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A former Malaysian religious affairs minister pleaded not guilty on Monday to three charges involving more than 860 million ringgit (US$211 million) in transactions linked to the country’s state-run haj savings fund and a Saudi property group. Jamil Khir Baharom, 65, served as minister in the Prime Minister’s Department overseeing religious affairs from 2009 until 2018, when the government of form...
We have put together stories from our coverage last weekend to help you stay informed about news across Asia and beyond. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. Brics members find common ground on AI, trade and de-dollarisation push 2. China urges US to ‘stop all’ spying activities, slams ‘gangster logic’ 3. Police freeze HK$30 million in account of man wh...
While Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr was pitching the Luzon Economic Corridor to a 600-strong delegation of foreign investors and officials last week, protesters outside were clashing with police, accusing the US-backed initiative of exploiting the country’s resources. The backlash mirrored opposition against the Pax Silica AI supply chain drive – a separate proposal but again, American...
For generations of Chinese schoolchildren, English textbooks offered a glimpse of an unfamiliar world, from London’s Tower Bridge and Big Ben to American school life and Halloween traditions. Today, students opening an English textbook are more likely to encounter passages on late Qing dynasty (1644-1912) thinker Liang Qichao, the Dragon Boat Festival and China’s overseas aid projects. These chang...
Apple is reviewing all current orders for suspicious transactions after more than 700 unauthorised credit card charges were reported in Hong Kong involving orders for its latest iPhone models. “All current orders are being reviewed before they are processed, and we are working to quickly identify and cancel any fraudulent transactions that may have been placed,” an Apple spokesman said on Monday. ...
Apple should ultimately bear responsibility for more than 700 unauthorised credit card transactions in Hong Kong, a lawmaker has said, while estimating that the actual loss would not be significant. Speaking on a radio programme on Monday, Election Committee sector legislator Johnny Ng Kit-chong described the incident as “rare”, given the large number of victims and the involvement of a platform o...
A little cheer rose for 79-year-old Hwang Sun-hee after she managed to place an online order at a training session in South Korea, which has one of the world’s starkest digital divides for seniors. Age gaps in digital literacy are a global concern, yet the gulf has widened massively in the hyper-connected and fast-ageing country, prompting national campaigns to bridge it. “You can’t do anything wi...
North Korea said on Monday it conducted a joint live-fire drill involving missiles, artillery and drones that it claimed showed “huge destructive power”. The official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Saturday’s drill was meant to get familiar with the procedure for the operation of the integrated firepower control system. South Korea’s military earlier said it detected short-range ballistic ...
Three people were killed and 15 others wounded as gunfire erupted hours before the polls opened on Monday in a semi-autonomous Muslim region of the Philippines set to choose its first elected parliament. The vote is the culmination of an on-off peace process that began in the late 1990s and established the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao in the country’s far south. Cotabato police ...
China could improve its image in the United States by highlighting areas such as tourism and technology and positioning itself as a responsible major power, a survey has concluded. Researchers from Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou said that although concepts such as “decoupling” and “de-risking” had been increasingly prominent in media coverage of China, this had not entirely wiped away positiv...
Hong Kong’s inaugural five-year plan will not change the capitalist system and instead fully exploit its advantages to map the city’s long-term development, Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu has said. In an opinion piece published in the South China Morning Post on Monday, the city leader also stressed that the blueprint, in focusing on the economy, would ultimately “enable citizens to flourish” by...
A report that eight Indonesians were allegedly tricked into fighting for Moscow in its war on Ukraine may be just the tip of the iceberg, analysts warn, cautioning that Southeast Asia’s existing scam networks could already be a hunting ground for Russian fraudsters. Ukraine’s intelligence agency revealed on August 27 that the Indonesians had been lured with promises of well-paid civilian jobs. Jak...
This year marks the opening year of the national 15th five-year plan. Faced with accelerating change globally and significant opportunities brought by national development, Hong Kong must better integrate into and serve the overall national development, enabling our economic progress to reach new heights while enhancing people’s livelihood and well-being. This February, I announced that the Hong K...
This year marks the opening year of the national 15th five-year plan. Faced with accelerating change globally and significant opportunities brought by national development, Hong Kong must better integrate into and serve the overall national development, enabling our economic progress to reach new heights while enhancing people’s livelihood and well-being. This February, I announced that the Hong K...
A 75-year-old woman from Shanghai spent three million yuan (US$450,000) on beauty treatments in a salon, completely depleting her retirement savings before her daughter uncovered the situation. The elderly woman’s daughter recently sought assistance from a Shanghai television programme after discovering that her mother had exhausted all her savings on beauty services. The woman, surnamed Yu, had s...
