Live headlines from trusted global sources. Click any story to open it on the original website.
Beijing has strongly condemned Czech Senate President Milos Vystrcil’s visit to Taiwan this week, and demanded “immediate and effective” measures to curb the impact of his trip. Vystrcil, who is leading a delegation of some 40 representatives from Czech business, academic and cultural sectors, arrived in Taiwan on Monday morning. He is set to meet the island’s leader, William Lai Ching-te, and oth...
Nvidia has partnered with Chinese robotics champion Unitree Robotics and Singapore robotic hand maker Sharpa to release a new humanoid robot reference design to accelerate innovation in the global humanoid industry, the US chip giant’s CEO, Jensen Huang, announced on Monday. The new design, called H2+, will support industry-wide humanoid robotics research by streamlining the full development workf...
Five people have died and two others were injured in a fire at a factory operated by South Korea’s Hanwha Aerospace in the city of Daejeon, authorities said on Monday. The two survivors, including one who was badly burned, had escaped from the facility themselves, a fire official told a briefing. “Authorities have yet to identify the victims because their bodies were severely damaged,” a health o...
Five people have died and two others were injured in a fire at a factory operated by South Korea’s Hanwha Aerospace in the city of Daejeon, authorities said on Monday. The two survivors, including one who was badly burned, had escaped from the facility themselves, a fire official told a briefing. “Authorities have yet to identify the victims because their bodies were severely damaged,” a health o...
The US said it struck Iranian military sites at the weekend and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Monday it had targeted a US base in response, the latest in a series of exchanges amid negotiations to end the three-month-old war. The strikes on Iran’s Gulf coast were in response to “aggressive Iranian actions that included the shootdown of a US MQ-1 drone that was operating over international w...
We have put together stories from our coverage last weekend to help you stay informed about news across Asia and beyond. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. Chinese archaeologist who discovered 5,000-year-old city pleads guilty to corruption 2. Hong Kong body took action after teacher carried female student like bride 3. ‘Clear-eyed’ on China: the take...
US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth praised stabilised ties with China at the recently concluded Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, as Chinese delegate Major General Meng Xiangqing warned against hegemonism and Japanese military expansion, while Japan’s Defence Minister dismissed claims of a “new militarism”. Read the full text of all three speeches below. Major General Meng Xiangqing: Remarks by Pr...
Beijing has revealed the sweeping scale of a year-long campaign targeting irregular law enforcement against businesses as the country intensified its efforts to discipline local bureaucracies and improve governance. The Information Office of the State Council, China’s cabinet, said in a press briefing on May 21 that the campaign uncovered more than 66,000 problematic administrative law enforcement...
A Malaysian state chief minister is under police investigation after a viral video showed him shooting a sacrificial cow with a shotgun at an Eid ul-Adha event, triggering public anger and questions over gun use, animal welfare and Islamic slaughter rules. Police in Perlis, a small northern state bordering Thailand, said they had seized the shotgun believed to have been used by Chief Minister Abu ...
Former US Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell used one of his first major public appearances since leaving office to defend independent institutions while accepting an award Sunday honouring his efforts to preserve the central bank’s independence. Speaking at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, Powell called universities, courts, Congress and the central bank “the foundation and the embodime...
An eminent clinical scientist born in Hong Kong has returned to the city to lead its third medical school after serving as a founding dean of medicine in the United States, vowing to nurture future leaders of the “healthcare revolution”. King Li King-chuen, dean emeritus of Carle Illinois College of Medicine (CI Med), on Monday assumed the role of dean of medicine at the Hong Kong University of Sc...
A Hongkonger who specialises in biomedical imaging and was the founding dean of a US university medical school has been selected to lead the city’s third medical school. In a statement released by the University of Science and Technology on Monday, physician-scientist King Li King-chuen, dean emeritus of the Carle Illinois College of Medicine, said he would draw on his experience to work closely w...
Beijing has announced law enforcement patrols in waters east of Taiwan, in retaliation against Japan and the Philippines’ decision to launch maritime boundary delimitation talks. According to a statement from China’s coastguard, a formation led by its vessel Daishan conducted law enforcement patrols on Monday in waters east of Taiwan “in accordance with the law”. “This is a necessary action take...
Malaysia began enforcing age verification requirements for social media platforms on Monday, barring children under 16 from opening new accounts and requiring all existing users to confirm their identities using official government documents. The measures come into force under the Online Safety Act 2025 and are being implemented by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) thro...
Jakarta residents have largely welcomed a new police-military campaign against violent street crime, after a wave of brazen motorbike muggings struck fear into Indonesia’s capital. But rights advocates warn that deploying soldiers alongside police blurs a line between law enforcement and military power, reviving memories of extrajudicial killings in a country still haunted by its authoritarian pas...
