Polls opened in Serbia on Sunday in what is set to be its most fiercely contested parliamentary election in more than 14 years, as a student-led movement seeks to oust the party of veteran leader Aleksandar Vucic. The snap vote is the culmination of ...

The appearance of K-pop singer G-Dragon on electronic billboards in major Chinese cities despite Beijing’s K-pop ban points at a contrast between political shadows clouding international relations and actual commercial linkages in East Asia. Amid t...

Mainland China’s state media and armed forces staged a concerted publicity campaign on Sunday to mark “Taiwan Restoration Day”, the anniversary of the end of Japanese rule. October 25 was formally established by Beijing as an official memorial ...

Filipinos are almost evenly divided over the Marcos administration’s handling of the maritime dispute with China, even as nearly three in four favour diplomacy over confrontation, according to a new survey. That preference has taken on added signif...

Veteran Hong Kong stock commentator Louie Shum Chun-ying has died aged 66, with a police source revealing he had a history of heart disease and diabetes. His twin sister confirmed on Sunday that he died on Saturday night at Ruttonjee Hospital in Wan ...

Canadian singer The Weeknd surprised concertgoers in Hong Kong on Saturday with a new song inspired by the city, evoking nostalgia among local music fans. Abel Tesfaye – the Canadian singer, songwriter, record producer and actor known professionall...

The China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has expressed interest in financing projects in the Northern Metropolis mega development, Hong Kong’s finance chief has said. Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po also told the media on Sunda...

Israel said on Sunday all land crossings with the West Bank will be closed on the day of next week’s election, as it pledged a harder line on militancy after Palestinian gunmen killed two soldiers in the territory. The announcement came a day after...

About 1 million employees in Hong Kong will be allowed to move their entire Mandatory Provident Fund (MPF) balance to a different provider once a year under the “full portability” arrangement, effective from December 21 for the first phase of imp...

Hong Kong’s major property developers are shifting investment in mainland China from residential projects to commercial assets, including hospitality, as weak home sales and fewer attractive investment opportunities prompt them to focus on existing...

The tanker detained by Indonesian authorities that was used in an attempt to smuggle 1.16 tonnes of ketamine is owned by a Malaysian-registered company. Bukit Aman Narcotics Crime Investigation Department director Hussein Omar Khan said the two direc...

Tran Dai Thang spotted two young people who had picked up their drinks at a pop-up cafe beside his travelling bookstore and were about to leave, so he called them over. One of them said they did not read books, Thang recalled. But he kept the convers...

Hong Kong’s regulator for in vitro fertilisation (IVF) has referred a case to law enforcement agencies after a mainland Chinese influencer was suspected of offering to bring non-local surrogate mothers of LGBTQ parents to give birth in the city. Ta...

President Donald Trump defended his decision to wield tariffs during a campaign rally in Georgia, saying they have made the US richer, as he announced that Volkswagen agreed to build a new US$4.2 billion Audi plant in the state. “Think of that. 200...

Beijing has a formula for tackling African conflicts and hot-button issues, and during a meeting this month with Togolese leader Faure Gnassingbe, Chinese President Xi Jinping outlined it in four principles linking peace to development. The principle...

Sherry Shum has embraced a new shopping routine after finding a smart vending machine near her home in Chai Wan. The 37-year-old retail worker uses her phone to scan a QR code, opens the smart machine’s door, picks up a bottle of Coca-Cola, an oolo...

Before the outbreak of the war triggered by the US-Israeli attack on Iran in February, the Gulf monarchies were living the prosperity dream that was the envy of the world. Their hydrocarbon-fuelled economies were glitzy oases of growth, inoculated fr...

Singapore expects all parties who have signed commercial contracts for gas supplies to “honour their commitments”, said Prime Minister Lawrence Wong on Sunday after Indonesia cut its exports. Speaking at the People’s Action Party (PAP) conventi...

A woman in eastern China has been devotedly caring for her daughter-in-law for 17 years, ever since she fell into a vegetative state, moving social media users. The younger woman, surnamed Xu, fell into a vegetative state in 2009 after being struck b...

Young Chinese people enjoy Japanese pop culture such as anime and music, but many draw a firm line at symbols of Japanese militarism. That line was tested recently at Moscow State University, where Chinese students confronted a classmate wearing Japa...

Ayumi lives alone in a spacious suburban house originally bought to raise a family, her two cats now her only full-time companions. Her two daughters have grown up and left home, and her husband of more than two decades moved out nearly a year ago as...

Hong Kong’s civil service has long enjoyed a reputation for efficiency, professionalism and probity. It has also been a pillar of stability, particularly during the transition from British to Chinese rule. Outside the general and administrative gra...

Hong Kong schools handled an average of 496 bullying cases each academic year from 2022 to 2025 – a 32 per cent jump compared with the previous three years, according to the Education Bureau. A youth group attributed the increase to greater reporti...

Singapore is turning to major technology firms to strengthen its cyber defences, even as it presses them for greater transparency over security breaches – a balancing act facing regional governments as they seek to harness artificial intelligence w...

Former US president Barack Obama delivered a scathing critique of his successor, Donald Trump, at a rally in Ohio on Saturday to support Democratic candidates ahead of the November 3 midterm elections. “After two years of chaos and cruelty and corr...

