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US soybean growers are “adapting” to a steep decline in China-bound exports by selling to third countries and the American biofuel sector, compensating enough to cause only a small drop in production, according to a top trade association’s chief economist. In November, Beijing committed to buy at least 25 million tonnes of American soybeans annually through 2028, as part of an agreement reached af...
Retiree Yang Fangxin’s 72 sq ft rooftop home, located on the ninth floor of a 62-year-old building in Sham Shui Po, has become a heat trap under Hong Kong’s scorching hot weather. The temperature in her home was above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) at around 5pm on Tuesday, higher than the 33 degrees recorded at the Hong Kong Observatory’s monitoring station in the same district. The temperat...
Hong Kong’s chief executive has expressed “profound sorrow” over the death of former Chinese premier Zhu Rongji, paying tribute to him for supporting the city in challenging times including the 1997 Asian financial crisis. In a statement late on Wednesday night, John Lee Ka-chiu said he was grateful for the care and support that Zhu showed over the city’s economic and social development over the y...
In late 2002, former Chinese premier Zhu Rongji visited Hong Kong and sought to put steel in the spine of the city’s establishment that was floundering under an economic slump and a ballooning deficit. “Even if you spend all your fiscal reserves three years from now, what is there to fear?” he asked his dinner guests at Government House in a famously unscripted speech. “If you issue 50-year long-t...
For decades, resource-rich African nations operated on a straightforward pit-to-ship model whereby foreign operators extracted raw ore, loaded it onto cargo ships and exported it abroad, leaving producer countries with little to show for it. Today, nations such as Zimbabwe, Namibia, Mozambique, Ghana and Guinea are dismantling that system – by banning exports of raw materials and enforcing local p...
The finance director of a private college in Hong Kong has been remanded in custody on suspicion of embezzling HK$41 million (US$5.2 million) over three years, with his wife and an engineering contractor also denied bail for allegedly handling the illicit proceeds. Ray Yip Kam-chun, 49, appeared in Tuen Mun Court on Wednesday to face a count of theft for allegedly stealing from Hong Kong Chu Hai C...
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday threatened retaliation for Western seizures of its commercial vessels, describing them as “piracy.” Speaking on a visit to a Russian warship that was taking part in a naval exercise in the Pacific, Putin described the Western moves to detain vessels linked to Russia as a breach of international maritime law. “It’s nothing but piracy and robbery,” Putin...
A venture capital fund backed by Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp (YMTC), China’s top producer of NAND flash memory, has taken a stake in domestic semiconductor manufacturer SOI Micro, adding a high-profile investor to the country’s push for an alternative chipmaking ecosystem. Led by a prominent figure in China’s semiconductor industry, SOI Micro is focused on developing fully depleted silicon-on...
Nestled within thick, verdant foliage in Cha Kwo Ling is one of Hong Kong’s last squatter settlements, where a handful of remaining residents are staying until a government deadline to move out for redevelopment of the area for public housing. Mrs Lam, one of the last villagers living among the juxtaposition of makeshift metal dwellings and stone houses complete with wooden window frames, said she...
When a patient repeatedly refuses the same medicine, there are usually three possibilities: he does not understand the diagnosis, cannot afford the treatment, or does not trust the doctor. The same logic applies to economic prescriptions. In the case of China, the first possibility is unlikely because Beijing understands what ails its economy. The reason it is not acting as expected is probably a ...
Police in Paraguay have launched an investigation into the death of a Hong Kong-born cryptocurrency fund executive as speculation swirled over the case. Experts on Wednesday also warned of a global rise in violent extortion attempts targeting digital asset holders, a phenomenon known as “wrench attacks”. Paraguayan police are investigating the death of Harry Yeh Chun-tak, who was found dead outsid...
Police in Paraguay have launched an investigation into the death of a Hong Kong-born cryptocurrency fund executive as speculation swirled over the case. Experts on Wednesday also warned of a global rise in violent extortion attempts targeting digital asset holders, a phenomenon known as “wrench attacks”. Paraguayan police are investigating the death of Harry Yeh Chun-tak, who was found dead outsid...
Malaysia is taking palm oil from the frying pan to server racks, as it banks on its biggest agricultural commodity to crack a code plaguing its data centre boom – keeping servers cool. Researchers at the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) are developing a palm-based liquid to cool computer servers without relying on copious volumes of water, as the country grapples with high resource demands to suppo...
The World Health Organization warned on Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s bid to overhaul child vaccination in the United States went against “decades of evidence”. Trump signed an order on Monday pushing for a rethink of school vaccine mandates and repeating calls for the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine to be separated into three separate shots. His Health Secretary Robert F. Kenn...
A Hong Kong court has ordered a murder suspect to face a retrial after a jury failed to reach a verdict on whether he committed the crime while suffering from a delusion that authorities were harassing him with electromagnetic waves. The 23-day High Court trial of former software developer Matthew Choi ended with a hung jury on Wednesday. Madam Justice Esther Toh Lye-ping discharged the seven-memb...
