the city state finally launches, an expert warned on Monday ...

Nearly 2.4 million Hongkongers, or about one-third of qualified residents, had signed up for the government’s HK$5,000 (US$644) consumption voucher scheme by 8am on Monday, with the rush leading to wait times of more than an hour.One reason for the...

Malati Balakrishnan, who lives in an upmarket part of Chennai, did not bother to stock up on groceries and provisions when the city went into a coronavirus lockdown in March 2021.She knew from experience that her neighbourhood shop Ravi Stores would ...

The partially collapsed South Florida residential building where 24 people are confirmed dead has been demolished, ahead of the possible arrival of Tropical Storm Elsa.Search-and-rescue efforts for 121 people missing have been suspended. Miami-Dade C...

Ensuring 11,000 athletes from more than 200 countries descend on one city over the course of 16 days is a logistical challenge at the best of times. Now consider doing it at the tail end of a pandemic that has upended airlines’ flight schedules, cl...

Hong Kong’s first two Covid-19 patients found to be carrying a mutated strain of the coronavirus in the community were handed jail sentences on Monday for lying to officials about their whereabouts and sparking a citywide scare over the spread of t...

A social media site launched on Sunday by Jason Miller, a senior adviser to former US President Donald Trump, was briefly hacked, and more than 500,000 people have registered to use the site, Miller said.GETTR, a Twitter-style platform with posts and...

Myanmar’s security forces killed at least 25 people on Friday in a confrontation with opponents of the military junta, it emerged on Sunday – the same day a Japanese government source revealed that the Yangon homes of Japanese diplomatic staff ha...

Chowdown champ Joey “Jaws” Chestnut broke his own record to gulp to a 14th win in the men’s Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest on Sunday, while Michelle Lesco took the women’s title.Chestnut downed 76 franks and buns in 10 minutes. That...

Growth in China’s services sector slowed sharply in June to a 14-month low, weighed down by a resurgence of coronavirus cases in southern China, a private survey showed on Monday, adding to concerns the world’s second-largest economy may be start...

A triumphant US President Joe Biden all but announced an end to the pandemic in the United States on Sunday, celebrating what he called a “heroic” vaccination campaign on the country’s Independence Day holiday.Speaking at a party on the White H...

Beijing’s national security chief in Hong Kong has said all public officials, including judicial and law enforcement officers, are obliged to protect China’s national security, and doing so was not at odds with a civil servant’s political neutr...

As people grow frail with age, chewing and swallowing food can be difficult.Now a team of researchers and specialists in Hong Kong is looking to address the problem.Abellona U Mei-ran and her team at Senior Deli are developing a variety of products t...

There are no numbers yet, but chances are, many of us know at least a family which has recently called it quits on Hong Kong. And for some of us, it might feel almost apocalyptic.A few countries’ newly relaxed immigration policies for Hongkongers h...

Pakistan’s national security adviser has accused India of orchestrating last month’s deadly car bombing in the eastern city of Lahore, saying on Sunday that an investigation had shown it was organised by an Indian intelligence operative.In a news...

Senior Superintendent Neil Chan Tat-ming has never forgotten the 80-year-old man who reported being swindled out of more than HK$300,000 (US$38,460) by a phone scammer claiming to be his son.The veteran detective was stumped by the man’s reply when...

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth will award the UK’s state-run National Health Service (NHS) the country’s highest civilian honour in recognition of health workers’ service during the pandemic, the government has announced.The award of the George Cr...

Ransomware-hit IT firm Kaseya said on Sunday it hired cybersecurity company FireEye Inc to help deal with the fallout of a major breach that has affected hundreds of businesses worldwide.In a message posted to its website, Miami-based Kaseya said its...

Shunned by authorities on both sides of the border, Bach Bai has been relying on the generosity of strangers since his ethnic Vietnamese fishing community was evicted from Cambodia’s capital three weeks ago and cast off downstream on their floating...

Coal developers in Africa may be forced to find alternative sources of financing or shift into solar and hydro, as Chinese lenders gradually shy away from plants powered by the fossil fuel, according to observers.Coal projects worth more than US$20 b...

