The average waiting time for a public housing flat in Hong Kong can be reduced from 5.9 to 3.7 years if 120,000 homes are built by 2025 through streamlining the development process, a think tank has said.Our Hong Kong Foundation suggested in a report...

The body of a teenager who was sold by his birth parents as a baby and deserted by them again after a recent reunion was found on a beach in the southern Chinese island province of Hainan early Monday morning.Liu Xuezhou, 17, apparently committed sui...

Hong Kong’s chief justice on Monday defended the arrangement which allows the city leader to handpick judges hearing national security cases and dismissed what he described as “unsubstantiated doubts” over judicial independence.“Criticisms of...

Thailand and Saudi Arabia will hold their first high-level talks in decades on Tuesday when Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha travels to Riyadh, more than 30 years after a diplomatic row over a US$20 million jewel theft soured relations.The “Blue Di...

Hong Kong children were given a peek into the world of magic and the secrets behind popular tricks such as the disappearing coin during a workshop last month.The event, hosted by magician and mentalist Zenneth Kok on November 27, was part of the perf...

Six more Winter Olympics arrivals have tested positive for Covid-19 at Beijing’s main airport, including a team member, bringing the total number of cases among participants to 78.It is not known if the team member is an athlete or official, but th...

Hong Kong police on Monday morning arrested a man the day after he allegedly slashed two people in unprovoked attacks with a box cutter in Sham Shui Po.After identifying the suspect using CCTV footage, officers in protective vests and armed with body...

Australia recorded another surge of Covid-19 deaths on Monday as an outbreak of the highly contagious Omicron variant peaked, and authorities warned numbers could rise further when schools return from end-of-year holidays next week.The world’s No. ...

Complaints from residents of the Omicron-hit Kwai Chung Estate about unhygienic conditions during an unprecedented lockdown there have continued to pour in, with some voicing fears that the chaotic arrangements at the site will only make the burgeoni...

An Australian man pleaded guilty on Monday to a charge of abducting a 4-year-old girl from an outback campsite, the Western Australia justice department said, speeding up the resolution of a case that shocked the country.Terence Darrell Kelly, 36, pl...

The core feuding members of late Hong Kong tycoon Henry Fok Ying-tung’s family have reached an “agreement in principle” towards resolving their ongoing court battle over his HK$11.3 billion (US$1.45 billion) estate.The High Court heard on Monda...

The political future of Hong Kong’s home affairs chief – the most senior official swept up in an embarrassing scandal that landed him and several colleagues in quarantine – appears far from certain, with a source saying he would not be returnin...

The Chinese government is increasingly relying on small technology firms to drive future innovation as regulators keep up pressure on the country’s Big Tech companies.The government plans to give more support to “micro, small, and medium-sized te...

As many as 39 People’s Liberation Army warplanes flew into Taiwan’s air defence zone on Sunday, prompting the island’s air force to scramble jets and aim missiles to disperse them.According to Taiwan’s defence ministry, the warplanes – incl...

Malaysian casino magnate and billionaire Lim Kok Thay has resigned from insolvent cruise and shipbuilding concern Genting Hong Kong, days after the company filed to wind up its business in one of the biggest stumbles by a cruise operator since the pa...

The United Arab Emirates intercepted two ballistic missiles claimed by Yemen’s Houthi rebels over the skies of Abu Dhabi early Monday, authorities said, the second attack in a week that targeted the Emirati capital.The missile fire further escalate...

Burkina Faso President Roch Kabore has been detained at a military camp by mutinying soldiers, two security sources and a West African diplomat said on Monday, following heavy gunfire around his residence on Sunday night in the capital Ouagadougou.Se...

Malaysia’s security threats are now coming from the sea, including incursions into its waters by Chinese coastguard ships and by armed gunmen, but the country remains stuck on “jungle warfare” with security resources concentrated on Peninsular ...

[Sponsored Article] The world we live and work in is changing fast: on the horizon are metaverse, exponential growth in robotics applications, and rapidly disappearing traditional jobs. What can education practitioners do to ensure the next genera...

The popular Chinese messaging application WeChat appears to have blocked access to Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s account, leading one senator to call for a parliament-wide boycott of the service.Senator James Paterson, chair of the Par...

French designer Thierry Mugler, who reigned over fashion in the 1980s and died on Sunday, was as famous for his fantastical couture as for his blockbuster fashion shows. He was 73. Mugler’s daring collections came to define the decade’s power dr...

In the annals of reconciliation between two former warring nations, Vietnam today stands out as one of the United States’ most critical partners in the Asia-Pacific. America is the Southeast Asian country’s largest export market and one of its cl...

The US State Department announced it was ordering diplomats’ family members to leave Ukraine, as US President Joe Biden weighed options for boosting America’s military assets in Eastern Europe to counter a build-up of Russian troops.The order, wh...

China’s military pledged loyalty to the ruling Communist Party and vowed to continue the anti-corruption campaign to show support before the party’s national congress this year, state media reported.The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) should fur...

Prices of debentures issued by international schools in Hong Kong have plummeted by as much as 40 per cent from their peaks, with consultants attributing the drop to the city’s closed borders and a wave of emigration.The consultants, who specialise...

