On Tuesday, August 31, the United States plans to withdraw its last troops out of Afghanistan. Here are the main developments since the Taliban seized Kabul, taking power again in Afghanistan after two decades of war.Lightning takeoverOn August 15, T...

China’s “996” work culture – shifts from 9am to 9pm, six days a week – has hurt employment and employees in China, former finance minister Lou Jiwei warned while calling for stronger regulation of the corporate sector.Lou’s criticism of 9...

Hong Kong is the eighth safest city in the world but does badly when it comes to personal and environmental security, according to a new set of rankings released by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).The Safe Cities Index, which grades the world�...

Two Malaysians and an Indonesian linked to deadly bombings in Bali nearly two decades ago are expected to get their first day in court on Monday at the United States Naval Station in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Indonesian Encep Nurjaman, also known as Rid...

An elderly woman died in hospital on Monday after being hit by a minibus in Hong Kong.Emergency personnel were called to Hong Ning Road near the junction with Shung Yan Street in Kwun Tong where the accident happened shortly before 10am.According to ...

China released the latest images of its Mars rover on Monday, the 100th day of Zhu Rong’s operation on the red planet.The pictures released by the China National Space Administration showed the route of the rover, which had travelled more than 1km ...

For more than a year, Caspien Gruta has been teased because his circumcision – a rite of passage for boys in the Philippines – was delayed, first by a volcanic eruption and then the coronavirus pandemic. “I worry if I don’t get circumcised n...

Three more members of a speech therapists’ union, who were arrested by Hong Kong national security police last month, have been charged with conspiracy to distribute seditious materials.The two men and one woman, aged 25 to 28, were expected to app...

Rockets flew across the Afghan capital on Monday as the United States raced to complete its withdrawal from Afghanistan, with the evacuation of civilians all but over and terror attack fears high.President Joe Biden has set a deadline of Tuesday to w...

China has demanded that the US provide economic support to Afghanistan, while doubling down on its calls for Washington to learn from its mistakes in the chaos facing the Central Asian nation.Senior Chinese diplomats raised Afghanistan’s urgent nee...

US President Joe Biden’s deadline of August 31 to complete US evacuation efforts from Afghanistan is fast approaching. And after last week’s bombing at the Kabul airport, the security situation for Afghans trying to flee the country has become ev...

ByteDance, the Beijing-based maker of short video platform TikTok, has made another move towards creating its own metaverse with the acquisition of virtual reality (VR) start-up Pico Interactive.The company said that Pico Interactive’s software and...

Introducing a coronavirus “vaccine pass” could backfire in Hong Kong, a health expert said on Monday, a day after the idea was suggested by the minister in charge of the inoculation programme.Secretary for the Civil Service Patrick Nip Tak-kuen s...

From coronavirus risks to talk of a reduction in US stimulus, there is been no shortage of bad news for Asian currencies. An upcoming report on China’s manufacturing sector may add to the pressure.Traders are looking to Chinese factory data for clu...

China Huarong Asset Management’s long-delayed 2020 results showed a record loss, with leverage hitting 1,333 times and capital buffers far short of the regulatory minimum, emphasising the difficult task ahead for the bad-debt manager that recently ...

As Australia’s Covid-19 deaths exceed 1,000 – a grim toll but modest by global standards – a country that has used relentless lockdowns now faces perhaps its biggest health policy challenge of the pandemic: how to reopen.The highly infectious D...

Think of “luxury housing” in Singapore and the images that typically spring to mind are of spacious condominium units with high ceilings and large windows into the city scape.But in the land-scarce island nation, the property asset that really se...

Yu Yong is at a business crossroads.The 48-year-old Kabul-based trader has been dealing in gemstones, medical supplies and stationery in the Afghan capital for the last four years and planned to stay for the long haul.But as one of the last dozen or ...

Hong Kong police have gathered evidence against various political organisations and it makes no difference to investigators if they shut down to avoid trouble under the city’s national security law, Police Commissioner Raymond Siu Chak-yee has warn...

North Korea appears to have restarted a nuclear reactor that is widely believed to have produced plutonium for nuclear weapons, the UN atomic watchdog has said in an annual report.The International Atomic Energy Agency has had no access to North Kore...

A Brazilian court has sentenced Francoise de Souza Oliveira to 31 years in prison for murdering her husband, Greek ambassador Kyriakos Amiridis, authorities said on Sunday.Amiridis, 59 at the time of his death in 2016, lived in Brasilia and was on ho...

Three years ago, Audi Melsom quit his job as a designer at MetroTV, one of Indonesia’s largest television broadcasters, and headed to the Northern Territory in Australia, aiming to work odd jobs and explore the country. Like most Indonesians on Au...

Lee “Scratch” Perry, the Grammy-wining artist who had a massive influence on the reggae-inspired dub style of music, died Sunday at age 85.His death at a hospital in Lucea, Jamaica, was confirmed in an announcement by the country’s prime minist...

Dozens of desperate Afghans who had been trying to flee the Taliban before Tuesday’s deadline for the US withdrawal from Kabul made it to safety with help from an unexpected place: Instagram influencer Quentin Quarantino.Quarantino is the alter ego...

