Live headlines from trusted global sources. Click any story to open it on the original website.
Taiwanese leader William Lai Ching-te has said he is deeply saddened by the death of Hong Kong bookseller Lam Wing-kee, who publicly recounted being abducted and detained by mainland Chinese authorities in 2015. Lam died at the age of 70 after a years-long battle with lung cancer, according to Taiwanese media. Local reports said Lam, who moved to Taiwan in 2019, was admitted to Mackay Memorial Hos...
Hong Kong bookseller Lam Wing-kee, who publicly recounted being abducted and detained by mainland Chinese authorities in 2015, has died at the age of 70 after a years-long battle with lung cancer, according to Taiwanese media. Local media reported that Lam, who moved to Taiwan in 2019, was admitted to Mackay Memorial Hospital in Taipei on Tuesday, but his condition worsened and he fell into a coma...
The United States posted weaker-than-expected job growth in June as new data showed the labour market is facing headwinds ahead of the testing midterm election for President Donald Trump’s Republicans. Total nonfarm payroll employment grew by 57,000 and the unemployment rate fell slightly to 4.2 per cent, the US Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS) said in a statement on Thursday. After months of see...
Fresh footage has offered the first look at China’s truck-mounted electromagnetic catapult launching a drone, with its developer unveiling details of this large family of containerised weapon systems. The footage shows three eight-wheeled flat-top trucks driving on to what appears to be an airfield runway. Once aligned and connected via mechanical hinges, they form a continuous platform, along whi...
Rebels in Indonesia’s restive easternmost region of Papua on Thursday shot dead an American pilot and set a civilian plane on fire in what a spokesperson for a local separatist group described as a “message” to the US and Indonesian governments. A low-level battle for independence from Indonesia has long raged in the resource-rich western half of Papua, where attacks by independence fighters ha...
The United States’ reported plan to ban foreign-made inverters – a move likely aimed at curbing reliance on China – would be difficult to implement and harmful to local industry, Chinese industry insiders have warned. Washington is working on a plan to ban foreign inverters – a vital component used in renewable power systems – over national security concerns, Reuters reported on Tuesday, with a dr...
The United States’ reported plan to ban foreign-made inverters – a move likely aimed at curbing reliance on China – would be difficult to implement and harmful to local industry, Chinese industry insiders have warned. Washington is working on a plan to ban foreign inverters – a vital component used in renewable power systems – over national security concerns, Reuters reported on Tuesday, with a dr...
We have selected seven of the most interesting and important news stories covering Latin American relations from the past few weeks. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. ‘I will sell to someone else’: Brazil’s Lula hits back at US after China beef win Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva thanked China for clearing the country’s beef of foot-and-...
A deadly school shooting in the central Philippines has prompted warnings from lawmakers and cybersecurity experts that violent online extremist networks may be approaching Filipino children through gaming platforms and chat groups. At a Senate hearing on Wednesday, Philippine Senator Risa Hontiveros said there were signs that the perpetrators behind a deadly school shooting in Tacloban City might...
A deadly school shooting in the central Philippines has prompted warnings from lawmakers and cybersecurity experts that violent online extremist networks may be approaching Filipino children through gaming platforms and chat groups. At a Senate hearing on Wednesday, Philippine Senator Risa Hontiveros said there were signs that the perpetrators behind a deadly school shooting in Tacloban City might...
Satellite imagery shows that Philippine military bases open to US troops have expanded more slowly than expected, according to a Chinese think tank. In a report published on Thursday, the Beijing-based South China Sea Strategic Situation Probing Initiative (SCSPI) zoomed in on the nine sites covered by the Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) between the two treaty allies. It said the sit...
The China Securities Regulatory Commission recently fined three Hong Kong brokerages – Tiger Brokers, Futu Securities International and Longbridge Securities – over US$330 million for offering mainland investors access to overseas stocks without authorisation. This should not be misconstrued as a move to discourage overseas investment. It is merely an attempt to discourage mainland investors from ...
China is trying to “infiltrate” the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement via Mexican automotive investments, a US manufacturing trade group said, as Washington indicated it would not renew the agreement that comes up for review this month. However, analysts cautioned that full decoupling from China’s automotive industry remains difficult, given North America’s continued dependence on Chinese-sourced m...
Knife-edge state polls in Johor and Negeri Sembilan may reconfigure Malaysian politics, as a regrouped Malay nationalist right seeks big wins to pressure Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim into calling an early election. Barisan Nasional (BN), the Malay-led bloc, is going head-to-head against Anwar’s Pakatan Harapan (PH) in the ballots to be held this month and next, in a move by a key government coalit...
Thailand’s foreign ministry denied on Thursday that French President Emmanuel Macron knelt before the country’s king during his state visit to Paris this week, after an AI-generated picture circulated online. King Maha Vajiralongkorn and Queen Suthida’s trip was the first official visit by a Thai monarch to France since 1960, marking the 170th anniversary of formal diplomatic relations between the...
