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Hong Kong police have recorded 150 WhatsApp account hijacking cases in the past two weeks, with total losses exceeding HK$26 million (US$3.31 million), including one in which a victim was scammed out of HK$10 million by fraudsters impersonating his father. In a social media post on Wednesday, the force’s Cyberdefender platform warned residents against “blindly” trusting voice messages as fraudster...
Copies of the official paper of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region Committee of the Communist Party of China are not usually a hot commodity. But the Saturday edition of Guangxi Daily became an overnight collector’s item after its front-page story on Wang Hong – who last week received the prestigious Fields Medal alongside her compatriot Deng Yu – went viral online. Wang, who hails from the sout...
French DJ and musician Kavinsky, known for his electronic classic “Nightcall”, has been found dead at his home in Paris, prosecutors said on Wednesday. The self-taught pianist, whose real name is Vincent Belorgey, would have turned 51 on Friday. It was not immediately clear how he died, but emergency crews late on Tuesday noted nothing suspicious, the Paris prosecutor’s office said. “Nightcall” be...
At least 15 elephants have died from exposure to a suspected poison in the Amboseli National Park in southern Kenya over a four-week period, the country’s nature conservation authorities reported on Wednesday. The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) said the animals had died in the park, which lies along the border with Tanzania, between June 24 and July 24. The nearby Kimana Conservancy and the Kuku Ran...
As the Chinese military expands its autonomous underwater capabilities, the US Coast Guard is seeking new ways to counter undersea drones, highlighting what analysts describe as a gap in America’s defence. The law enforcement agency said it was requesting information on commercially available systems capable of detecting, tracking and disabling unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs). While the July 2...
A Norwegian teenager was convicted on Wednesday of conspiracy to commit murder in Britain after being recruited by a Swedish organised crime group that prosecutors said was being used by the Iranian government. Johannes Natland, now 19, was arrested in a hotel room in Huddersfield, northern England, in March last year with two firearms and ammunition in his possession. Prosecutors said Natland...
Firefighters in southwest France battled an uncontained wildfire four times the size of Paris on Wednesday as temperatures were forecast to reach 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit), threatening to turn a calm night into only a brief reprieve. Authorities in the Gironde region said the blaze had not spread overnight, but rising heat and afternoon winds could revive smouldering hotspots, ca...
Philippine Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jnr urged heightened vigilance over academic exchange programmes with China following reports that language teachers in Manila had been trained by a Chinese university at the centre of a recent controversy over the Batanes Islands. Speaking on Wednesday in Manila, Teodoro cautioned that foreign-linked educational initiatives risked being exploited as c...
China’s robotics firms have run into a fresh obstacle in their global expansion, after the United States banned imports of new foreign-made models, which analysts say could benefit Tesla and other American developers. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) added foreign-produced “advanced robotic devices” to its Covered List on Tuesday, blocking new models from obtaining the authorisation req...
China’s robotics firms have run into a fresh obstacle in their global expansion, after the United States banned imports of new foreign-made models. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) added foreign-produced “advanced robotic devices” to its Covered List on Tuesday, blocking new models from obtaining the authorisation required to be imported and sold in the US. The ban will cover all new hu...
Over the past few decades, people in many countries have witnessed extraordinary technological progress. Transport is becoming smarter, robots and drones are entering everyday life, infrastructure is growing more complex, buildings are reaching ever higher into the sky and expanding cities are drawing in millions of new residents. The number of megacities – urban areas with populations of at least...
Chinese scientists have used detailed satellite imagery analysis to examine damage to US military bases in the Middle East, uncovering discrepancies in both Washington and Tehran’s claims over the scale of the conflict. Using advanced remote sensing and image-processing techniques, researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) also identified damage patterns that exposed vulnerabilities i...
Google on Wednesday launched its artificial intelligence agent Gemini Spark in the Hong Kong market, giving local users direct access to a smart assistant to manage complex digital workflows. The launch came months after the American tech giant’s decision in March to lift regional geofences for generative AI services, starting with the Gemini chatbot. Hong Kong users can now access Gemini without ...
Malaysia is tightening controls on high-risk hiking routes after officials linked a growing rescue burden to poor preparation, unauthorised trails and social media-driven summit attempts. The push is aimed partly at curbing gruelling “compressed hikes”, in which climbers try to complete long or technically demanding routes within a single day, often combining an ascent and descent that would usual...
More than 90 per cent of mainland Chinese enterprises plan to expand overseas within the next two years, with over 80 per cent aiming to use Hong Kong as their launch pad into Southeast Asia, a survey has found. The research findings, published by the Trade Development Council on Wednesday, indicate that mainland firms are actively pursuing diversified footprints across Asean markets. The survey, ...
The United States is pitching billions of dollars in investment to become Southeast Asia’s energy partner of choice, offering gas, grid technology and nuclear expertise as ongoing turmoil from the Iran war sharpens fears of future supply shocks. Analysts say the push serves American strategic and commercial interests – from opening markets for US liquefied natural gas to countering China’s dominan...
