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Germany is planning a broad package of measures to strengthen its defences against drone attacks, cyber intrusions and other forms of Russian sabotage after a failed airport drone attack last month, an interior ministry spokesperson said on Sunday. Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper, which first reported the plans, that Russia’s hybrid attacks had become a par...
China has been urged to draw on the lessons from Ukraine’s communications as it looks at new forms of wartime messaging. A recent study concluded that in the complex modern information environment, possessing advanced technology was not enough because success would depend on “weaving” together the information strategy and military operations. It said such campaigns should try to shatter the advers...
Hong Kong police have arrested a man in connection with a scam in which at least 14 people were hired to “sell flags” for an animal concern group after they were spotted carrying fake donation bags and mixing with registered volunteers to collect money from passers-by. The rare street scam came to light during the group’s flag day on Saturday, a Social Welfare Department-approved fundraising initi...
Elite British universities are prioritising authentic curiosity and academic resilience over rigid test prep and “perfect personal statements”, top admissions officials have told an education summit in Hong Kong. Representatives from the “golden triangle”, including the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge and King’s College London, spoke on day two of the Global Education Summit, co-...
US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner arrived in Kyiv on Sunday in their first official visit to Ukraine as part of a renewed push for peace after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Their trip follows a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Saturday, seeking to revive peace talks during escalating aerial attacks by both sides. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky s...
US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner arrived in Kyiv on Sunday in their first official visit to Ukraine as part of a renewed push for peace after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Their trip follows a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Saturday, seeking to revive peace talks during escalating aerial attacks by both sides. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky s...
China will thwart US ambitions for global artificial intelligence (AI) dominance, the vice-president of the Centre for China and Globalisation has said, while warning that Washington’s military-focused strategy was pushing towards “AI for evil”. Addressing the Penang Peace Dialogue in Malaysia on Sunday, Victor Gao said the US was “weaponising and militarising AI”, and integrating the technology i...
In the fourth instalment of a five-part Health Matters wellness series on Hong Kong’s growing wellness trends, Lo Hoi-ying examines how telehealth is reshaping access to care, as practitioners warn it cannot fully replace in-person diagnosis. Hong Kong housewife Chan Ket-yee, nearly 60, has battled severe eczema on her neck and underarms for decades. Splitting her time between the United Kingdom a...
Hong Kong will step up support for belt and road enterprises seeking to expand into new markets and tap regional growth, reinforcing its role as a pivotal business hub and platform for deeper exchanges, the city’s financial chief has said. In his weekly blog on Sunday, Paul Chan Mo-po also pointed to strong growth in emerging markets and developing economies in recent years, citing International M...
A 92-year-old snack vendor from southwestern China has sparked a debate over online exploitation after vloggers deliberately provoked her to produce sensational videos presenting her as an “evil granny.” This case mirrors a similar “camera bullying” incident last November, where tourists filmed an elderly woman from the Yi ethnic group in traditional clothing on a train, despite her apparent disco...
A study in one of the world’s top scientific journals that concluded China’s policy-driven solar energy expansion was harming bird diversity has come under fire after allegations emerged that the analysis may have used observations of 2.1 billion little egrets in a single park – more than the entire global population of the species. It also brought up heated conversations on social media about neg...
China is using the world’s most powerful geostationary weather satellite to track severe thunderstorms over Nepal and deliver real-time intelligence as the two countries continue search and rescue operations following last month’s devastating glacier collapse. The Fengyun‑4C satellite – launched in December 2025 and now positioned 36,000km (22,000 miles) above the equator – carries a Lightning Map...
There is little in common between Daron Acemoglu and Xi Jinping. As a strong advocate of the Western model of liberal democracy, Acemoglu, co-recipient of the 2024 Nobel Prize in economics, may be considered the ideological opposite of the Chinese president. But on a crucial point about China’s future, the two may, strangely, be on the same page: an across-the-board introduction of cutting-edge te...
Comments by US Federal Reserve chairman Kevin Warsh at its annual economic policy symposium in Jackson Hole last month have reinforced expectations of an impending interest rate rise in the world’s largest economy, which would have significant impacts on assets and investors around the world. While the Fed kept its target rate in the range of 3.5 to 3.75 per cent at its meeting in July, Warsh’s co...
Indonesia halted operations at six airports on Sunday following eruptions from Mount Anak Krakatoa, impacting thousands of passengers. Mount Anak Krakatoa erupted on Saturday, producing a fountain of lava and booming sounds that could be heard up to 700km away, the geology agency said in a statement. Two new eruptions were recorded on Sunday, the volcanology agency warned. Ash from the volcano was...
Hong Kong’s leader has pledged to improve residents’ livelihoods through long-term strategies in the city’s first five-year plan, with concrete measures to be set out in the coming policy address. Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu said on Sunday that the administration would continue to uphold its people-oriented governance philosophy, focus on residents’ needs and push Hong Kong forward. His remar...
