Hong Kong’s unemployment rate dropped sharply to 5.5 per cent for the three-month period ending in June, reaching a level not seen for more than a year, as the city’s economy gathered steam amid a relaxation of social-distancing rules with the lo...

Seven young Hongkongers have achieved perfect scores on the local university entrance exams, the city’s testing authority revealed on Tuesday, in a year in which 12 candidates had to miss at least some written portions because of mandatory coronavi...

Japanese Emperor Naruhito will attend the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics on Friday, the Imperial Household Agency said on Tuesday. The agency said Empress Masako will not take part in the ceremony at the National Stadium, as Olympic organiser...

Singapore will from Thursday reimpose tightened Covid-19 restrictions after relaxing some measures just last week after a new cluster of cases including karaoke bar customers and fishmongers.Officials on Tuesday confirmed all restaurant dining will b...

The chairman of a China’s state-owned aerospace investment firm who allegedly beat up two senior scientists has been formally arrested by Beijing police.Zhang Tao was also dismissed by his company, China Aerospace Investment Holdings, and kicked ou...

Under a footbridge in southwest China’s Yunnan province, a lone female elephant makes a rare appearance at a clearing on the edge of thick forest, ignoring the heavy rain and the gathering crowds to graze and bathe in the chocolate-coloured water.U...

At least three of the 14 construction workers trapped for nearly a week in a flooded tunnel in southern China have died, as nearly 2,00 rescuers continue their desperate attempt to reach the remaining men.Two of the dead were found on Monday afternoo...

Global luxury brands Louis Vuitton and Porsche have joined several Chinese consumer brands in freezing or severing their ties with rapper and model Kris Wu Yifan following an allegation, which he denies, that he date-raped underage girls.French luxur...

Days before Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule on July 1, 1997, a top United States official urged the British government to “restrain” Martin Lee Chu-ming and his fellow pan-democrats from staging protests against Beijing on the historic day, ne...

India’s excess deaths during the pandemic could be a staggering 10 times the official Covid-19 toll, likely making it modern India’s worst human tragedy, according to the most comprehensive research yet on the ravages of the virus.Most experts be...

Hong Kong’s leader on Tuesday brushed off recent scenes at the airport suggesting an exodus of residents, adding that she would tell anyone considering leaving that the city would continue to prosper with Beijing’s support and the help of the nat...

A search by Hong Kong emergency personnel, including divers, was under way on Tuesday for a hiker who went missing after being swept away by water near a stream in a country park.The middle-aged man was hiking with another man and two women along the...

At least three rockets landed near the Afghan presidential palace on Tuesday as Ashraf Ghani and a group of other leaders marked the start of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha with prayers in the garden.Although there was no immediate claim of respon...

China on Tuesday reported the highest daily tally of new confirmed Covid-19 cases since January, driven by a surge in imported infections in southwestern Yunnan province, which shares a border with Myanmar.Mainland China recorded 65 new confirmed cas...

Hong Kong will hold no by-elections to fill the more than 200 seats recently vacated in its district councils, the city’s leader has confirmed, even as she conceded the municipal-level bodies were no longer “fully functional” after the mass res...

Police in China have arrested two fans who stalked a famous actor by placing a tracking device on a rented car he was using, Beijing police revealed on Saturday.Two fans of Chinese actor Wang Yibo used the illegal tracking device to follow him around...

Hong Kong has become more competitive among global tech hubs outside Silicon Valley, but Singapore remains at the top, according to new research by global auditing company KPMG.Hong Kong moved up one spot from last year to come in ninth in a ranking ...

With most Covid-19 restrictions now lifted in England, the world is watching to see what its “freedom day” will bring.Some scepticism is warranted, given Britain’s approach throughout the pandemic has hardly been a success. By July 19, there ha...

China’s high-speed maglev train, capable of a top speed of 600km/h (373 miles per hour), rolled off the production line in the eastern coastal city of Qingdao on Tuesday, according to its manufacturer, CRRC Qingdao Sifang.The development of the tra...

China has accused the United States of “indiscriminate eavesdropping across the world” while rejecting allegations by Washington and its allies that it had engaged in malicious cyberattacks.Chinese diplomatic missions in five countries and the Eu...

Bushra Shah, a 35-year-old Pakistani, says she is realising a childhood dream by making the great pilgrimage to Mecca, and under new rules she’s doing it without a male “guardian”.The haj ministry has officially allowed women of all ages to mak...

A 16-year-old Singaporean boy was on Tuesday charged with murdering a 13-year-old boy who attended the same prestigious school.Court documents said the boy was allegedly killed between 11.16am and 11.45am on Monday in a toilet at the River Valley H...

Pedro Castillo, a schoolteacher from a Marxist party, was proclaimed Peru’s president-elect on Monday, six weeks after a polarising vote of which the results were delayed by claims of electoral fraud from his right-wing rival, Keiko Fujimori.The 51...

China’s top disease control official says he has had a third Covid-19 shot, as global debate continues on the need for extra doses to boost immunity and protect against new variants.Gao Fu, head of the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevent...