Plenary sessions of the Central Committee, the upper echelon of China’s ruling Communist Party, are major events on the country’s political calendar. In the fourth part of this series, William Zheng looks at how the next generation of the party i...

US President Donald Trump cast his ballot for the midterm elections in Palm Beach on Saturday, opting to vote early in his adopted home state of Florida. At rallies ahead of Election Day on November 3, Trump has been urging Republicans to cast their ...

On October 18, Anthropic, the artificial intelligence (AI) laboratory preparing one of the largest listings in history, committed 5 per cent of its shares to a public benefit fund. The next day, Elon Musk promised one SpaceX share, next year, for “...

Elon Musk said on Saturday that his company SpaceX had throttled the Starlink satellite internet service in Ukraine, disrupting operations that the country relies on to defend itself against Russia. Musk’s admission on social media came after Ukrai...

Firefighters battled on Saturday to put out flames that tore through Adolf Hitler’s “Eagle’s Nest” mountain retreat while police detained a suspect who investigators said may have psychiatric problems. The alarm was raised late on Friday at t...

Police have arrested a 34-year-old man who allegedly mixed rat poison into food left for stray cats in a Kowloon park and was found in possession of a knife. The force said it received a report at around 3.30am on Saturday that a man was suspected of...

Houthi media reported that Saudi strikes killed 11 people in Yemeni capital Sanaa on Saturday, shortly after the Saudi-led coalition fighting them said it had intercepted two missiles targeting Saudi cities. The Houthis’ Al-Masirah outlet reported ...

Parts of two installations in a controversial lighting project along a walking trail on The Peak have been removed, days after Hong Kong’s tourism authorities pledged to balance the community’s needs and said the scheme was not “set in stone”...

Fighter jets typically house their main radars behind a radome in the nose, while conventional airborne early-warning aircraft often carry large radar arrays in prominent structures above the fuselage. Although aircraft wings offer a large surface ar...

A prominent Chinese economist’s social media channel has been restricted as Beijing steps up regulatory scrutiny of financial market influencers. Chinese internet users on Saturday noticed that the WeChat account of Ren Zeping, known for his outspo...

Over nearly four decades, Operation Santa Claus (OSC) has grown from a quirky holiday fundraiser into an “engine” for community change in Hong Kong. For some beneficiaries, the journey was a full circle. Rachel Chow Chiu-yan learned about the fun...

Protests across France were largely peaceful on Saturday, despite heightened tensions and sporadic clashes between protesters and the police, but authorities remained on high alert as night fell. The French Interior Ministry counted 410,000 people wh...

A Japanese fashion style inspired by historical European clothing is finding a growing following in Europe, where enthusiasts are embracing its elaborate designs and forming communities around their shared passion for lace, frills and intricate outfi...

Halloween has arrived early in Hong Kong, with costumed revellers and families thronging the city’s streets a week early and some establishments seeing business increase by up to 20 per cent. The streets of Central were packed on Saturday as visito...

Taiwan should not rely on a single foreign satellite provider for critical wartime communications, analysts have warned, after sudden restrictions on the use of Elon Musk’s Starlink disrupted Ukrainian drone operations. The episode has renewed deba...

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un visited the Chinese border city of Dandong on Saturday, with both sides underlining their traditional friendship and calling to boost cooperation. The trip, Kim’s first visit to China in more than a year, comes ahead...

Indonesia cut exports of natural gas to Singapore on Saturday to prioritise domestic demand, an official said, with the two countries at loggerheads over regional air pollution emanating from wildfires on the vast archipelago. The head of SKK Migas, ...

When Grant Newsham, a retired US Marine colonel and security analyst, sat down for an interview that aired last month, he called China’s economic rise illusory and said there were “600 million Chinese at least who live on US$5 a day or less”. H...

Animal sacrifice has played a major role in human history, from mythological stories about Odysseus to modern rituals such as Nepal’s Gadhimai Festival. The tradition also dates back to ancient peoples we know little about. A research paper publish...

Just weeks before Donald Trump’s second trip to China this year and his third meeting with President Xi Jinping, whom he has called a “truly great” friend, his administration is intensifying its crackdown on Confucius Institutes – Beijing-bac...

Hong Kong and mainland Chinese police have arrested 33 people in a joint crackdown on a syndicate that allegedly stole credit cards from residents who had travelled north to Shenzhen, with losses exceeding HK$1.8 million (US$229,500). Superintendent ...

Typhoon Champi continued to batter China’s eastern coast on Saturday, grounding over a hundred flights and prompting the authorities to relocate tens of thousands of people, while weakening as it moved towards Japan. Flights from airports in Shangh...

In a rare overnight vote, the Czech ruling coalition pushed public media funding changes through a first parliamentary hurdle despite criticism that they could weaken broadcaster independence. The populist government of billionaire Prime Minister And...

The anxiety gripping Seoul is palpable. Under US pressure, South Korea signed a US$350 billion investment deal last November for a 10-percentage-point tariff reduction, billing it as a strategic alliance. Barely a year on, the facade has crumbled. La...

France is bracing for another day of mass protests on Saturday, with the government promising that 70,000 police and gendarmes will be deployed across the country amid fears that last weekend’s scenes of violence and looting could repeat themselves...