A new law on legal aid has been introduced by the National People‘s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, China’s top legislative body.The law was introduced on August 20 and will take effect in January 2022. It has been touted as another major step...

Ed Asner, the burly and prolific character actor who became a star in middle age as the gruff but lovable newsman Lou Grant, first in the hit comedy The Mary Tyler Moore Show and later in the drama Lou Grant, died on Sunday. He was 91.Asner’s offic...

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi spoke to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday about Afghanistan, accusing Washington of using “double standards” in its efforts to eradicate terrorism in the country and urged Blinken to do more to sto...

Powerful Hurricane Ida battered the southern US state of Louisiana and plunged New Orleans into darkness Sunday, leaving at least one person dead 16 years to the day after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city.Ida slammed into the Louisiana coast as ...

US President Joe Biden arrived at Dover Air Force Base on Sunday to honour members of the military killed in a suicide bomb attack during the evacuation of civilians from Afghanistan last week. An Islamic State suicide bombing on Thursday killed sco...

Afghan women will be allowed to study at university but there would be a ban on mixed classes under their rule, the Taliban’s acting higher education minister said on Sunday.The hardline Islamist group that stormed to power in mid-August after oust...

Israel has begun offering a Covid-19 booster to vaccinated people as young as 12, and its prime minister said a campaign that began a month ago among seniors has slowed a rise in severe illness caused by the Delta variant.Announcing the decision, top...

Singapore will introduce new laws to deal with racial and workplace discrimination, and in a widely expected landmark move, will allow Muslim nurses to wear the Islamic headscarf to work, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said on Sunday.The state of Sin...

An engine room fire sparked the evacuation of more than 300 ferry passengers on their way to Hong Kong’s easternmost island of Tung Ping Chau on Sunday.The 28-metre (90-foot) vessel operated by Tsui Wah Ferry departed from Ma Liu Shui pier at about...

When she is not working as a chemist, Zhang Zhiyue writes blogs for Chinese media, giving hot takes on Xinjiang, US-China ties and other trending topics, with Afghanistan the most recent.Zhang, who has 230,000 followers on Zhihu, China’s equivalent...

A “supervisor” tasked with censoring content for a Chinese Twitter-like social media site has been sacked and deplatformed for accusing a user of lying about her mother’s death after having a coronavirus vaccine.Microblogging platform Sina Weib...

The plans of many domestic workers – not to mention employers and agencies – were given an unexpected shake-up after the government on Sunday banned Philippine Airlines from operating flights between Manila and Hong Kong, one day before a policy ...

A row between rival factions in the Philippines’ ruling party escalated on Sunday when a group led by boxing star Emmanuel “Manny” Pacquiao tried to remove President Rodrigo Duterte from his role as party chairman by electing their own.Refusing...

Chinese President Xi Jinping has for the first time sent a stern warning at a national ethnic affairs conference to step up the global fight against terrorism, signalling China will redouble efforts against extremism.Wrapping the first conference of ...

China’s special envoy for Afghan affairs has struck a positive note about future interactions between Beijing and the Taliban.Yue Xiaoyong, who was appointed to the post last month, told the Chinese news portal Guancha.cn that Beijing was ready to ...

Hong Kong’s biggest free-to-air television station, TVB, has accused its critics of cyberbullying and driving advertisers away with threats to boycott their products or brands.Its chief strategy officer, Doris Luey, told the Post the loss-making st...

An investment drought in Africa brought on by the coronavirus pandemic could be coming to an end, as venture capitalists return to the continent, especially from China.After more than a year of staying away, funds are again looking at start-ups – p...

The US-China trade war began in July 2018 under the administration of then-US president Donald Trump, eventually leading to tariffs on some US$550 billion of Chinese goods and US$185 billion of US goods. A phase-one trade deal between the two sides ...

China has released a five-year blueprint to boost employment, shifting focus to wage growth and expansion of the vocational education system to help drive domestic demand and upgrade industry.Under the plan issued on Friday by the State Council, 55 m...

The world depends on the Democratic Republic of Congo for its cobalt to electrify vehicles.But the DRC, which supplies more than 60 per cent of the world’s reserves of cobalt ore, believes it may be getting short-changed by foreign mining companies...

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly called promoting economic development in the country’s Far East the “national priority of the entire 21st century”. And for much of the past decade, he has sought to enlist China’s help in that ...

A cutting-edge stem cell treatment helped to regrow the nerves of patients with spinal cord injuries – in some cases helping patients whom doctors expected to spend the rest of their lives in a wheelchair to walk again, according to new research.Pr...

A priest and three other men have been charged with the gang-rape and murder of a nine-year-old girl, Indian police said, in a case that sparked days of protests in New Delhi.The low-caste girl was allegedly assaulted by the priest, 53, and three wor...

Hong Kong needs fresh strategies in everything from asset management to renminbi promotion if it hopes to take advantage of the opportunities offered by Beijing’s latest five-year plan, the city’s finance chief has said.Taking to his official blo...

Officials need to provide more reference materials for Hong Kong educators stressed at the prospect of teaching the newly revamped liberal studies subject in the new school year, according to a policy research body.The Youth Ideas think tank, under t...