In the final instalment of our series of previews on the five-year plan and policy address, to be announced on September 16, Natalie Wong and Matthew Cheng look at how national security spans areas such as finance and technology and what Hong Kong must do to earn Beijing’s trust. Read part one here, part two here, part three here and part four here. With the recent sentencing of former leaders of ...
China’s top intelligence official has warned of rising national security risks posed by artificial intelligence (AI), calling for robust risk prevention frameworks and stronger global governance of the emerging technology. The call from Chen Yixin, China’s state security minister, comes as Beijing seeks to play a leading role in global AI governance while criticising US restrictions. At the Brics ...
Richardson Mojica is no stranger to thoughts of ending it all. The 40-year-old university professor and mental health advocate was diagnosed with generalised anxiety disorder, bipolar disorder and depression in his early 20s. He finds fulfilment in his job, yet suicidal ideation has always lingered. “We call it passively suicidal – you don’t want to live, but you don’t want to stop everything,” he...
Hong Kong is intensifying efforts to attract technology start-ups and nurture unicorns through expanded financial support via a key government-backed platform, leveraging the city’s booming fundraising activities and world-class financial infrastructure. Investors are displaying an increased appetite for the local tech scene compared with a decade ago – a trend that Terry Wong Ping-sau, CEO of the...
Over the past three decades, investor Fang Fenglei has had a major role in shaping China’s capital markets. He worked with Morgan Stanley in the early 1990s to help create the country’s first joint venture investment bank – China International Capital Corp. Then, at the start of the millennium, he spearheaded the listing of state-owned giants in Hong Kong as CEO of Bank of China International, lat...
Uganda’s King Oyo Nyimba, who was once the world’s youngest monarch, was buried on Saturday amid an acrimonious succession dispute that has rocked the royal family and gripped the nation. The traditional monarch, who ascended the throne of Uganda’s Tooro Kingdom as an infant in 1995, died last month from cancer. He was 34. He was buried next to his ancestors after an emotional funeral service in a...
Uganda’s King Oyo Nyimba, who was once the world’s youngest monarch, was buried on Saturday amid an acrimonious succession dispute that has rocked the royal family and gripped the nation. The traditional monarch, who ascended the throne of Uganda’s Tooro Kingdom as an infant in 1995, died last month from cancer. He was 34. He was buried next to his ancestors after an emotional funeral service in a...
The latest Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) results are out and unfortunately for the Education Bureau, Hong Kong’s performance looks bad. Is this the outcome of not learning from the last assessment? In the 2022 Pisa assessment, a metric for creative thinking was introduced to measure the ability to generate, evaluate, improve and communicate ideas, as well as social and scie...
US President Donald Trump on Sunday said he will look into requests from families of September 11 victims to release records that could shed light on Saudi Arabia’s alleged role in the attacks 25 years ago. Several families have long alleged that a group of extremist religious leaders in Saudi Arabia gained influence in the Saudi government and aided the hijackers. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were...
US President Donald Trump on Sunday played down the need for his administration to check the development of artificial intelligence, saying he worried about ceding America’s edge over China in a global competition and that winning would help address the risks from the advancing technology. While acknowledging the need for some regulation, Trump provided no specifics about potential rules and attri...
Middle East diplomacy appeared to falter heading into Monday with the postponement of a meeting between Iran and other Gulf powers, while attacks around the region’s two most important oil transit routes deepened concern over global energy supplies. Oil prices jumped more than 3 per cent on Monday, following Houthi strikes on the world’s biggest exporter Saudi Arabia that forced the closure of its...
Middle East diplomacy appeared to falter heading into Monday with the postponement of a meeting between Iran and other Persian Gulf powers, while fresh attacks around the region’s two most important oil transit routes deepened concern over global energy supplies. Oil prices jumped as markets reopened on Monday, following developments that threaten supplies from the world’s biggest exporter, Saudi...
New strikes on Saudi Arabia and on ships in the Gulf tested nerves in the Middle East on Sunday, after an attack on a Saudi oil pipeline and an advance by Yemen’s Houthis threatened to worsen the wartime disruption to global energy supplies. Oil traders were expecting prices to rise again when markets reopen on Monday, following the weekend developments that jeopardise supplies from the world’s b...
Iran plans to formally unveil an agreement on a temporary shipping lane through the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, after a flurry of diplomatic activity including a rare meeting between senior officials from Tehran and Abu Dhabi. The Islamic Republic is set to reveal to Gulf nations its agreement with Oman on a temporary new shipping lane, according to a person familiar with the matter. Negotiations ...
No country should have lower interest rates than the US, President Donald Trump said on Sunday, days before the Federal Reserve’s next policy meeting. Speaking to reporters at the Irish Open golf tournament, Trump said he did not know whether Fed policymakers will raise interest rates at their meeting this week. But he said the US. “should be paying the lowest interest rate in the world” no matte...