Hong Kong labour authorities are open to classifying heatstroke as an occupational disease, the city’s labour chief has said, acknowledging the revamped heat warning system would have triggered stronger alerts on two exceptionally hot days last month. Commissioner for Labour Sam Hui Chark-shum said retrospective modelling showed the revised system would have issued a black warning on August 8 and ...
Iran said on Sunday that its forces attacked a US naval drone trying to enter the Strait of Hormuz, hours after targeting ships in retaliation for American strikes on three oil tankers. The latest round of clashes, which began with US raids last week, comes amid a deadlock in their six-month war. Iran has maintained its stranglehold on the strategic Strait of Hormuz while Washington continues a co...
Fatal cycling accidents in Hong Kong more than doubled in the first half of 2026 compared with a year earlier, with nine deaths recorded, as police point to cyclists ignoring traffic signals and road signs. Overall, there were 59 fatal traffic accidents in the first six months of the year, killing 63 people, up more than 40 per cent from a year earlier. Fatal cases involving bicycles surged 125 pe...
China’s military researchers have proposed a redesigned “AI principles and practice course” for graduate students with “educating for war” at its centre, embedding combat scenarios to better prepare future officers for intelligent warfare. Researchers from the National University of Defence Technology’s College of Intelligence Science and Technology outlined their proposal in the July issue of the...
The US rejected a claim by Malaysia’s opposition Islamist party that Washington once sought to influence the country’s choice of political leadership, calling the allegation false. “The United States has never sought to decide Malaysia’s political leadership,” US embassy in Malaysia Charge d’Affaires David H. Gamble Jnr said in a statement on social media on Sunday. “Any account to the contrary is...
Lawmakers and a government adviser have called for anti-stalking legislation to close a loophole that makes prosecuting repeated harassment difficult in Hong Kong, following the acquittal of a man who followed a teenage girl to her secondary school classroom. Some experts said the government should revisit a proposal for such legislation raised 26 years ago, after the magistrate who acquitted the ...
At Raffly Langi’s family longhouse in Sarawak, on Malaysian Borneo, the tuak rice wine did not come in a branded bottle or a tasting flight. His aunt has brewed the drink for Gawai, the harvest festival celebrated by Dayak communities, an umbrella term for indigenous groups in Sarawak whose longhouses have long been centres of family, rituals and communal life. She made it from steamed glutinous r...
The recent release of classic arcade games on the White House website, which allow players to deport migrants and build a border wall, has stoked more fear and anger among Filipino-Americans, as observers call out the “xenophobic” tactics in US President Donald Trump’s widening immigration crackdown. Analysts and immigrant advocates described the games, unveiled on Thursday, as “frightening”, triv...
An elderly man has died after collapsing while hiking on a scenic yet notoriously challenging trail in southern Hong Kong. Police received a report at 9.13am on Sunday from a passer-by regarding the 72-year-old man surnamed Kwok, who collapsed at Yuk Kwai Shan on Ap Lei Chau. A Government Flying Service helicopter airlifted Kwok, who was unconscious and had sustained scratches to his head and feet...
An elderly man has died after being airlifted to hospital following his collapse while hiking at a popular scenic spot in southern Hong Kong. Police said they received a report at 9.13am on Sunday from a passer-by about an incident involving a 72-year-old man surnamed Kwok at Yuk Kwai Shan on Ap Lei Chau An ambulance was dispatched to the scene, while a Government Flying Service helicopter took hi...
An elderly man has been airlifted to hospital after collapsing while hiking at a popular scenic spot in southern Hong Kong. Police said they received a report at 9.13am on Sunday from a passer-by about an incident involving a man in his seventies at Yuk Kwai Shan on Ap Lei Chau An ambulance was dispatched to the scene, while a Government Flying Service helicopter took him to Pamela Youde Nethersol...
Tesla is facing weaker sales in China this year, but the American electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer is looking to generate a buzz in its second-largest market by exhibiting its new self-driving vehicle, the Cybercab. The robotaxi – which operates entirely without a steering wheel, pedals or rear-view mirrors – would debut in major Chinese cities, including Beijing and Shanghai, starting mid-Septe...
In all his five decades of living in Hokkaido, Makoto Watanabe cannot recall ever being confronted by a cockroach. But he admits being alarmed by reports that the despised insects are taking advantage of global warming to gain a foothold in a part of Japan where winters were previously considered too hostile for large colonies to emerge. “When I was a university student in Tokyo 30 years ago, I us...
Retired harbour pilot Alex Yu Chi-leung sailed his 50-foot wooden yacht, Bowline, from Causeway Bay in Hong Kong to Dongao Island in Zhuhai under a new cross-border yachting scheme last week, but bureaucratic hurdles and shallow waters tempered the excitement of the leisure trip. It was Yu’s first voyage under the scheme, but it could also be his last unless mainland Chinese authorities improve ce...
