The excitement around SpaceX, fuelled by the targeted US$1.8 trillion valuation for its initial public offering and its promising Starship rocket development, has revived a familiar claim: that SpaceX is on course to dominate the space market. Commer...

MiniMax Group, the Chinese artificial intelligence model company, has officially kicked off plans to sell shares in mainland China. This offers onshore investors access to AI players beyond chipmakers and completes a dual-listing status in addition t...

Members of Asean might have conflicting claims in the South China Sea but mutual trust exists in the bloc, Philippine defence chief Gilberto Teodoro Jnr said on Sunday, singling out Beijing as the biggest obstacle to a code of conduct in the disputed...

A Chinese woman said she was nearly killed by a fishing line while riding past a crowded bridge, sparking safety concerns online. The woman surnamed Wang, from Hangzhou, eastern China’s Zhejiang province, shared her hair-raising experience on the n...

Hong Kong could welcome the astronauts of the Shenzhou-23 mission, including the city’s history-making payload specialist, as early as the first half of next year, the technology chief has said. Secretary for Innovation, Technology and Industry Sun...

Malaysia’s Defence Minister Mohamed Khaled Nordin slammed the international community’s “muted” response on Sunday at a security forum over Norway’s decision to scrap a missile deal with Kuala Lumpur. In a charged speech at the Shangri-La D...

Hong Kong’s largest non-profit organisation, the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals, will give HK$30,000 (US$3,827) to residents displaced by the deadly Tai Po fire who agree to transfer ownership of their flats to the government, its chief executive has ...

Hong Kong is considering launching a new offshore renminbi venture fund to channel capital into cutting-edge technology and emerging industries while also supporting the internationalisation of the yuan, the finance chief has said. The initiative wou...

Japan’s defence minister has rejected suggestions that his country is reviving its militaristic past, telling a regional security conference that changes to its defence strategy would allow it to play a new cooperative role. Shinjiro Koizumi also u...

“I cannot come to you,” Katie Williams was told, seconds after her Grab driver had accepted her request for a ride in Canggu. “I cannot come to you. You need to come meet me.” Williams, an Australian tourist in her mid-thirties, explained thr...

When Scottish doctor Alexander Fleming accidentally discovered the first antibiotic in 1928, he changed the course of history, extending global life expectancy by decades and saving millions of lives on the battlefield and beyond. But humanity’s de...

Organisers of South Korea’s renowned Yeoju Ceramic Festival have apologised after Chinese-made ceramic products were distributed as giveaway prizes at an event intended to promote the country’s pottery heritage, sparking public backlash and onlin...

In Cotonou, Benin’s largest city and economic capital located on the southern Atlantic coast, construction crews are busy building major projects, stretching from large-scale port upgrades to the asphalt-paving of the commercial hub’s main roads....

Alibaba Group and Uefa are bringing the Chinese giant’s 360-degree replay technology to football, after signing an exclusive six-year deal covering several major tournaments in Europe. The partnership, which has been widely reported in state media,...

Hong Kong’s student housing sector is entering a new phase as larger institutional-style deals emerge from the city’s distressed commercial property market, signalling that professional investors are cautiously returning after years of falling as...

AI is getting expensive – and companies are starting to rethink their embrace of the disruptive technology. Playing by a well-worn Silicon Valley playbook, artificial intelligence companies charged rock-bottom prices to hook customers after ChatGPT...

As artificial intelligence strains the physical limits of existing data centres, scientists and investors are turning to the ultimate speed limit of the universe for the next computing frontier: light. For Mi Lei, founder of CAS Star, a venture capit...

India ⁠has signed ⁠a deal with Vietnam under which it will supply BrahMos missiles which it has jointly ‌developed with Russia and is in “final stages” for a similar deal with Indonesia, India’s Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh said o...

Hongkonger Susan Tam, 70, used to wake in the middle of the night, desperate for relief from an unbearable, relentless itch caused by her cancer medication. Tam, diagnosed with lung cancer a few months ago, tried applying regular moisturiser to sooth...

Washington’s plans to work with allies on warship design and construction face steep opposition at home, but analysts warn that the US must outsource shipbuilding to South Korea and Japan if it wants to close its gap in fleet size with China. The U...

Mass media commonly portrays Southeast Asia as an exciting, adventure-fuelled and culturally rich region – if often an exoticised one – for inhabitants and visitors alike. The final section of the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute’s State of Sout...

South Korea and the United States are heading into talks in Seoul next week with different priorities over the implementation of last year’s summit agreement, with President Lee Jae Myung pushing for the supply of nuclear-powered submarines and Was...

Hong Kong families in the United Kingdom and Canada are facing deep uncertainty due to shifting immigration policies and the rising cost of living, and some are looking for alternative destinations to settle. Property agents said Spain’s Non-Lucrat...

Across East Asia, societies are becoming richer, healthier and more educated, yet fewer people feel able or willing to have families and raise children. Low fertility plagues high-income societies, particularly in East Asia, where the total fertility...

New Zealand does not have the fiscal headroom to increase defence spending to the levels the US might expect, Finance Minister Nicola Willis said. US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth told delegates at an Asia security forum in Singapore on Saturday tha...

