Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com has secured a deal to serve as the exclusive partner of state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) to give away cash as virtual red packets at this year’s Spring Festival Gala, the country’s most-watched tel...

A man in northeastern China has created a business selling hot water to tourists to throw into the cold winter air where it freezes into unusual shapes.Over the past few years, pictures and videos showing people in the freezing weather of the country...

Taiwanese troops and armoured vehicles were deployed on Thursday for a mock urban street battle in the latest drill preparing forces against mainland China, which has long vowed to take the island.Taiwan lives under constant threat of an invasion by ...

Britain’s spy chief on Thursday thanked China’s state news agency for the “free publicity” after it posted a spoof of James Bond that mocked the Western intelligence community’s growing focus on threats posed by Beijing.The rare response by...

Hong Kong’s Housing Authority will have to double its construction expenses to cope with an expanding public housing programme beginning in 2026, the authority’s finance committee chair has warned.But its cash flow could be constrained by a schem...

An arrangement to reduce the waiting times for American businesspeople and their families to travel to China has come into effect, according to a major US business group in the country, materialising one of the goals set by the top leaders in Novembe...

South Korea’s ruling party presidential candidate ignited a debate this week after he proposed allowing public healthcare insurance to cover hair loss treatment, fanning both cheers from some voters and criticism over his populist agenda.Lee Jae-my...

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi criticised the sanctions imposed on Eritrea as he announced further moves to deepen Beijing’s cooperation with the Horn of Africa nation.Speaking after a meeting with Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki on Wednesday, ...

China’s all-purpose WeChat app, owned by Tencent Holdings, is doubling down on mini programmes and short video to drive future growth as its user base reaches saturation point.The 11-year-old WeChat, known locally as Weixin, is one of China’s mos...

Guangzhou R&F Properties said it may not be able to sell assets in time to buy back some of its offshore bonds, as one of China’s largest and most indebted developers struggles to meet its debt obligations amid a sinking real estate market.The actu...

Cathay Pacific Airways’ cargo capacity will be reduced by more than two-thirds and its existing passenger flights by about 80 per cent following Hong Kong’s recent imposition of a two-week flight ban on certain countries and tightened aircrew qua...

Thick smoke spilled out of a Hong Kong dim sum store after it burst into flames during Thursday lunchtime, prompting firefighters and an ambulance to be called to the ground-floor shop in Mong Kok.According to the Fire Services Department, eight fire...

A recent birthday party attended by top-ranking Hong Kong officials has sparked fears of a new coronavirus cluster emerging as a suspected Covid-19 patient is believed to be one of about 100 guests, with home affairs chief Caspar Tsui Ying-wai among ...

The central province of Henan has reported a jump in new Covid-19 cases, as China’s latest outbreak spreads beyond the tourist city of Xian in neighbouring Shaanxi.There were 64 new locally acquired infections reported in Henan on Thursday, up from...

The head of South Korea’s retail giant Shinsegae Group expressed his displeasure over Instagram’s decision to remove a post in which he displayed anti-communist sentiment.Chung Yong-jin on Wednesday shared a photo of pills usually taken to treat ...

Nursultan Nazarbayev, stripped on Wednesday of his role as head of Kazakhstan’s powerful Security Council amid violent street protests, has dominated his vast oil-producing Central Asian nation since before the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991....

The United States and China seem to have retreated into a state of “mutually tolerable friction” but opposing positions on Taiwan, Hong Kong and the South China Sea could turn the tide, regional observers said at a forum in Singapore on Thursday....

As the highly transmissible Omicron variant replaces Delta as the dominant strain of the coronavirus, another new variant has sparked some interest but current data indicates it’s not a cause for concern.The variant, called B.1.640.2, was dubbed th...

The Chinese city of Xian has sacked or suspended several staff at a hospital where a woman who was reportedly eight-months pregnant lost her baby after being refused admission because her Covid-19 test result had expired.The manager of Xian Gaoxin Ho...

An emerging coronavirus cluster in Hong Kong originating from a dance group expanded on Thursday with two more people testing preliminary-positive, as authorities rushed to contain the spread of Omicron.The official overseeing the city’s Covid-19 v...

The United States has vowed to reinforce its support and work with European allies to help Lithuania counter “economic coercion” by China following a diplomatic dispute over Taiwan opening a representative office in Vilnius under its own name.US ...

China’s property tax could be another casualty of the slump in the housing market, with analysts expecting the government to hold off on expanding trials of the levy because of a real estate-led economic slowdown.In October last year, China’s par...

A pair of scions from Singapore’s wealthiest families are teaming up to create a private NFT-based social networking app, becoming the latest among the well-heeled to jump aboard an intensifying cryptocurrency craze.Kiat Lim, the 28-year-old son of...

The suspect was covered from head to toe, skulking through the dark streets of the US capital before methodically placing two explosives outside the offices of the Republican and Democratic national committees.Only 17 hours later – and just before ...

US authorities say they’ve solved a publishing industry whodunit with the arrest of a man accused of numerous literary heists in recent years, allegedly impersonating others in the industry to amass a veritable library of unpublished works.Filippo ...