Chinese corporate expansion overseas is shifting from solar equipment to artificial intelligence-enabled industrial technology, with a new generation of companies targeting global markets from inception, according to analysts at Goldman Sachs. “China has entered the ‘Go Global 3.0’ era,” wrote the investment bank’s team, led by Jacqueline Du, in a research note published on Tuesday. The evolution ...
The Democratic Party’s ascendant left wing is likely to push American foreign policy further “inward” and away from big-power rivalry, according to a Chinese political scientist. Meng Weizhan, an assistant research professor at Fudan University’s Institute for Advanced Study in Social Sciences in Shanghai, also said it was time for Beijing to move away from the notion that all American political f...
India’s long-held status as the “pharmacy of the world” could be affected by US President Donald Trump’s plan to impose steep tariffs on imported drugs from 2028, threatening the low-cost, export-driven model that has made the country a vital supplier of generic medicines, analysts have warned. Late last month, Trump announced that the US would impose 100 per cent tariffs on generic medicines from...
Hong Kong police have arrested a 19-year-old university student accused of swindling more than HK$3 million from a man after apparently being hoodwinked by scammers herself. Inspector Wu Kwan-yu of Tseung Kwan O police district’s intelligence section said on Wednesday that officers arrested the female student the previous day on suspicion of impersonating mainland Chinese public security officials...
Hong Kong police have arrested a 19-year-old university student accused of swindling more than HK$3 million from a man after apparently being hoodwinked by scammers herself. Inspector Wu Kwan-yu of Tseung Kwan O police district’s intelligence section said on Wednesday that officers arrested the female student the previous day on suspicion of impersonating mainland Chinese public security officials...
Chinese smartphone maker Honor has launched a handset with a motorised robotic camera that nods back at users, betting that its interactive hardware will spark growth in a cooling global market for the devices. The new Robot Phone, unveiled on Wednesday, features a three-axis mechanical gimbal with four degrees of motion, allowing for video stabilisation and interaction via nodding and tilting. Ac...
A tech entrepreneur has pledged to rebuild a free database created over nearly three decades by the late Hong Kong corporate governance activist David Webb, bringing it ‘into the modern era” with the help of AI. Keith Li King-wah, co-founder and principal trainer of Allytic AI, announced on his Facebook page on Wednesday that he would rebuild Webb-site’s database of 27 years with the use of artifi...
China has approved a new Japanese acting consul general in Chongqing, ending an eight-month vacancy at the mission following a bilateral freeze. Shigehiro Nishiumi, who previously served as Japan’s deputy consul general in Hong Kong, assumed the post at Japan’s diplomatic mission in the southwestern municipality of Chongqing on August 4, according to Japanese news agency Kyodo, citing an unnamed g...
A Standard Chartered-led joint venture kicked off institutional use of Hong Kong dollar-backed stablecoins on Wednesday, a year after the city put its stablecoin law into effect as part of an effort to become a global hub for digital assets. Retail use of the regulated cryptocurrency was expected “as early as end-2026”, subject to market conditions, said Anchorpoint Financial, a Hong Kong-licensed...
China’s National Cultural Heritage Administration is putting museums nationwide on notice to strengthen emergency management during the summer peak season, following a series of operational failures, including a sudden power outage in Xian’s Terracotta Warriors museum last week. According to the notice published on Monday, there have been issues such as blackouts, air conditioning failures and sev...
While rising trade tensions between Beijing and Brussels continue to dominate headlines, Chinese exporters face a far more immediate and concrete threat: the boxes, wraps, and plastic bags protecting their goods. On Wednesday, the European Union’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) became applicable across the bloc. Replacing a 1994 directive, the regulation sets requirements for ever...
In traditional Chinese culture, the cardinal directions – east, west, south, and north – represent more than mere points on a compass; they reveal how ancient societies comprehended life, death, and human nature. The Shuowen Jiezi, the earliest surviving dictionary of China compiled during the Eastern Han dynasty (25–220), explains the four cardinal directions in relation to the movement of the su...
Myanmar’s military is increasingly using drones, motorised paragliders and other low-cost aircraft to attack civilians, United Nations investigators said, even as the country’s rulers seek to project stability and gain legitimacy after a military-run election. The report by the UN-established Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar released on Tuesday said attacks continued to rise from Ju...
Former Chinese premier Zhu Rongji, who helped engineer one of the greatest economic reforms in human history, has died. He was 97. Zhu, who served as China’s premier from 1998 to 2003, is remembered for tackling corruption, shaking up the centrally planned economy and overhauling the state-owned enterprise (SOE) sector. He was the mastermind behind negotiations for China’s World Trade Organization...
Former Chinese premier Zhu Rongji, who helped engineer one of the greatest economic reforms in the human history, has died. He was 97. Zhu, who served as China’s premier from 1998 to 2003, is remembered for tackling corruption, shaking up the centrally planned economy and overhauling the state-owned enterprise (SOE) sector. He also played a leading role in securing China’s entry into the World Tr...
