A former US Marine Corps captain who authorities say travelled to Cambodia in 2005 to drug, rape and otherwise sexually abuse young girls was sentenced on Monday to 210 years in federal prison.Michael Joseph Pepe, 68, has been in federal custody sinc...

Musician An Chi-hwan’s new rock number, “Lady Who Looks like Michael Jackson,” is causing rather a stir, with presidential hopeful Yoon Suk-yeol apparently fuming as the song allegedly satirises his wife Kim Keon-hee.Facing multiple allegations...

When Beijing was awarded the 2022 Winter Olympics seven years ago, it was hailed as the crowning glory for the Chinese capital, making the city the first in the world to stage both the Summer and Winter Games.In 2008, the Games was seen as a coming-o...

Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s recent purchase of a Rolls-Royce Cullinan – one of the world’s most expensive SUVs at US$1.8 million – was a reminder of the enduring appeal of luxury cars as a status symbol.Such is the passion of Asia’s ...

Taiwan has joined the United States and Australia in backing a European Union case against mainland China at the World Trade Organization over Beijing’s alleged trade curbs on Lithuania, its foreign ministry said on Tuesday.The EU launched a challe...

China and New Zealand have ratified an upgrade of their long-standing trade deal, as Beijing pushes to expand its global trade network to fortify its economy during prolonged tensions with the US and other countries.In a brief statement on Tuesday, t...

An Indonesian court Tuesday sentenced a teacher to life in prison for the rape of 13 students, in a case that has drawn national attention to sexual abuse in some of the country’s religious boarding schools.Bandung district court in West Java found...

China has logged 80 new confirmed Covid-19 cases and no new deaths, according to health authorities, as many parts of the rest of the world struggle to contain the spread of the Omicron variant.Among the 80 new confirmed cases reported on Tuesday, 40...

Some 400 taxi drivers will be recruited to ferry Covid-19 patients with mild symptoms to and from designated government outpatient clinics under a new plan aimed at easing the strain of Hong Kong’s fifth wave of infections on local hospitals.The ta...

Australia on Tuesday urged China to denounce Russian threats against Ukraine, as Russia’s envoy to the European Union said the country would “respond” if its citizens started being killed.“We will not invade Ukraine unless we are provoked to ...

The former chief steward at the residence of Hong Kong’s No 2 official has received 80 hours of community service for stealing electronic appliances from the premises for his own use.Wong Wai-kuen returned to Eastern Court on Tuesday to be sentence...

Hong Kong’s No 2 official went into home isolation on Tuesday after his domestic helper tested preliminary-positive for Covid-19.Chief Secretary John Lee Ka-chiu and his family also carried out rapid coronavirus tests and returned negative results,...

Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing has started companywide lay-offs as the company seeks to delist from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) amid an unresolved cybersecurity probe by Beijing, according to two employees familiar with the matter.The...

Hong Kong’s leader has once again refused to say whether she will seek re-election, insisting that managing the “critical” coronavirus pandemic situation is her top priority.Even as she kept the public guessing as to the line-up of the fast-app...

Most Japanese want to keep strict virus border controls, according to a poll, with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida saying at the weekend he was looking to ease one of the most stringent policies in the developed world.About 57 per cent of respondents to...

Hong Kong police have launched a citywide manhunt for two men after a suspected triad member suffered multiple cut wounds in a knife attack.The 36-year-old victim, believed to be a Wo Shing Wo triad member, was ambushed at about 11.30pm on Monday whe...

Companies offering household cleaning services should devise clearer and more flexible contractual agreements with clients given the increased likelihood of unforeseeable pandemic-related disruptions, Hong Kong’s consumer watchdog has said.Citing a...

In his before life – as an actor on a popular satirical TV show – he was the accidental president, a history teacher whose online rant about corruption went viral and unexpectedly catapulted him to Ukraine’s highest office.Now, Volodymyr Zelens...

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen’s eldest son and heir Hun Manet began his visit to Tokyo on Monday with a meeting with Japan’s foreign minister, where both agreed to cooperate on the worsening political and human rights crisis in Myanmar.No deta...

Dominic Lumabi sits on the computer in his Manila bedroom pitting his puffer fishlike cartoon NFT characters against others. But this is not just a game – he is earning cryptocurrency to support his family during the pandemic.The source of his inco...

A former US Navy engineer admitted in federal court on Monday that he tried to sell secrets about nuclear submarines to a foreign power, the Justice Department said.Jonathan Toebbe, 43, pleaded guilty before a federal judge, more than four months aft...

Hong Kong will send Covid-19 patients to public housing blocks, hotels and health clinics to ease the strain on the hospital system, authorities have revealed, as they reported more than 1,600 confirmed cases and 5,400 suspected infections on Tuesday...

Holding her crying one-year-old son, Lam called an ambulance and rushed to hospital in the early hours of Saturday morning, fearing her child had been infected with the coronavirus after he developed a high fever.But the pair were forced to return ho...

[Sponsored article] Schoolchildren have been one of the groups most affected as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. The closure of classrooms and strict social-distancing measures have forced children to stay home while their teachers provide lessons...