Asia may be sliding into a dangerous arms race as smaller nations that once stayed on the sidelines build arsenals of advanced long-range missiles, following in the footsteps of powerhouses China and the United States.China is mass producing its DF-2...

Banks in China kept the benchmark loan rate unchanged in July for the 15th straight month, indicating that the central bank is continuing to keep policy stable despite a recent surprise move to add liquidity to the financial system.The one-year loan ...

Running a restaurant is never easy, but in Malaysia, where eating out is practically a national pastime, successful establishments have long thrived by virtue of their reputation and seen little reason to innovate.Then came March 2020 and the country...

Republican Senators Marsha Blackburn, Roger Wicker, and Cynthia Lummis urged the US Olympic Committee to forbid American athletes from using China’s new digital currency at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, citing espionage and data-security con...

Several obscure groups will help choose members of a revamped Election Committee that will decide Hong Kong’s next leader, a Post investigation has found.The organisations successfully registered with the committee’s new grass-roots wing, a subse...

Our Tokyo Trail series looks at key issues and athletes in the run-up to the 2020 Olympics, which are scheduled for late July. This is the first of three stories on the use of technology and innovation at the Games.Irish diver Oliver Dingley spent mu...

The British government sought on Monday to prevent Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro from gaining access to nearly US$2 billion of gold held by the Bank of England as the UK Supreme Court started hearing a case that hinges on the question of who should be...

China’s southern tech hub Shenzhen is emerging as the country’s autonomous driving capital, backed by a growing fleet of robotaxis and an army of about 800 start-ups in the field – all blessed by a supportive government that is drafting local r...

Since its foundation 20 years ago, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a bloc founded by Russia and China, has faced questions over its purpose.But the recent clashes by the Afghan government and the Taliban – which have escalated since the Unit...

About 2,500 Afghans who worked for the US government will be evacuated to a military base in Virginia along with their families pending approval of their visas, the Biden administration said on Monday as it rapidly moves to complete the withdrawal of...

Stocks slumped around the world as investors rushed into haven assets after the Delta coronavirus variant cast a pall over the economic recovery, while tension between the US and China escalated.In a reversal of the reopening trade that has powered t...

South Korea has reaped rewards from its policy of strategic ambiguity towards the US-China rivalry, avoiding antagonising Beijing, its largest trading partner, while remaining Washington’s military ally. However, developments in domestic politics b...

A month after container shipping operations returned to normal at China’s Yantian Port, factory owners are still feeling the pinch from a debilitating three-week shutdown, with warehouses chock-full of goods awaiting export.“While we can see the ...

Canada announced on Monday it will begin letting fully vaccinated US citizens into Canada on August 9, and those from the rest of the world on September 7.Officials said the 14-day quarantine requirement will be waived as of August 9 for eligible tra...

This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Nick Niedzwiadek on politico.com on July 19, 2021.US President Joe Biden on Monday walked back his declaration that Facebook is “killing people” by not ...

Pakistan said on Monday it was waiting for information from the Afghan government in an investigation into the brief kidnapping of the Afghan ambassador’s daughter in Islamabad, after Afghanistan raised questions over the credibility of the investi...

Islamic State claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that ripped through a busy market in the Iraqi capital ahead of Eid holiday celebrations, killing at least 35 people, security and hospital sources saidIn a message posted to its Telegram cha...

Voter turnout in the United States was up across the board last year, despite the coronavirus pandemic’s impact on the election, and Asian-Americans played a key role in bolstering civic engagement. An analysis, released recently by the Centre for...

A jam-packed bus carrying mostly labourers travelling home for a major Muslim holiday rammed into a container truck on a busy highway in central Pakistan on Monday, police and rescue officials said. At least 33 people were killed and 40 others injure...

Claude Joseph, who has nominally led Haiti as acting prime minister since the July 7 assassination of President Jovenel Moise, said in a Washington Post interview published on Monday that he has agreed to step down, handing power to a challenger back...

Japanese musician Keigo Oyamada resigned on Monday from the creative team for the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics after admitting that he bullied children with disabilities many years ago, in the latest scandal rocking the already unpopular ga...

An unusually large sortie of US warplanes deployed to join a naval exercise is an explicit warning to China and may be aimed at countering China’s next-generation strategic bombers, analysts said.The assessment followed media reports that the Unite...

For the past 11 days, Wisnu Sopian has travelled around the scenic streets of Cipanas, in Indonesia’s West Java province, on his trusted motorcycle. But this is no leisure trip – the 25-year-old university student is delivering food and daily nec...

The US, Britain, the EU and Nato on Monday accused Beijing of sponsoring a massive hack of the Microsoft Exchange email server discovered earlier this year, which compromised accounts worldwide, and vowed to work with other countries to halt what the...

The Biden administration on Monday transferred a Guantanamo Bay detainee to his home country for the first time, a policy shift from the Trump presidency that repatriated a Moroccan man years after he was recommended for discharge.The prisoner, Abdul...

The resumption of formal high level economic talks between China and the United States seems “infinitely far away”, according to Chinese experts, following reports the Biden administration has no plans to resurrect the regular communication chann...