Hong Kong’s retail sales in September shot up 7.3 per cent year on year, continuing an upwards trajectory fuelled by a HK$36 billion (US$4.6 billion) digital voucher scheme aimed at boosting consumer spending.Provisional figures released by the Cen...

China’s top respiratory diseases expert has defended the country’s zero-Covid strategy against scrutiny from some public health experts, saying it was still less costly than living with the disease and reintroducing restrictions each time outbrea...

More than 60 civil society organisations (CSOs) have written an open letter citing pressing concerns about an Asian Development Bank initiative, to be detailed at the COP26 summit on Wednesday, to phase out coal plants.On paper, the proposal seems st...

Hong Kong police have arrested 15 suspected triad members in a series of raids after a brawl between two rival groups that led about 40 gangsters to surround three cars in the Tsim Sha Tsui nightlife district.A force insider said police were still lo...

Taiwan will seek support for its bid to join a trans-Pacific trade pact when it attends a meeting of economic leaders of the Asia-Pacific group Apec next week, President Tsai Ing-wen said.Taiwan and mainland China both applied in September to join th...

A Japanese man who was arrested after injuring 17 people in a knife and arson attack on a train on the night of Halloween told police he targeted Tokyo in hopes of killing as many people as possible, investigative sources said on Tuesday.“I thought...

China’s huge hog sector is struggling with excess production after millions of small, often first-time, pig farmers entered the industry to capitalise on record profits during a swine-fever related shortage.Now, even as prices hover below the cost ...

Actors who use firearms on Hollywood sets should have to be trained in safety protocols, Shannon Lee, whose brother, Brandon Lee, was killed in an accidental shooting on a movie set, said on Monday.Lee, the daughter of martial arts legend Bruce Lee, ...

Singapore is seeking to cement itself as a key player for cryptocurrency-related businesses as financial centres around the world grapple with approaches to handle one of the fastest growing areas of finance.“We think the best approach is not to cl...

Local government debt in China is broken down into two parts, namely explicit and implicit debt.Explicit debt is local governments’ on-budget liabilities that are recognised by the central government, while implicit debt includes off-budget borrowi...

Elon Musk, Tesla CEO and the world’s richest man, tweeted a 1,800-year-old Chinese poem comparing the killing of a sibling to boiling beans from the same root, spurring conversations among netizens on Twitter trying to decipher what the tech billio...

Dormzilla. A ship on land. An experiment. These are some of the labels being levied on Munger Hall, a planned dormitory at the University of California, Santa Barbara.The massive 11-storey, 1.68 million square foot building, which billionaire investo...

Wang Yuetang’s sneakers sink into the mud of what was once his thriving corn and peanut farm as he surveys the damage done by an unstable climate.Three months after torrential rains flooded much of central China’s Henan province, stretches of the...

A Cambodian court has sentenced an autistic teenager to eight months in prison, with part of the term suspended, for sending Telegram messages that were deemed insulting to the government, his mother said.The son of an opposition figure, 16-year-old ...

Animal rights activists have condemned South Korea’s top conservative presidential hopeful after he appeared to mirror the position of dog meat traders by saying the consumption of dogs specifically farmed to be eaten did not translate to animal ab...

Singapore’s daily Covid-19 numbers have been hitting new highs in recent weeks, crossing the 5,000 mark for the first time last Wednesday.The Health Ministry described this as an “unusual surge” and while cases have since fallen to hover around...

More than 5 million people worldwide have died from Covid-19 less than two years after the novel pathogen was first documented, despite the arrival of vaccines that have slashed fatality rates across the globe. But scientists warn the pandemic is far...

A Hong Kong student activist charged under the national security law has indicated that he will plead guilty to secession and money-laundering charges after a plea bargain with the prosecution.Acting assistant director of public prosecutions Ivan Che...

China’s fiscal policy will provide the main support to economic growth next year while significant monetary easing is unlikely, according to a former adviser to China’s central bank.“The economy overall really is still OK and we will see averag...

Hong Kong’s leader and her top officials in the disciplinary forces paid their respects on Tuesday to Chief Inspector Lam Yuen-yee, who was killed on duty during a police anti-smuggling operation.Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor cancelled...

The Pentagon said it was monitoring the Ukraine region closely amid reports of a new build-up of Russian troops on the country’s border.According to The Washington Post, US officials were concerned over unexplained movements of Russian military uni...

US special-purpose aircraft the Constant Phoenix may have been in the South China Sea region to examine radioactive material, military experts said, after a Beijing-based think tank cited satellite images to report five American reconnaissance planes...

Australian Prime Scott Morrison has attacked the credibility of French President Emmanuel Macron as a newspaper quoted a text message that suggested France anticipated “bad news” about a now-scuttled submarine deal.The Australian newspaper cast d...

A proposal to grant early release from prison to one of the world’s most prolific serial killers has raised outrage in Colombia and a denunciation on Monday from President Ivan Duque.Luis Alfredo Garavito confessed to killing about 190 children, mo...

After operating an education centre for underprivileged children from ethnic minority communities for more than six years, Manoj Dhar realised that after-school tutoring alone was not enough to improve pupils’ proficiency in Chinese.The issue, he d...