The mystique of Central Asia and its deepening business ties with mainland China have prompted more Hongkongers to choose the region for holidays, according to travel agency heads. They were also optimistic that Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu’s h...

A woman in eastern China has been left unable to sleep with her eyes shut and is constantly crying because of a bungled double eyelid operation she underwent six years ago. The woman, surnamed Wang, drew wide attention on mainland social media after ...

The Trump administration has walked back its announcement that non-citizens seeking permanent US residency, commonly called a green card, would need to return to their home country to apply, The New York Times reported. The Department of Homeland Sec...

The Philippines is no stranger to politically weaponised memes and internet trolls. What has changed is the way information warfare is waged, now requiring nothing more than a smartphone and a well-crafted prompt. Supporters of former president Rodri...

The world is not “well prepared” for the next pandemic, Tom Frieden, the former head of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said, citing the current response to the Ebola outbreak and cuts to US public health efforts. “This Ebola out...

When China broke out one of its “big guns” in last year’s trade war with the US – an array of export controls on rare earth elements – it helped spur a temporary truce in the pitched conflict between the two economic superpowers. After Beij...

Russia’s state ⁠nuclear energy company Rosatom said on Saturday that a Ukrainian drone had struck the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Europe’s largest, causing no damage to key equipment, but the Kyiv military ‌denied it. Rosat...

Think of Hong Kong as a living dictionary. Every old arcade, footbridge and mixed-use tong lau, or tenement building, is an entry worth studying. As the city embarks on another redevelopment cycle, we should be leafing more carefully – not erasing ...

US President Donald Trump ⁠will headline an event commemorating the ⁠nation’s 250th anniversary on the National Mall next month after several musical performers scheduled to appear in the celebration cancelled, citing concerns about its associa...

Pop culture fans packed the inaugural Hong Kong edition of Comic Con, an exhibition featuring international and local animated figures and products, fuelling hopes among digital entertainment vendors that business will be strong over the three-day ev...

The world can learn diplomatic lessons from Asean, East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta has said in a strongly worded rebuke to existing global power structures. At the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on Saturday, Ramos-Horta, who leads the newest ...

Hong Kong should urgently address its bottlenecks in developing a yacht economy by improving immigration procedures, upgrading mooring facilities and curating niche tourism itineraries following Beijing’s policy relaxation on yachts from the city s...

The world faces challenges from “hegemonism” and “bloc confrontation” driven by “certain countries”, China’s delegation to Asia’s premier security conference said on Saturday, without directly naming the United States. Major General M...

Sri Lanka’s Buddhist hierarchy suspended on Saturday a senior monk accused of sexually abusing an 11-year-old girl, in a high-profile case that has shocked the religiously conservative nation. In a rare disciplinary move, 71-year-old Pallegama Hema...

Hundreds of vulnerable children in Hong Kong are waiting for temporary homes, a local charity has said, urging more households from diverse backgrounds to step forward as demand for foster placements continues to outstrip supply. Mother’s Choice sa...

The US agency set up to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative is blending national security with development finance to try to secure a critical minerals supply chain, according to analysts and officials. Created in 2019 during President Donald ...

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Saturday expressed her determination to achieve a “breakthrough” in resolving the long-standing issue of Japanese nationals abducted by North Korea, vowing to weigh all options, including summit talks. At a rally ...

Five villagers trapped deep in a flooded cave in Laos have been freed, ending a 10-day underground ordeal that relied on expert cave rescuers racing against time to guide the group through flooded passages before fresh rains further complicated the m...

The popular scheme allowing Hong Kong vehicles to travel north to Guangdong province has been extended by five years, mainland Chinese authorities have announced, as the initial three-year period is set to expire. Under the Northbound Travel for Hong...

China has pledged to improve the accuracy, reliability and transparency of AI through a new national evaluation framework, as policymakers move to establish common standards for assessing the fast-evolving technology. New guidelines released by the c...

Liu Bin, a Chinese archaeologist credited with discovering a vast 5,000-year-old prehistoric city that rewrote the history of Chinese civilisation, has pleaded guilty to taking bribes and embezzlement. The celebrated academic, who discovered the Lian...

The body of a dead humpback whale known as “Timmy” has been brought ashore on the Danish island of Anholt, where experts hope a postmortem examination will shed light on how it died. A live streaming by the News5 broadcaster showed a vehicle slow...

Seventeen countries have agreed to collaborate on defence strategies for critical marine infrastructure such as undersea cables, an effort that analysts warn may be undermined by the absence of superpower involvement. At the Shangri-La Dialogue in Si...

There is a good deal more to the rapid rise in bond yields around the world, not least in Asia, than meets the eye. It suggests a recognition by financial markets that governments are spending beyond their means, tax revenues and borrowing power. The...

America’s latest defence strategy worryingly downgraded the importance of the Indo-Pacific, a US senator warned on Saturday, even as the Pentagon chief delivered a speech reassuring allies of commitment at a defence forum in Singapore. Tammy Duckwo...