Chinese social media and gaming giant Tencent Holdings posted a 29 per cent rise in second-quarter profit amid Beijing’s tighter scrutiny of Big Tech.The Shenzhen-based company reported a profit of 42.6 billion yuan (US$6.6 billion) in the quarter ...

The world should give the Taliban the space to form a new government in Afghanistan and may discover that the insurgents cast as militants by the West for decades have become more reasonable, the head of the British army said on Wednesday.The leaders...

A city in eastern China has carried out 12 rounds of Covid-19 testing of its population in three weeks during the country’s take-no-chances effort to stop the coronavirus in its tracks.The intensive testing – a pillar of China’s “zero-toleran...

A university student and a construction worker have been convicted of possessing 59 petrol bombs at a rental flat in the largest haul of the incendiary device during Hong Kong’s civil unrest in 2019.City University undergraduate Cheng Kam-fai, 22, ...

A Hong Kong tree trimmer was killed on Wednesday when the extendable arm of a crane truck suddenly gave way, dropping the gondola – in which she and a colleague were working – five metres and slamming it into the back of the vehicle.Tsang Choi-yu...

An unemployed man who stabbed pro-establishment lawmaker Junius Ho Kwan-yiu while telling him to “go to hell fast”, has denied attempting to murder the politician he blamed for a notorious attack on protesters in 2019.But at the High Court on Wed...

Malaysia’s king on Wednesday said the country’s soon-to-be-appointed new prime minister must immediately test his support in parliament, a move that could prolong the political crisis that led to Muhyiddin Yassin’s resignation this week.The roy...

The United States reported more than 1,000 Covid-19 deaths on Tuesday, equating to around 42 fatalities an hour, according to a Reuters tally, as the Delta variant continues to ravage parts of the country with low vaccination rates.Coronavirus-relate...

Hong Kong should consider closing a “loophole” that allows transit passengers to roam departure terminals and VIP lounges without a Covid-19 test, experts say, but officials have also been urged against overreacting to the airport’s latest i...

The Shenzhen branch of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), China’s central bank, has “cleansed” 11 companies for their involvement in suspected illegal cryptocurrency activities as part of a special campaign to show a zero-tolerance attitud...

China could be making inroads in a long-standing battle to deal with local governments’ so-called hidden-debt as the economy’s rebound gives officials room to focus on tackling financial risks.An analysis of local governments’ finances shows a ...

As winter turned to spring in Sichuan province in central China this year, a group of archaeologists stood before the nation and revealed a stunningly remarkable archaeological discovery.It was a gold mask, thought to be over 3,000 years old, found i...

The death toll from a 7.2 magnitude earthquake that struck Haiti has risen to 1,941, the Caribbean nation’s civil protection agency said, as a tropical storm brought torrential downpours on survivors already coping with catastrophe.More than 9,900 ...

A fund which has spent more than HK$243 million supporting anti-government protesters facing criminal prosecution or financial hardship as a result of the civil unrest two years ago is to close, it said on Wednesday.But the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fu...

French firefighters were battling to contain a raging wildfire near the glitzy Mediterranean resort of Saint-Tropez, with thousands of residents and holidaymakers forced to evacuate.Roughly 1,000 firefighters have been using high-pressure hoses, airc...

Animal rights activists have – perhaps surprisingly – welcomed news that Japan’s whaling industry is sinking 6 billion yen (US$54.47 million) into a new mother ship for its whaling fleet. Their reasoning is that investing in a product that few ...

China must pursue a goal of “common prosperity”, where wealth is fairly shared by all people, as a key objective for the next stage of its development, President Xi Jinping told a key economic leadership meeting, while also stressing the need to ...

Cross-strait tensions escalated on Tuesday with 11 PLA warplanes entering Taiwan’s air defence zone minutes before the island’s military was about to start a flight-level drill in the same area.The six fighter jets, two bombers and three surveill...

Archaeologists have uncovered a well-preserved skeleton at a burial site in Pompeii which has shed new light on funeral rites and cultural activity in the doomed, ancient Roman city, officials said.The body of the man, believed to be in his 60s, was ...

More mainland Chinese landlords are likely to enter Hong Kong’s flexible working space, traditionally dominated by local and international investors, as it offers a low-risk entry point to the broader office market, according to analysts.Hui Wing-m...

Southeast Asian countries need more help securing Covid-19 vaccines, as the region struggles to contain record infections and deaths driven by the Delta variant, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said.The region esc...

When US President Joe Biden appeared in the White House East Room on July 8 to stress that the US pull-out from Afghanistan was proceeding apace, he declared that a Taliban takeover of the country was not inevitable.Five weeks later, the Taliban is i...

Republican Senator Marco Rubio urged President Joe Biden on Tuesday to block short-form video app TikTok in the United States after China took an ownership stake in a key subsidiary of ByteDance, the Beijing-based parent company of TikTok.The Biden a...

Four University of Hong Kong students, including the president and council chairman of its student union, were arrested by national security police on Wednesday morning on suspicion of advocating terrorism.The suspects, aged 18 to 20, were among more...

Taiwanese hypermarket chain RT-Mart apologised after one of its stores in eastern China reportedly routinely sold expired pork.The pork, which was used in a variety of products like sausages and pork chops, was visibly rotten and smelled terrible, ac...