A 20-year-old California man accused of assaulting a flight attendant on a cross-country American Airlines flight allegedly punched the woman in the face after being told he could not use the bathroom, leaving her bleeding around her nose and giving ...

Chinese firms have expressed interest to produce an investigational Covid-19 drug developed by US pharmaceutical companies Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics – under a global programme for their distribution in developing countries.The UN-backed M...

Though situated in China’s remote, mountainous and relatively underdeveloped southwestern Guizhou province, the city of Zunyi is not an obscure name for Chinese.The city is engraved in Communist Party history as the location where Mao Zedong was el...

More than 100 global leaders have pledged to halt and reverse deforestation and land degradation by the end of the decade, underpinned by US$19 billion in public and private funds to invest in protecting and restoring forests.The joint statement at t...

As Hong Kong further tightened what were already some of the world’s strictest Covid-19 policies, the city’s business sector expressed one clear hope – that it would be the final criteria needed to convince Beijing to reopen the border.Foreign ...

One millennial is trying to show China that being careful and diligent with money can lead to luxuries far more valuable than a fashionable bag or new wardrobe.For Wang Shenai, her frugality strays into stingy, but it has come with a concrete reward:...

Lui Huali, whose family owns three apartments in Shanghai, is planning to sell one in case the city decides to raise the tax it imposes on residential properties as part of efforts to cool the market.Her decision, like that of many besides her, comes...

A US Navy nuclear submarine that was severely damaged in an accident while submerged in the South China Sea last month struck an uncharted underwater seamount, the US Navy said Monday.The US 7th Fleet, which operates in the western Pacific, said an i...

Su Hua’s surprising resignation from the CEO position of Kuaishou Technology reflects the struggle for China’s No. 2 biggest short video operator amid an ever-changing regulatory and market landscape, analysts said.Su, a 39-year-old self-made Chi...

Tonga’s main island entered a week-long lockdown on Tuesday just days after recording its first case of Covid-19, ending the Pacific nation’s run as one of the last virus-free places in the world.Prime Minister Pohiva Tuionetoa said the island of...

More stringent tobacco control was crucial for China to “curtail a rising tide of cancer deaths”, researchers said after estimating that deaths from smoking-related cancers in the country would rise by about half over the next two decades.A slow ...

Three Chinese nationals kidnapped in Mali’s southwest in July have been freed, the presidency said Monday, in the latest hostage liberation in the conflict-ridden Sahel state.Armed men kidnapped the three men together with two Mauritanian nationals...

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi surprised delegates at the COP26 climate summit with a bold pledge: the world’s third-biggest emitter will reach net-zero by 2070.The announcement injected new life into talks that had been set back by a disappoi...

Prime Minister Boris Johnson will fly back to London from Glasgow rather than taking the train, Downing Street said on Monday hours after he chided world leaders for not doing more on climate change.Aviation – especially the private kind – is a b...

A Chinese satellite has used a manoeuvre to avoid being followed by a spying US satellite, hinting at its capability in potential space warfare.But some defence analysts said the scenario was not new and the incident should not be seen as escalating ...

At least six people have died in Nigeria’s commercial capital of Lagos after the collapse of a high-rise building that was under construction, the state emergency services chief said on Tuesday.Building collapses are frequent in Africa’s most pop...

President Vladimir Putin said that Russia may need the army’s help to build field hospitals for Covid-19 patients as Russia battles a surge in infections that has led to a nationwide workplace shutdown.“The situation in the country is very diffic...

The world’s advanced economies still look with envy at America’s military strength, its technological prowess, its universities and its high-quality entertainment – but much less so nowadays at perhaps the most famous US export of all: democrac...

Beijing and Washington need to manage their tensions over Taiwan to create the conditions needed for Xi Jinping and Joe Biden to meet, according to Chinese observers.That was the assessment after Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and US Secretary of S...

Last month, Canada sent a warship through the Taiwan Strait alongside the US for the very first time, amid an increase in Chinese military exercises in the self-ruled island’s air defence identification zone.The appearance of the Canadian frigate H...

Netflix has removed two episodes of an Australian spy show from its streaming service in the Philippines after Manila objected to scenes showing a map with Beijing’s claims to the disputed South China Sea.China has long used its so-called nine-dash...

The World Health Organization is seeking to revise a proposed list of experts to guide the next phase of research on the origins of Covid-19, calling for more applicants for a new advisory group.It comes just days after public comments on the origina...

One of the world’s biggest multilateral trade agreements has the potential to become a global game-changer and supplant a beleaguered world trade system, trade experts say.That trade agreement – the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Tra...

A politician from Singapore’s main opposition Workers’ Party on Monday admitted to lying in parliament when she took the police to task earlier this year for being insensitive towards a rape survivor.Raeesah Khan – who at 27 is the youngest of ...

The American performing arts conservatory Juilliard School has inaugurated its first overseas campus in China, receiving congratulations from First Lady Peng Liyuan and China’s foreign vice-minister in a sign that Beijing is pushing music diplomacy...