Under the weight of sustained US export controls on advanced semiconductors, China’s AI chipmakers are battling to forge a self-reliant silicon ecosystem capable of breaking Nvidia’s stranglehold on the market. At the centre of this rivalry is a fundamental design debate: Should the country rely on the versatile graphics processing unit (GPU) or pivot to the highly specialised application-specific...
Australia’s populist One Nation party surged past the ruling Labor party to lead a nationwide opinion poll for the first time, highlighting voter disappointment with last month’s budget and reinforcing signs of a fracturing of the conservative side of politics. One Nation’s primary vote advanced 4 percentage points to 31 per cent from a previous poll conducted ahead of the May 12 budget, while the...
It’s that time of the year again – tax season, so don’t forget to fill out your return. It’s also the time of the year when the Hong Kong government decides on pay rises for its civil service staff of over 170,000. There’s a well-established system for deciding on pay rises. It includes the pay trend survey submitted to the government last week. Its preliminary results indicate that civil servants...
[The content of this article has been produced by our advertising partner.] Affluent parents in Hong Kong and mainland China have begun wealth transfer planning when their children are as young as four, according to a new survey by DBS Hong Kong. “DBS Treasures Affluent Family Survey 2026 – From Education to Inheritance: Planning for Children’s Future”, which polled families in Hong Kong and main...
Hong Kong’s leader begins an official visit to Central Asia on Monday with his largest delegation to date, aiming to explore new markets amid geopolitical uncertainties and help mainland Chinese companies “go global”. Sources said dozens of memorandums of understanding (MOUs) were expected to be signed by representatives from various sectors and their counterparts in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan duri...
On October 16, 1846, the American dentist William T.G. Morton successfully demonstrated the use of inhaled ether anaesthesia at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, an event widely considered a turning point in modern surgery. But this record may have to be rewritten after new evidence emerged that in the 14th century AD, Chinese surgeons were making their own anaesthetics from plants. Their ...
A Tokyo bar run by Buddhist monks has become an online sensation for its unusual blend of cocktails, chanting and death-themed rituals. At the Vowz Bar in the city’s Shinjuku district, patrons can sip drinks inspired by heaven and hell, seek life advice from the monk staff and listen to sutras performed in a modern musical style. According to a Chinese visitor @kaolababyy, the menu features cockta...
A Tokyo bar run by Buddhist monks has become an online sensation for its unusual blend of cocktails, chanting and death-themed rituals. At the Vowz Bar in the city’s Shinjuku district, patrons can sip drinks inspired by heaven and hell, seek life advice from the monk staff and listen to sutras performed in a modern musical style. According to a Chinese visitor @kaolababyy, the menu features cockta...
Deep in the forested highlands of northern Myanmar, where the Irrawaddy River rises from two tributaries in the hills of Kachin state, a contentious infrastructure project is stirring again – and threatening to reopen wounds that never fully healed. The Myitsone Dam, a US$3.6 billion Chinese-financed hydroelectric megaproject that was shelved more than a decade ago after igniting a storm of popula...
The focus of competition for Chinese electric vehicles (EVs) is shifting from prices to artificial intelligence capability, as carmakers try to manage weakening demand amid tightened regulations, according to Morgan Stanley. The push in AI would likely bring models with conditionally autonomous driving capability, or Level 3 (L3), to market, said Tim Hsiao, head of the Greater China auto and share...
The US Department of Commerce on Sunday moved to close a year-old potential loophole it had created that may have led companies to export the world’s most advanced chips – such as Nvidia’s most sophisticated Rubin and Blackwell processors, as well as AMD’s MI350x – to Chinese entities located outside China. The unexpected guidance suggests the United States’ best artificial intelligence chips may...
The US Department of Commerce on Sunday moved to close a year-old potential loophole it had created that may have led companies to export the world’s most advanced chips – such as Nvidia’s most sophisticated Rubin and Blackwell processors, as well as AMD’s MI350x – to Chinese entities located outside China. The unexpected guidance suggests the United States’ best artificial intelligence chips may...
Hong Kong simply has not developed the right mindset with respect to fire safety. Unless prompt, effective action is taken, we could be looking at more tragedies like the Wang Fuk Court disaster in Tai Po. The numbers are stark and overwhelming, yet the context from which they have been derived is even more frightening. In January and February this year, the Fire Services Department inspected some...
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa held a phone call with US President Donald Trump in which they discussed supporting the Syrian economy and the latest regional developments, the Syrian presidency said on Sunday. During the call, Sharaa said lifting the remaining US sanctions on Syria was essential to reviving the economy and attracting investments, according to the statement. The United States ...
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa held a phone call with US President Donald Trump in which they discussed supporting the Syrian economy and the latest regional developments, the Syrian presidency said on Sunday. During the call, Sharaa said lifting the remaining US sanctions on Syria was essential to reviving the economy and attracting investments, according to the statement. The United States ...
