Live headlines from trusted global sources. Click any story to open it on the original website.
Indonesia is deploying an additional 1,500 soldiers to Borneo, an official said on Saturday, to help tackle wildfires that have burned through swathes of the island and created thick smog choking some areas. Fires between January and July burned over 200,000 hectares of land – an area three times the size of the capital Jakarta, the government said this week, as dry conditions driven by a powerful...
Somali pirates hijacked an oil products tanker off Yemen, a Somali maritime security official said, the latest in a resurgence of piracy that has seen six commercial vessels seized since April across the Gulf of Aden and western Indian Ocean. Six armed pirates hijacked the Eritrean-flagged M.T. Sibu 1 on Thursday about 136 nautical miles (252 kilometres) east of al-Mukalla, Yemen, and took it towa...
A fleet of Chinese J-16 fighters has arrived in Egypt ahead of a joint exercise that will be the aircraft’s first-ever deployment to Africa. The planes and aviators taking part in the Eagles of Civilisation 2026 exercise arrived at an Egyptian airbase on Friday morning after a 6,000km (3,700-mile) journey that took nine hours and required the planes to refuel in mid-air, according to the People’s ...
A greenhouse gas monitoring instrument developed by a university in Hong Kong is operating successfully aboard Tiangong space station and is expected to contribute to sustainable development, the city’s technology minister has said. Secretary for Innovation, Technology and Industries Sun Dong also revealed more details on Saturday about the life of the city’s first astronaut, Lai Ka-ying, who he s...
Hong Kong police have arrested a 38-year-old man on suspicion of driving under the influence of drugs following a three-vehicle crash that left two people injured. Police said they received a report at 1.48pm on Saturday of a traffic accident along Pok Fu Lam Road involving a large truck and two light goods vehicles. The force said the 38-year-old driver of one of the light goods vehicles failed a...
Hong Kong police have arrested a 38-year-old man for driving under the influence of drugs following a three-vehicle crash that led to two people being hospitalised. Police said they received a report at 1.48pm on Saturday of a traffic accident along Pok Fu Lam Road involving a large truck and two light goods vehicles. The force said the 38-year-old driver of one of the light goods vehicles failed ...
A Myanmar military air strike on a monastery where civilians were gathered for a meditation retreat marking Buddhist Lent killed 14 people, two rebel fighters who witnessed the aftermath said. Myanmar has been consumed by civil war since the military staged a 2021 coup ousting the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi and detaining the Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Over the past five years, more th...
A Hong Kong man has been hospitalised after being trapped under a collapsed bamboo scaffolding on a building in Sham Shui Po. Emergency services were called to 105-107 Nam Cheong Street at around 3.49pm on Saturday following reports of the incident. A section of scaffolding attached to the building’s exterior wall, measuring around 15 metres (49 feet) by 33 metres, had partially collapsed, trappin...
Hong Kong police have arrested two men suspected of using 110 SIM cards in a hotel room to send phishing messages, conning victims of more than HK$500,000 (US$63,766). The force said on Saturday that the men, aged 31 and 44, were arrested last Thursday on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud. They were allegedly linked to recent phishing scams in which fraudsters posed as delivery company staff, cla...
Fears of a military confrontation between Israel and Turkey are growing after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought to assert dominance over Syria by ordering air strikes on a military airfield near the Turkish border. The eight strikes on the Abu Al-Duhur airbase in northwest Idlib province on Tuesday were characterised by Netanyahu as a warning to Turkey against expanding its military...
A Chinese man in his 60s has finally reunited with his family after spending 25 years in isolation to care for a house deep in the mountains, even after the owner had forgotten about it. Li Guoyou, 63, recently received his renewed hukou booklet, China’s official household registration, at a police station in Pingtan, a town in southwestern Sichuan province. This marked his official identity regis...
While the US and some European governments view China’s vast production of electric vehicles and green-energy tech as overcapacity, African companies see it as an opportunity to secure EV technology and develop the industry. China is the global leader of the EV industry – it makes nearly 75 per cent of the world’s electric vehicles and dominates the supply chain. Its high production has driven dow...
Hong Kong customs officers have seized endangered turtles and parrots alongside other animals in two separate smuggling cases, resulting in the arrest of one woman. The Customs and Excise Department said on Saturday that 17 live turtles were discovered in a package declared as containing a jacket arriving at Hong Kong International Airport from the United States. “Upon inspection, a batch of live ...
Australia’s capital will join a gun buy-back as part of a response to a shooting spree that killed 15 at a Jewish festival in Sydney, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Saturday. Albanese’s centre-left government enacted laws in January for the gun buy-back, tighter checks for gun licences and a crackdown on hate in the wake of the December 14 gun attack at a Bondi Beach Hanukkah celebrat...
Australia’s capital will join a gun buy-back as part of a response to a shooting spree that killed 15 at a Jewish festival in Sydney, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Saturday. Albanese’s centre-left government enacted laws in January for the gun buy-back, tighter checks for gun licences and a crackdown on hate in the wake of the December 14 gun attack at a Bondi Beach Hanukkah celebrat...