Gurkha military veterans on Tuesday vowed a “fast until death” unless the British government agrees to meet them to discuss their long-standing grievances over pension rights.Several hunger strikers have been camped out under makeshift shelters a...

China is preparing to build an airport on land claimed from the sea near Taiwan, local media reported on Tuesday, as Beijing moves ahead with plans to integrate development with the island amid political tension.Under the new document released by Fuj...

After Mansur and Moina Khan from Bangladesh secured long-term visas to reside in Malaysia in 2014, they bought a condo worth at least 1 million ringgit in the heart of the capital, Kuala Lumpur, and moved there in 2017.“We invested our life savings...

A former top Chinese internet censor has been expelled from the Communist Party and will face trial for corruption, the party’s top anti-graft body said on Tuesday.The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection accused Peng Bo, 64, of disloyalty ...

Humanity’s need to tackle climate change is more pressing than ever, with the United Nations warning last week that the pace of global warming would accelerate at a faster-than-expected pace over the next 20 years. In this four-part series, the Pos...

A women’s activist who stayed home for days in fear of the Taliban ventured out for the first time on Tuesday in Afghanistan. She and her sister – their hair covered by loosely draped scarves – were the only women in the market, where they drew...

Rents in Hong Kong are poised to increase further as soaring house prices deter would-be buyers and push them into the rental sector, according to property analysts.The average price of a lived-in property hit a new high this month, according to a cl...

Hong Kong’s international business community is holding its collective breath as the nation’s top legislative body discusses this week how to apply mainland China’s anti-sanctions law to the financial hub. An announcement is expected when the c...

President Joe Biden’s approval rating dropped by 7 percentage points and hit its lowest level so far as the US-backed Afghan government collapsed over the weekend in an upheaval that sent thousands of civilians and Afghan military allies fleeing fo...

The Taliban’s haul of American weapons and equipment taken from the Afghan military could worsen instability in the region – including Xinjiang in China – if they fall into the hands of extremists, analysts say.Taliban fighters seized guns, amm...

The White House dismissed criticism from Chinese state media on Tuesday that the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan also signalled a weakened commitment to Taiwan and other American allies and partners around the world.“When it comes to Taiwan...

Iran has accelerated its enrichment of uranium to near weapons-grade, the UN atomic watchdog said in a report on Tuesday seen by Reuters, a move raising tensions with the West as both sides seek to resume talks on reviving Tehran’s nuclear deal.Ira...

Anglo-Australian miner BHP has signalled that the heydays of extraordinary iron ore prices could be near their end amid China’s slowing steel production and its latest coronavirus outbreak.On Tuesday, the miner posted strong financial-year earnings...

The US accusations that Meng Wanzhou had defrauded HSBC existed in an “evidentiary vacuum”, her lawyer told her Canadian extradition hearing on Tuesday, as he dismissed arguments that she had put the bank’s reputation or loans to Huawei Technol...

US authorities arrested a Chicago pharmacist Tuesday for selling dozens of official cards showing proof of Covid-19 vaccination on eBay, the Justice Department said.The department said Tangtang Zhao sold 125 official Centres for Disease Control and P...

US Republican Senator John Cornyn has deleted a tweet in which he said wrongly that the United States currently has 30,000 troops stationed in Taiwan, a claim that spurred Chinese media to call him a “dotard”.Cornyn included the statistic late on...

This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Alexander Ward on politico.com on August 17, 2021.During an inter-agency meeting early this summer, a Defence Department official was asked if the Pentagon ...

A group of Canadian parliamentarians have recently joined the Formosa Club, a grouping of European members of parliament founded in October 2019 to “coordinate and strengthen” the parliamentary organisations that promote relations with Taiwan.Suc...

Hong Kong police have arrested a barrister and a former solicitors’ clerk after the appeal court questioned their roles in the prosecution of a young man who was sentenced to 23 years in prison for drug trafficking while the real culprit was spared...

The Taliban vowed on Tuesday to respect women’s rights, forgive those who resisted them and ensure a secure Afghanistan as part of a publicity blitz aimed at convincing world powers and a fearful population that they have changed.Following a lightn...

Banks are failing to deliver on promises to hire, retain and promote more Black executives as prejudice and a reluctance to change stymie leaders’ good intentions, said a former HSBC banker in London who resigned this month over the problems.Ian Cl...

China has set out special rules to put companies in the telecoms, energy, transport, finance and defence sectors under closer cybersecurity scrutiny as Beijing seeks to tighten its control of domestic data.The new regulations, released by the State C...

Chinese lawmakers are reviewing a new privacy law this week that will ban internet companies from using big data to set discriminatory prices for users, according to state media.A revised version of the Personal Information Protection Law is expected...

Top diplomats from the United States, China, Russia and several other nations have held urgent talks on Afghanistan’s uncertain future after Kabul fell to the Taliban, with Beijing calling for a “soft landing” from the turbulent end to the near...

Some Kabul residents on Tuesday cautiously ventured back to work through quiet streets, fearful after a night broken by the sound of gunfire and facing questions from their new Taliban rulers who have set up checkpoints across Afghanistan’s capital...