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The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda is raising an uncomfortable question for Asian governments: could the virus travel through the region’s airports before health systems detect it? While experts say the risk of a major outbreak in Asia remains low, the latest flare-up has renewed scrutiny of whether hospitals, contact tracers and border surveillance systems remain re...
A viral post of a couple lying and cuddling in the middle of a public field in Malaysia has drawn outrage and calls for religious authorities to act in the Muslim-majority country, where public intimacy can quickly turn into a morality row. In one of the clips, uploaded to social media on Tuesday, a man and woman lie facing each other at Dataran Kemerdekaan in Shah Alam, the capital of Selangor st...
Factoring Hong Kong’s deadly Tai Po fire into a civil service pay review has dealt a blow to staff morale and risks creating perceptions of populism, unions have warned, saying a proposed 2 per cent across-the-board rise fails to offset inflation or reflect overall performance. Human resources experts, however, said public sentiment had to be considered as pay adjustments involved allocating taxpa...
Factoring Hong Kong’s deadly Tai Po fire into a civil service pay review has dealt a blow to staff morale and risks creating perceptions of populism, unions have warned, saying a proposed 2 per cent across-the-board rise fails to offset inflation or reflect overall performance. Human resources experts, however, said public sentiment had to be considered as pay adjustments involved allocating taxpa...
Hong Kong health authorities have identified at least five Mpox cases linked to a premier gay-friendly sauna and fitness club in Mong Kok, with the venue temporarily closed amid ongoing epidemiological investigations. The Centre for Health Protection said the five cases, including two previously reported by mainland Chinese authorities, all engaged in “high-risk activities with strangers”, without...
Hong Kong health authorities have identified at least five Mpox cases linked to a club offering “premier” gay sauna services in Mong Kok, with the venue temporarily closed amid ongoing epidemiological investigations. The Centre for Health Protection said the five cases, including two previously reported by mainland Chinese authorities, all engaged in “high-risk activities” with strangers at Hutong...
India is moving closer to undertaking its biggest military revamp since independence, with the army, navy and air force placed under commanders overseeing specific theatres of conflict, amid concerns over whether such a set-up can simultaneously counter China and Pakistan. Analysts said the debate over the proposed Integrated Theatre Commands is not just about a streamlining exercise but whether I...
The Pentagon added Chinese pharmaceutical contractor WuXi AppTec to a list of entities it alleges are linked to the country’s military, but the blacklisting will not stop multinational drug makers from collaborating with China’s biopharmaceutical firms, according to analysts. “We view minimal impact given multinational [companies] in pharma still prefer made-in-China for cost efficiency,” said Cui...
Taiwan’s main opposition leader hailed US President Donald Trump’s recent comments opposing the island’s independence as a “relatively positive first step” towards reducing tensions. Cheng Li-wun, chairwoman of the Kuomintang (KMT), told the South China Morning Post on Sunday in an exclusive interview: “The ‘one China’ principle and opposition to Taiwan independence have always been the Kuomintang...
Taiwan’s main opposition leader hailed US President Donald Trump’s recent comments opposing the island’s independence as a “relatively positive first step” towards reducing tensions. Cheng Li-wun, chairwoman of the Kuomintang (KMT), told the South China Morning Post on Sunday in an exclusive interview: “The ‘one China’ principle and opposition to Taiwan independence have always been the Kuomintang...
Taiwan’s main opposition leader hailed US President Donald Trump’s recent comments opposing the island’s independence as a “relatively positive first step” towards reducing tensions. Cheng Li-wun, chairwoman of the Kuomintang (KMT), told the South China Morning Post on Sunday in an exclusive interview: “The ‘one China’ principle and opposition to Taiwan independence have always been the Kuomintang...
Hong Kong’s first astronaut may have travelled into space, but the significance of the moment extends far beyond the mission itself. Lai Ka-ying became our first home-grown astronaut to reach space, as part of China’s Shenzhou-23 mission to the Tiangong space station, marking a historic milestone for the city and its role within the country’s scientific ambitions. For many, the moment naturally ev...
Thailand’s former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra is officially a free man, less than a week after receiving a royal pardon, according to the Department of Corrections. Thaksin, 76, served eight months of a one-year sentence for corruption and abuse of power before being released on parole last month due to his age and health. The Department of Corrections said the former premier was required to...
Singapore’s move to ban anti-Indian social media posts reportedly from a China-based platform highlights how foreign actors are preying on racial lines in the city state. Analysts warn that this new battleground for disinformation is being “weaponised” against the country’s multiracial society. On Saturday, the country’s Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said it ordered social media giants YouTube, F...
India’s sharp increase in gold import tariffs is fuelling a resurgence in smuggling that could exceed 100 tonnes this year, as soaring grey market margins allow smugglers to undercut banks and refiners of the precious metal, industry officials and bullion dealers said. India, the world’s biggest gold market after China, more than doubled import tariffs to 15 per cent in May to curb demand, cut t...