Hong Kong health authorities have called on the public to stay vigilant as the city has entered the summer flu season, with Covid-19 cases also on the rise. Dr Albert Au Ka-wing, head of the communicable disease branch of the Centre for Health Protection, said on Thursday that surveillance data suggested flu cases rose significantly last week, signalling the beginning of the seasonal infection per...
Every year, farmers in India burn millions of tonnes of stalks, husks and other plant matter left after a harvest that has long contributed to winter smog in South Asia. But the agricultural waste – also known as crop residue – could become a source to make sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) for airlines around the world, according to a new study. SAF is a green alternative to conventional jet fuel d...
Hong Kong’s box office takings for the first half of 2026 rose by nearly 25 per cent year on year, with comedy film Night King emerging as the highest-grossing movie over the six-month period. According to figures from the Hong Kong Box Office, 142 films premiered between January 1 and June 30, of which 17 were locally made. The movies generated HK$664 million (US$85 million) in takings, up from H...
Recent People’s Liberation Army exercises showed that China’s older aircraft carriers could operate more closely in tandem with the more advanced Fujian than previously thought, experts say, as fighter jets upgraded to use electromagnetic catapults were spotted on the older Liaoning carrier. Images taken during a 40-day mission in the South China Sea and Pacific Ocean that ended on June 22 showed ...
Riding a wave of booming cross-border dealmaking, China’s AI-driven drug-design firms are charging onto the global stage despite Washington’s growing scrutiny of Chinese biotech firms. The value of out-licensing deals struck by Chinese biotech companies with top global multinational pharmaceutical companies climbed to US$75 billion in the first five months of 2026, up from zero before 2020, accord...
An independent legal group has proposed that Beijing designate Hong Kong as the country’s “space finance capital”, positioning the city as a gateway for commercial development of the sector under the national five-year plan. The Asian Academy of International Law also proposed in policy papers issued on Thursday that Hong Kong should enact a space asset registration and finance ordinance to provid...
Hong Kong flag carrier Cathay Pacific Airways will resume Middle East passenger flights in September, six months after suspending services amid ongoing regional conflict. The airline said on Thursday it would progressively restore passenger and cargo operations, starting with freighter flights to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, from August 1. Daily passenger flights to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and ...
When a farmer in southwestern China was bitten by a cobra, his panicked wife instantly sucked out the venom as she mimicked what she had seen on television, only to end up being poisoned herself. The old man was working in his field in Yuanyang county, Yunnan province, when the cobra bit his finger, the Jimu News reported. His wound soon became swollen and he felt dizzy and weak. It was then that ...
Hundreds of people were besieging Lidl supermarkets in and around Paris on Thursday, with scuffles and shouting matches breaking out as residents scrambled to get their hands on bargain air-cooling units before the next heatwave hits the French capital. With few air conditioners on sale elsewhere for less than €1,200 (US$1,400), police were called to at least two stores as huge crowds descended on...
A Hong Kong court has granted bail to an assistant manager of the project consultant behind a HK$336 million (US$42.8 million) renovation at the fire-ravaged Wang Fuk Court, pending a money laundering trial. Li Min, 33, secured bail at the High Court on Thursday after spending three weeks behind bars in connection with the city’s deadliest blaze in recent history. Her bail money was set at HK$300,...
Assets and wealth under management in Hong Kong surged to a record high last year as global investors returned to Chinese assets, underscoring the city’s edge over Switzerland as a wealth hub. Financial firms in Hong Kong managed HK$42.2 trillion (US$5.38 trillion) worth of assets last year, a 20 per cent increase from the previous peak of HK$35.5 trillion in 2024, according to a report released b...
Eight Buddhist monks died in northeastern Thailand on Thursday – and over a dozen more were injured – after an 11-year-old boy driving his parents’ truck crashed into pilgrims walking along a deserted rural road. Images of the devastation, shared across social media, showed the bodies of orange-robed monks lying on the road with their alms bowls strewn across the accident site in Mukdahan province...
A young couple in Indonesia’s conservative Aceh province were publicly caned on Thursday after an Islamic sharia court convicted them of violating Islamic law by kissing during a TikTok live stream. Aceh’s sharia court ordered the two people to be whipped with a rattan cane 21 times each for kissing without being married. At least 100 people witnessed the caning, carried out by a group of people w...
China’s Politburo called for “forceful” countermeasures against floods and droughts as El Nino effects exacerbate the impact of extreme weather events in the country. Local authorities should strengthen flood controls on major rivers, improve rescue capabilities and bolster management of water sources, the top decision-making body said after a monthly meeting on Tuesday chaired by President Xi Jin...
Hong Kong’s retail sales in May rose 7.9 per cent year on year, extending the streak of growth to 13 months, with the sector benefiting from an increase in visitor numbers amid mainland China’s Labour Day “golden week” holiday. The value of retail sales for the month reached HK$33.8 billion (US$4.3 billion), according to provisional figures released by the Census and Statistics Department on Thurs...