Unsurprisingly, leaders around the world have emphasised following science as a key to facing the Covid-19 pandemic.Last week, in response to a group of anti-vaccine truckers protesting in Ottawa, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said: “You c...

Temasek Holdings trimmed its stake in Alibaba Group Holding last quarter while the stock slumped to new lows, and added Chinese e-c0mmerce rivals Pinduoduo and JD.com to its portfolio, according to its latest 13F filing.The Singapore state investment...

A video of a woman being violently dragged from a home she shared with her prospective husband because he apparently could not afford a 500,000 yuan (US$78,600) bride price went viral on the Chinese internet over the weekend.Amid a torrent of outrage...

Myanmar will not participate in this week’s meetings in Cambodia of foreign ministers from Asean, spurning an invitation to send a non-political representative instead of its chief diplomat, its government said Monday.Cambodia, the current Asean ch...

Mainland Chinese officials will share their experience in conducting lockdowns of small districts as part of the cross-border help being ironed out and it is likely the city’s Covid-19 testing capacity will need to be ramped up to at least 700,000 ...

The official 22-day campaign period begins on Tuesday to elect South Korea's 20th president on March 9. The results will be closely watched by numerous foreign countries due to the substantial foreign policy differences between the ruling liberal cam...

A Shenzhen-listed company has stirred controversy by developing a system that can predict whether an employee is about to resign by spying on activities, such as browsing job recruitment pages and sending job application emails.The system, built by S...

Astronomy experts say they originally misread the secrets of the night sky last month: it turns out that a rocket expected to crash into the moon in early March was built by China, not SpaceX.A rocket will indeed strike the lunar surface on March 4, ...

With Hong Kong aflutter in the Omicron crosshairs and pressure from the mainland to emulate its “dynamic zero-Covid” approach, the city is split once again along well-entrenched fault lines.Pundits argue that staying in lockstep with Beijing is n...

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau activated rarely used emergency powers in an effort to end protests that have shut some US border crossings and paralysed parts of the capital.Under the Emergencies Act, the government introduced measures intend...

China has revealed expanded plans to lift its universities to world-class level and nurture a wide range of disciplines as part of its push to create a higher education sector to support the country’s economic development.The plan issued on Monday ...

A US judge on Monday threw out Sarah Palin’s lawsuit accusing The New York Times of defaming the former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican US vice-presidential candidate by incorrectly linking her in an editorial to a mass murder.US District Judge...

When US Secretary of State Antony Blinken pledged to expand Washington’s presence in the Pacific nations last week, he was quick to stress that this move was not fuelled by security concerns.Rather, the United States sees its “long-term future in...

Warning of “dramatic acceleration in the build-up of Russian forces” on Ukraine’s border, the United States on Monday announced it was closing its embassy in the capital city of Kyiv out of fear for the safety of its diplomats.Meanwhile, Ukrain...

A woman was stabbed to death inside her New York apartment by a man who followed her from the street into her building, authorities said.Christina Yuna Lee, 35, was found fatally wounded in her bathtub at about 4.30am on Sunday, police said.The suspe...

US prosecutors told a jury on Monday that a former Goldman Sachs executive pocketed US$35 million in “secret kickbacks” in the multibillion-dollar ransacking of a Malaysian state investment fund, accusing the banker of playing a “crucial” rol...

When Muzaffer Kayasan first caught Covid-19, he thought he was destined to die since he was already suffering from leukaemia.Fourteen months and 78 straight positive tests later, he is still alive – and still battling to shake off the infection.Kay...

Call it the Olympic torch that ignited more international acrimony than the promotion of ideals that its charter aims to represent.China’s decision to tap a member of its Uygur community to light the torch apparently played well domestically, but o...

Grappling with a population crisis and plunging birth rate, China is embracing a pronatalist policy that could see it lift highly restrictive and controversial policies on women donating and freezing their eggs.Public support has also been growing on...

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz says there are currently no plans to admit Ukraine to Western alliances such as Nato, despite what Moscow might imply with its security demands in the Ukraine crisis.“That is why it is somewhat peculiar to observe that...

A large robotic snake of unprecedented strength, flexibility and lifespan has been built to explore space, the Chinese research team behind the project said amid long-running concerns about China’s potential to damage other nations’ satellites.Th...

French police shot dead a man who lunged at them early on Monday with a long-blade knife at Paris’s Gare du Nord railway station, police sources said.The man attacked two police officers on patrol at the station, one of Europe’s busiest, with a 3...

A metaverse app that topped the download charts in Chinese app stores last week said it has taken itself off the shelves because of online attacks and the need to improve user experiences.In a statement posted on its official Weibo account, Jelly –...

Hong Kong’s acting home affairs minister has said a study exploring how the city can combat fake news or disinformation online by examining overseas experience will be completed by June.The study is looking at options such as criminalising the spre...

China is giving new impetus to its trillion-dollar campaign to revitalise the nation’s vast countryside, by calling on banks to lend more money for rural infrastructure projects in the coming years, as the nation tries to leverage such investments ...

Recent severe cases of coronavirus infections involving young children in Hong Kong have sparked concern among parents.Long waiting times for hospital treatment have also left parents wondering if they should let children as young as three get vaccin...