This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Alice Miranda Ollstein on politico.com on July 4, 2021.Congressional Democrats are having to balance escalating calls to investigate whether Covid-19 escape...

Prime Minister Xavier Bettel of Luxembourg has been admitted to hospital a week after testing positive for coronavirus, the government said on Sunday.“As a precaution,” Bettel is expected to remain in hospital for 24 hours for observation, the br...

With media reports suggesting that North Korea is struggling to navigate its way out of an impending famine, Kim Jong-un’s message to President Xi Jinping on the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party is seen by analysts a...

Cuba evacuated 180,000 people amid fears on Sunday that Tropical Storm Elsa could unleash heavy flooding after battering several Caribbean islands, killing at least three people.The Cuban government had opened shelters and moved to protect sugar cane...

The Muslim no-strings-attached “misyar” union, often done in secret, is fast pervading Saudi society – a boon for cash-strapped men unable to afford expensive traditional weddings, but deplored by critics for legitimising promiscuity.The practi...

South Africa’s former president Jacob Zuma, ordered to surrender himself to start a 15-month jail term for contempt, said he would not be doing so by the court-set deadline.“No need for me to go to jail today,” he told journalists on Sunday at ...

Cyprus said a deadly forest fire that was the worst to hit the island in decades was close to being brought under control after water bombing by Greek and Israeli aircraft.Fanned by strong winds, the fire broke out Saturday afternoon and swept throug...

Much has been said about the so-called Wolf Warrior diplomacy. Rhetoric aside, the real issue is Chinese victimhood over the “century of humiliation” that started with the 1840 opium war.When Deng Xiaoping met Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in B...

Pope Francis “reacted well” to planned intestinal surgery on Sunday evening at a Rome hospital, the Vatican said, without giving much detail about the pontiff’s condition.In a statement late on Sunday, a Holy See spokesman, Matteo Bruni, said t...

Philippine scientists warned on Sunday a volcano south of Manila could erupt again “any time soon” as toxic gas emissions hit a record high and thousands more people in vulnerable communities left their homes.Taal Volcano, which sits in a picture...

Low-income households face high moving costs and rising rents for subdivided flats in Hong Kong, a survey has found, prompting an NGO to propose setting up a platform to help tenants better understand market conditions.A survey by the Hong Kong Counc...

Foreign students studying in China have been unable to return to the country since the coronavirus pandemic began, but their growing frustrations have largely been met with silence.The Chinese border has been closed to most foreigners since March 202...

The wearing of face coverings in England will become a personal choice and the data that will determine if lockdown restrictions can be lifted this month was looking “very positive”, Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick said on Sunday.“It will be a...

The Japanese government is leaning toward keeping the quasi-state of emergency covering the Tokyo metropolitan area in place during the Olympic Games amid a resurgence in coronavirus cases, government sources said on Sunday.Prime Minister Yoshihide S...

China has ordered ride-hailing service provider Didi Chuxing off the country’s app stores until future approval after correction and review, just two days after launching a cybersecurity review into the company and four days after its blockbuster i...

With a landmark China-EU investment deal in the balance, European ambassadors have called on Beijing to create the political space to overcome a “trust deficit” to help revive the agreement.Beijing and Brussels signed the EU-China Comprehensive A...

A wild brown bear has been pictured walking through the streets of a town in southwest China.The animal was spotted and filmed by a motorist in Garze, which is located high on the Tibetan Plateau in Sichuan province.The driver followed the animal thr...

Eleven Cambodian villagers died after drinking rice wine suspected to be toxic during a funeral, a police officer said on Sunday, adding to the kingdom’s growing recent death toll from unsafe home-made alcohol.In the past two months, more than 30 p...

The main contractor to China’s space programme is investigating claims that the chairman of one of its subsidiaries assaulted two scientists over membership of an international astronautics organisation.China Aerospace Science and Technology Holdin...

When Xie Tao was working at a Chinese state-owned space company in the early 2010s, he had an epiphany: if he did not start his own company soon, he would miss his chance.He and his colleagues were inspired by Google’s Lunar X Prize, a competition ...