A mainland Chinese research ship has sailed close to a key Taiwanese naval base, marking its second appearance near the island in recent months. The Tong Ji, a 2,000-tonne scientific research vessel operated by Tongji University in Shanghai, was spotted 28 nautical miles (52km) southwest of Liuchiu, an island also known as Lamay, on Friday morning, according to the Taiwanese authorities. The islan...
Hong Kong authorities have yet to decide whether to restrict proxy voters at homeowners’ meetings to relatives or other flat owners of the same estate under proposed law amendments meant to combat bid-rigging, the home affairs director has said, arguing such a move could be overly strict. Director of Home Affairs Priscilla To Kit-lai said on Saturday that the proposed amendments to the Building Ma...
Hong Kong authorities have hit out at what they called “baseless slander and smearing” by Western countries over the conviction of the now-disbanded alliance behind the annual Tiananmen Square vigil and its leaders for inciting subversion, stressing the court’s verdict is “well-reasoned and sound”. The government issued a strongly worded statement on Saturday after the closely-watched verdict on t...
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva urged US counterpart Donald Trump in a phone call on Friday to resolve their countries’ trade dispute, saying US tariffs were imposed on “baseless” grounds. Washington imposed two new sets of tariffs on the Latin American giant in July, a move that has become a key campaign issue ahead of Brazil’s presidential election in October. Lula – who is seeking...
Why is the idea of a planned economy anathema to so many people despite China’s success? And why do so many retain faith in market economies given the economic chaos much of the Western world is descending into? These questions have acquired a particular piquancy as Hong Kong embraces long-term planning for the first time, attracting criticism from some that it is falling into Chinese-style error....
Less than two years before the Philippines chooses its next president, Ferdinand Marcos Jnr still has no candidate to carry his banner. Sara Duterte-Carpio, his estranged vice-president and fiercest political rival, has already declared her intention to run and remains the early front runner, despite an impeachment trial that could bar her from politics. Marcos said on August 14 that he would “cer...
About 280,000 patients have secured full fee waivers since Hong Kong’s public healthcare fee reform took effect at the start of the year — a 20-fold increase from the previous figure of 14,000, the health minister has said. Secretary for Health Lo Chung-mau revealed the figures on Saturday as he defended the reform, which raised user fees for non-urgent and less serious services to reduce the gove...
The sharp clatter of spinning metal tops, cheers, sighs of frustration and shouts of “Three, two, one … Go shoot!” echo across a shopping centre in Hong Kong’s New Territories on a weekday. Dish-shaped plastic battle arenas known as “Beystadiums” have been set up not only in Tuen Mun Town Plaza, but also across the mall in different shops, where some players challenge shop staff to collect stamps ...
Near the heavily fortified frontier dividing the Korean peninsula, the abandoned Woljeong-ri station is being recast as a symbol of South Korea’s hopes to reconcile with the North. But plans to reconnect South Korea’s northernmost station to the rail network come at an awkward moment, as Pyongyang ignores Seoul’s overtures while the South’s old ally Washington pursues its own talks with Pyongyang....
Climate change and conflict are conspiring to open up the Arctic to Asian commercial shipping, with China, South Korea and India all eyeing the icy short cut to Europe. Last Saturday, Chinese shipping company Sea Legend launched the first scheduled weekly container service across the top of the world, marking the realisation of Beijing’s long-held ambition to build a “Polar Silk Road”. It will not...
Chinese smart vehicle makers have been hit by another setback as a global components shortage collides with surging prices of raw materials, driven by the artificial intelligence boom. It would take at least a year for the global supply chain to ramp up production of printed circuit boards (PCBs) and multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCCs) – two key parts that make vehicles intelligent – to meet ris...
A US judge has struck down a Trump administration policy suspending the issuance of immigrant visas to applicants from 75 countries, saying that the policy exceeded Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s statutory authority. US District Judge Jeannette Vargas in Manhattan said on Friday that the policy that the State Department announced in January was “patently unlawful” and ran afoul of federal im...
Hong Kong labour unionists have called for employers to be required to provide outdoor workers with heatstroke-prevention equipment during extreme temperatures. They also said on Saturday that heatstroke should be added to the list of statutory occupational diseases, making it easier for workers to claim compensation in work-related cases. The calls for better protection for workers in extreme hea...
The United States imposed 50 per cent tariffs on US$20 billion worth of Canadian products early on Saturday and Canada immediately said it would retaliate, after last-ditch negotiations failed to resolve the latest strain in already tense relations between the historic allies. US President Donald Trump’s import taxes will hit about 5 per cent of what Canada ships to the United States every year, i...
Japan’s Crown Prince Fumihito and his wife Crown Princess Kiko attended a ceremony on Friday marking 90 years of Japanese immigration to Paraguay, with the prince praising in a speech the contributions made by the immigrants and their descendants to the South American country. In an address at the event near the Paraguayan capital Asuncion, the crown prince, the younger brother of Emperor Naruhito...