China’s increasing clout in the global semiconductor supply chain is accelerating the unravelling of the artificial-intelligence trade, as expectations grow that the Asian nation will challenge foreign tech juggernauts by supplying the world with cheaper alternative products. The US$9.8 billion stock offering of ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) in Shanghai provided the Chinese maker of dynamic ...
To offset an ageing agricultural workforce and boost sustainable yields, China is aggressively accelerating the adoption of farm drones – a trend that analysts say could spread to more emerging markets despite trade restrictions imposed by the United States. Industry leader DJI said its global sales of agricultural drones had exceeded 700,000 units across China and more than 100 other countries an...
The uprooting of numerous trees across Hong Kong during Typhoon Noul last weekend has sparked safety concerns among residents, with an expert warning that restrictive planting methods had left some unable to withstand strong winds. Two government hotlines received a total of 331 reports of fallen trees during the typhoon, which triggered No 8 and No 9 signals on Saturday and Sunday. Of the fallen ...
The uprooting of numerous trees across Hong Kong during Typhoon Noul last weekend has sparked safety concerns among residents, with an expert warning that restrictive planting methods had left some unable to withstand strong winds. Two government hotlines received a total of 331 reports of fallen trees during the typhoon, which triggered No 8 and No 9 signals on Saturday and Sunday. Of the fallen ...
Chinese state media has shown the country’s first Type 076 amphibious assault ship, the Sichuan, computer-generated footage of how it launches GJ-21 stealth fighter drones and quotes from a military commentator who said the vessel was in the final stages of commissioning. The 40,000-tonne ship, featuring a 250-metre-long and 62-metre-wide (820 feet by 203 feet) flight deck, recently completed deck...
Indonesia’s attempt to lure back its native talent scattered around the world through limited dual citizenship has highlighted a long-held demand of the diaspora for such a scheme before they would consider returning home. The proposed revision to the citizenship law would mark a major shift for a country that has largely allowed only single citizenship since independence in 1945. Currently, child...
A former Hong Kong teacher has been remanded in custody pending sentencing for twice molesting a student six years ago. A District Court judge sitting at Tsuen Wan Court found Cheng Hon-sze guilty of two counts of indecent assault on Wednesday, for groping his then 15-year-old pupil and making her perform an obscene act on him between May and October 2020. However, Cheng was cleared of seven other...
A former Hong Kong school teacher has been remanded in custody pending sentencing for twice molesting a student six years ago. A District Court judge sitting at Tsuen Wan Court found Cheng Hon-sze guilty of two counts of indecent assault on Wednesday, for groping his then 15-year-old pupil and making her perform an obscene act on him between May and October 2020. However, Cheng was cleared of seve...
A wartime grain loan certificate discovered within an old family home in eastern China has been donated to local authorities nearly eight decades later, illuminating a villager’s remarkable faith in the troops. In 1947, a major People’s Liberation Army (PLA) unit entered the Dabie Mountains, which stretch across the borders of three provinces in central China, during a counteroffensive against Kuo...
A wartime grain loan certificate discovered within an old family home in eastern China has been donated to local authorities nearly eight decades later, illuminating a villager’s remarkable faith in the troops. In 1947, a major People’s Liberation Army (PLA) unit entered the Dabie Mountains, which stretch across the borders of three provinces in central China, during a counteroffensive against Kuo...
China’s unaddressed economic structural problems are swallowing profits and leaving its multinationals falling far behind their US peers in the latest Fortune Global 500 list, despite its firms remaining strong in terms of revenue. The profit gap between Chinese and US companies has continued to widen. Chinese companies posted an average profit of US$4.5 billion in 2025, or some 40 per cent of the...
Hong Kong’s hygiene authorities have arrested 14 people during a citywide crackdown on unlicensed hawkers and seized 600kg (1,320lbs) of food, some of which was expired. Food and Environmental Hygiene Department Chief Health Inspector Chan Sze-man, responsible for hawkers, said on Wednesday that the suspects, aged 38 to 76, were arrested in various districts between July 17 and 28. All of the susp...
Employers in China anticipate a slightly higher median salary increase next year as they push to retain top-tier talent despite financial pressures following a soft 2026, according to data published by a global advisory. Companies were budgeting for a median increase of 4.5 per cent in 2027, following 4.3 per cent growth in 2026 and 4.5 per cent in 2025, the advisory and broking firm WTW said in a...
China’s Moonshot AI, whose recently released Kimi K3 model stunned with performance close to American frontier systems, is seeking ambassadors to elevate its global influence. The Beijing-based start-up on Tuesday launched the “Kimi Ambassador Program”, aimed at “passionate Kimi users to build up communities and the future of AI”, according to its website. The move comes as Moonshot seeks to turn ...