For members of Generation Z in China, winning at life does not necessarily involve getting married or having children, no matter how much their parents and the government want them to.It is more about “living for yourself”, according to Janet Son...

A news anchor at a St Louis television station received an outpouring of support from around the world after a viewer criticised her for “being very Asian” and told her to “keep her Korean to herself”.Michelle Li, an anchor at KSDK-TV, did a ...

US military bases in Japan introduced stricter measures on Thursday to tackle an increase in Covid-19 cases as the government expressed grave concern over the outbreak.“The mitigation measures we have instituted ... are intended to protect our forc...

Civil servants should work from home and in-person classes ought to be suspended to help contain an emerging fifth Covid-19 wave in Hong Kong, health experts have argued, although the city’s leader has cautioned the steps are not needed.Neither do ...

Activity in China’s services sector expanded at a faster pace in December amid higher demand and easing inflationary pressure, but continuing small-scale coronavirus outbreaks weighed on the outlook, a private sector survey showed on Thursday.The C...

When Zhang Fen visited the aptly named Happy School with her son Tian Tian, a Primary Two student, she thought: “This is the school for us.” The students spent less time studying, but they seemed happier and had more freedom at the alternative-st...

Jakarta’s stranglehold over local coal supplies has driven a wedge into the free market economics of the global coal trade as miners and Indonesian authorities weigh up an export ban.Over the weekend Jakarta temporarily halted coal exports to avoid...

The abrupt return of tough anti-pandemic restrictions amid a local Omicron outbreak has been met with shock and dismay by affected industries, with the beleaguered catering sector in particular crying foul, predicting losses of up to HK$8 billion (US...

Thousands of tonnes of watermelon are lying dumped by the roadside along Myanmar’s border with southwestern China, with local exporters complaining that strict Covid-19 pandemic controls had made trade in perishables “nearly impossible”.Major r...

Hong Kong’s two-week flight ban has dashed the hopes of those planning family reunions as well as disrupted plans for incoming domestic helpers, with the Philippines, Britain and the United States among eight countries hit with tightened rules aime...

North Korea test fired a “hypersonic missile” this week that successfully hit a target, state news agency KCNA reported on Thursday, as the country pursues new military capabilities amid stalled denuclearisation talks.The launch on Wednesday was ...

South Korea has grounded its entire fleet of advanced F-35 fighter planes, officials said Wednesday, pending a probe into a dramatic emergency landing.After the landing gear on a South Korean F-35A stopped working during a major systems malfunction, ...

Washington should take more aggressive “grey-zone” strategies – warfare just short of armed conflict - to tackle China and Russia, according to a group of US military strategists including former defence chief Chuck Hagel.In recommendations pub...

The new year has begun with a familiar saga: Taipei and Beijing’s tug of war over Lithuania has rumbled into 2022.An unofficial mainland Chinese blockade of Lithuanian-made goods and components continued this week, according to business leaders in ...

The upcoming Grammy Awards were postponed on Wednesday due to what organisers called “too many risks” due to the Omicron coronavirus variant. No new date has been announced.The ceremony had been scheduled for January 31 in Los Angeles with a live...

Russia has sent paratroopers into Kazakhstan as part of an international peacekeeping force to quell deadly unrest in the central Asian country.Earlier, security forces in Kazakhstan killed dozens of protesters trying to storm government buildings ov...

Researchers in China say they have developed an industrial robot that can read a human co-worker’s mind with 96 per cent accuracy.The robot not only monitored the worker’s brain waves, but also collected electric signals from muscles, as it worke...

Ghislaine Maxwell, convicted last week of conspiring to recruit and groom teenage girls to be abused by Jeffrey Epstein, intends to request a new trial after revelations by one of the jurors in her case that he was a victim of sexual abuse, her lawye...

US President Joe Biden will turn the screws on Donald Trump by calling him out Thursday for “singular responsibility” in provoking the mayhem on January 6 last year, when the outgoing Republican leader’s supporters stormed Congress.Biden’s de...

People who spend a lifetime in cities like Hong Kong, Shanghai or Beijing might not be able to see the Milky Way with the naked eye during the course of their lives.Light pollution is simply a reality of modern urban life, so much so that some people...

Ahead of the one-year anniversary of the storming of the US Capitol, Twitter has created a new team to review the social networking site for harmful content associated with the event, the company said on Tuesday.Social media platforms including Twitt...

The Duchess of Sussex will receive the nominal sum of £1 (US$1.35) after a court found that Britain’s The Mail on Sunday invaded her privacy.The Guardian newspaper reported the figure on Wednesday, 10 days after The Mail decided to forego further ...

Pope Francis risked the ire of the world’s childless dog and cat owners on Wednesday, suggesting people who substitute pets for children exhibit “a certain selfishness”.Speaking on parenthood during a general audience at the Vatican, Francis la...

The head of Hong Kong’s graft buster has been tapped to lead the International Association of Anti-Corruption Authorities (IAACA).Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) commissioner Simon Peh Yun-lu was elected president of the global bod...

A top Beijing official overseeing Hong Kong affairs has laid out his expectations to a group of newly elected lawmakers in an unprecedented meeting, urging them to cooperate with the executive branch while defending national security.Xia Baolong, dir...