Last week, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s chief of staff Cai Qi, the fifth most senior official in the ruling Communist Party, was chosen to lead the Central Party School, Beijing’s leading academy for cadres. The Central Party School is not just any training site for Chinese officials, but part of a nationwide system that Xi considers key to the ideological purity of the party and important for t...
A Chinese man who was left floating in the sea for seven days has miraculously survived by eating raw crabs. The man, surnamed Qin, was rescued by two fishermen from Chengmai county of southern Hainan province in early June following his harrowing experience at sea, the Pengbo News reported. His ordeal began on May 27 when he was walking on the beach at Haikou, the capital city of Hainan, and was ...
Hong Kong graduate Ivan Cheung has filed more than 200 job applications since March, and he is hoping that out of the dozen or so companies that have asked him to interview or take a written test, one will eventually hire him. But the data science and analytics graduate from Polytechnic University is in a slightly better position than some of his peers as he works part-time, giving him a small fin...
Hong Kong graduate Ivan Cheung has filed more than 200 job applications since March, and he is hoping that out of the dozen or so companies that have asked him to interview or take a written test, one will eventually hire him. But the data science and analytics graduate from Polytechnic University is in a slightly better position than some of his peers as he works part-time, giving him a small fin...
Hong Kong graduate Ivan Cheung has filed more than 200 job applications since March, and he is hoping that out of the dozen or so companies that have asked him to interview or take a written test, one will eventually hire him. But the data science and analytics graduate from Polytechnic University is in a slightly better position than some of his peers as he works part-time, giving him a small fin...
Anti-immigration protesters torched buildings and vehicles in Belfast on Tuesday evening and blocked roads, a day after a stabbing allegedly by a Sudanese refugee, captured in a graphic video that shocked the country. Hundreds of protesters, many masked, gathered at several locations across Belfast. A bus and several cars were set alight, while a building fringing the city centre caught fire and i...
Fintech company iCapital has more than doubled its office footprint in Hong Kong, leasing a 9,000 sq ft space in One International Finance Centre in the city’s Central business district as it staffs up to capture rising demand for wealth-management services in Asia. The US company, which opened its office in Hong Kong five years ago, is preparing for its next stage of growth, said Tuan Lam, head o...
Japan could be heading into one of the worst typhoon seasons in its history, raising fears that stronger, more frequent storms will challenge not only the country’s disaster defences but also a summer travel industry already stretched by packed trains, hotels and itineraries. Tokyo-based Weathernews, a private meteorological firm providing long-range forecasts across Asia, has predicted that as ma...
Eyeing massive new shipping facilities near the Three Gorges dam, China has formally begun construction on an ambitious project to enable the passage of larger vessels and streamline logistics along the nation’s most critical waterway. The centrepiece of the planned 77.2 billion yuan (US$11.4 billion) infrastructure buildout, which looks to span nearly a decade, is a series of mega ship locks – co...
The US Court of International Trade is pressing the Trump administration to speed up tariff refunds of billions of dollars to thousands of importers, following a partial roll-out after the US Supreme Court struck down its global tariffs in February. “The time has come to refund all the duties,” said Judge Richard Eaton on Tuesday, adding that the delay is leading to a “growing inequity” between bi...
The US Court of International Trade is pressing the Trump administration to speed up tariff refunds of billions of dollars to thousands of importers, following a partial roll-out after the US Supreme Court struck down its global tariffs in February. “The time has come to refund all the duties,” said Judge Richard Eaton on Tuesday, adding that the delay is leading to a “growing inequity” between bi...
The US Court of International Trade is pressing the Trump administration to speed up tariff refunds of billions of dollars to thousands of importers, following a partial roll-out after the US Supreme Court struck down its global tariffs in February. “The time has come to refund all the duties,” said Judge Richard Eaton on Tuesday, adding that the delay is leading to a “growing inequity” between bi...
A huge treasure trove of ancient DNA from animals including extinct woolly mammoths has been discovered in frozen squirrel faeces in Canada’s remote Yukon territory, scientists said on Tuesday. The DNA found deep inside sealed-off burrows is between 3,000 and 700,000 years old, offering a rare window into how life has changed over the millennia. As well as DNA from woolly mammoths – which the US c...
The US expects to complete President Donald Trump’s long-promised southern border wall by late 2027, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Rodney Scott said Tuesday. The barrier along the US-Mexico border is made of reinforced metal beams and is intended to run from San Diego to the Gulf of Mexico, except in selected areas “where we’ve made a conscious decision that we don’t need it”, S...
A US prosecutor’s newly revealed diaries from World War II have laid bare the gruelling effort to document Japanese wartime atrocities in China and the unlikely bond forged between him and the people he helped. The diaries belonged to David Nelson Sutton, an American assistant prosecutor at the Tokyo Trial, or the International Military Tribunal for the Far East – a landmark international judicial...