African countries have ignored Washington’s call for a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics, instead expressing support for China’s hosting of the Games and warning that the event should not be a platform for politics.In the last wee...

Calm has returned to the Solomon Islands almost two months after anti-government riots shook its capital of Honiara.A Chinese trader living in the Solomons said the streets were now safer and many Chinese had been able to reopen businesses that were ...

Swindlers laundered nearly HK$29 billion (US$3.72 billion) conned from more than 10,100 victims of internet, phone and investment scams in Hong Kong and abroad through local bank accounts and cryptocurrency wallets over the past 4½ years, police fig...

A Hong Kong developer which battled for three decades for the right to build homes on an ecological wetland site has urged the government to issue a strong town planning directive to override discord between departments and solve the city’s housing...

Thousands of farmers protested against the government’s agricultural policy in Spain on Sunday.Farmers and cattle breeders marched along the boulevards Paseo de la Castellana and Paseo del Prado in Madrid before gathering in front of the Agricultur...

A stowaway was discovered in the wheel section under the front of a Cargolux freight plane that arrived at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport from Africa on Sunday, Dutch military police said.“The man is doing well considering the circumstances and has...

The body of the French adventurer trying to row across the Atlantic has not been recovered, the Portuguese navy said on Sunday, a day after his support team said he had been found dead in his boat.“The search ended at the end of the day yesterday (...

When China’s DF-17 ballistic missile featured in a military parade in 2019, it became the first country in the world to publicly reveal a hypersonic weapon.China also recently announced it had made breakthroughs in heat-seeking technology for such ...

Han Solo stepped on a twig in the forest of Endor, alerting an Imperial scout trooper who promptly jumped on a Speeder bike, kicking off one of the most exciting chase sequences in 1983’s Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. Newly created special effects...

The Omicron variant has moved the Covid-19 pandemic into a new phase and could bring it to an end in Europe, the World Health Organization Europe director said on Sunday.“It’s plausible that the region is moving towards a kind of pandemic endgame...

A senior French surgeon faces legal action and a possible disciplinary charge after attempting to sell an X-ray of a concertgoer who was shot during the 2015 attack on the Bataclan music hall in Paris.Orthopaedic surgeon Emmanuel Masmejean, who pract...

Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Sunday rejected a British claim that the Kremlin is seeking to replace Ukraine’s government with a pro-Moscow administration, and that former Ukrainian politician Yevheniy Murayev is a potential candidate.Britain’s ...

The US House investigation into the deadly assault on the US Capitol will share with federal prosecutors any evidence of potential crimes aimed at pushing false Republican electors in states won by Democratic President Joe Biden, the committee’s ch...

Hong Kong police have launched an investigation after a man was caught on camera spitting on residents’ doors in a block of flats.The five-second clip, apparently taken by a security camera, was posted on Sunday evening on a Kwai Chung community Fa...

A fire erupted at a popular nightclub in the Cameroon capital of Yaounde, setting off explosions that killed at least 17 people and seriously injured seven others, government officials said Sunday.The tragedy comes as the central African country host...

Police fired water cannon and thick clouds of tear gas in Brussels on Sunday to disperse demonstrators protesting against Covid-19 vaccinations and restrictions that aim to curb the fast-spreading Omicron variant.The rally drew about 50,000 people, B...

A rising number of Covid-19 cases were detected at Hong Kong hospitals and care centres for the elderly, with a health expert warning that unvaccinated and older residents were at risk.Respiratory expert Dr Leung Chi-chiu said that outbreaks at care ...

Nearly 2,000km (1,200 miles) from Beijing, over a frozen river separating China and Russia, a steel bridge stands ready for the leaders of the two countries to personally declare it open.No launch date has been announced, but the Kremlin underscored ...

A British lawmaker has said she was fired from a ministerial job in Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative government partly because her Muslim faith was making colleagues uncomfortable, the Sunday Times reported.The allegation added to the tu...

Mounting piles of garbage bags in lift lobbies were among complaints of residents locked down for five days at a coronavirus-stricken Hong Kong public housing estate, with some raising concerns about hygiene and saying the issue also exposed weak lin...

Moroccan university students have broken their silence about professors demanding sexual favours in return for good grades, a scandal that has shaken the higher education system.Testimonies have flooded social media in the style of the #MeToo movemen...

With less than a fortnight to go until the Beijing Winter Olympics, a district in the Chinese capital launched mass coronavirus testing on Sunday as cases spread to two nearby provinces.Authorities in Fengtai district aimed to collect samples from it...

A local official in central China has faced a backlash after threatening detentions for travellers who would normally face quarantine, accusing some of “maliciously” returning home for Lunar New Year.Widely shared video footage of Dong Hong, mayo...

The world’s income and wealth inequality is said to have reached an “alarming” level two years into a global pandemic that has killed at least 5.5 million people.The disparity has proved particularly challenging for Asian countries, forcing Bei...

In the 1990s, Lim Kok Thay started a cruiseferry and gambling boat business in Hong Kong and turned it into one of Asia’s biggest cruise operators.It was a labour of love, as well as a way to diversify the casino business set up by his father, Lim ...