Live headlines from trusted global sources. Click any story to open it on the original website.
Early on July 12, after Iran declared the Strait of Hormuz closed until further notice and struck a Cyprus-flagged container ship, the United States launched its third round of strikes in a week, hitting some 140 targets. Most were along Iran’s southern coast overlooking the strait – including Bandar Abbas, Sirik, Jask and Qeshm – but one strike days earlier pointed to a different logic. On July 9...
British counterterrorism police officers are now leading the investigation into the suspected murder of former British government minister Ann Widdecombe in light of new information, interior minister Shabana Mahmood said on Monday. Widdecombe, 78, was found dead at her home in rural southwest England last Thursday with what police described as “serious injuries”. She was a prominent member of Ni...
British counterterrorism police officers are now leading the investigation into the suspected murder of former British government minister Ann Widdecombe, interior minister Shabana Mahmood said on Monday. Widdecombe, 78, was found dead at her home in rural southwest England on Thursday with what police described as “serious injuries”. Police arrested a white British man in Rotherham, northern E...
British counterterrorism police officers are now leading the investigation into the suspected murder of former British government minister Ann Widdecombe, interior minister Shabana Mahmood said on Monday. Widdecombe, 78, was found dead at her home in rural southwest England on Thursday with what police described as “serious injuries”. Officers arrested a white British man in Rotherham, northern...
A decade after a tribunal in The Hague ruled on July 12, 2016, that Beijing’s sweeping South China Sea claims had no legal basis, Philippine officials and analysts say Manila remains heavily outmatched at sea but has begun turning its landmark legal victory into a more credible form of deterrence. The Philippines brought the case in 2013 under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (U...
A decade after a tribunal in The Hague ruled on July 12, 2016, that China’s sweeping South China Sea claims had no legal basis, Philippine officials and analysts say Manila remains heavily outmatched at sea but has begun turning its landmark legal victory into a more credible form of deterrence. The Philippines brought the case in 2013 under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unc...
A Hong Kong police officer has been sentenced to nearly two years in jail for filming upskirt footage of a woman and attempting to grab a colleague’s handgun to kill himself after his arrest last year. A deputy district judge handed down the sentence at West Kowloon Court on Monday after Constable Ko Chun-chung, 40, admitted the thrill of breaking the law drove him to commit the offence against th...
President Xi Jinping will attend the opening ceremony of the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai and deliver a keynote address, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Monday. The Chinese leader’s attendance will mark his first in-person appearance at the annual event since it was launched in 2018, signalling the growing priority Beijing places on AI to drive econ...
China’s aircraft carrier programme is entering a new phase as Beijing broadens its focus to improve the recruitment and training of the crews and pilots needed for operations far from the country’s home waters, according to a new report. The London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies said the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy was making sweeping changes to pilot recruitment and t...
China on Monday reiterated its inspections of Panama-flagged ships as routine safety checks, rejecting US and Panamanian accusations that Beijing is weaponising shipping lines for geopolitical leverage. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian defended the measures as lawful and aimed at protecting navigation and the marine environment. “At present, port-state control inspections are an importa...
The European Union will move to limit young children’s access to social media across the 27-member bloc, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Monday, in what would be the biggest such effort to date to guard against online dangers. Von der Leyen presented a paper from two experts recommending a tiered approach, with under-13s only allowed to use social media for limited pe...
The amount that Hongkongers spend on their pet cats has reached a record high of HK$2,062 (US$263) per month this year, fuelled by a rapidly emerging “cat silver economy”, according to a survey. The Exhibition Group, organiser of the coming Hong Kong Cat Expo 2026, said on Monday that the average monthly spending represented a 2.8 per cent year-on-year increase, with the growing proportion of agei...
A Hong Kong court has ordered an Italian chef to serve 90 hours of community service and suspended his driving licence for a year after he admitted to drink-driving and speeding at more than 10 times the limit on a road leading to a landfill. Angelo Vecchio, 43, appeared in Kwun Tong Court on Monday to learn his sentence for dangerous driving on Wan Po Road towards Tseung Kwan O Landfill on the ni...
Futu Holdings, the Nasdaq listed Chinese broker that was recently penalised by China’s securities regulator, said it expects a gradual fall off in mainland business but has no plan to cut Hong Kong outlets. Mainland Chinese-funded accounts had dropped to 13 per cent of its total and their combined size was 17 per cent of total client assets at the end of March 2026, the broker said in a briefing i...
A prominent Chinese maritime analyst has sounded the alarm over Japan’s increasing military presence in the South China Sea, warning it has a “destructive potential” that could ultimately surpass that of the United States. Speaking on Monday at a round table event in Hong Kong discussing security in the region, Wu Shicun, the founding president of China’s National Institute for South China Sea Stu...
Myanmar’s gradual return from the diplomatic deep freeze continued over the weekend as Southeast Asian foreign ministers met their counterpart from the junta-run nation in Bangkok, a re-engagement that analysts warn lends legitimacy to a government still at war with its own people, without any commitment to end the violence. Thousands have been killed in the nationwide civil conflict resulting fro...
A prominent Chinese maritime analyst has sounded the alarm over Japan’s increasing military presence in the South China Sea, warning it has a “destructive potential” that could ultimately surpass that of the United States. Speaking on Monday at a round table event in Hong Kong discussing security in the region, Wu Shicun, the founding president of China’s National Institute for South China Sea Stu...
After China’s cross-border deals for innovative drugs hit a record US$110 billion in the first half of 2026, the sector is now pivoting towards artificial intelligence-powered candidates to drive the next wave of transactions. China accounted for about 30 per cent of all new drugs currently under development worldwide, ranking second globally, according to Lan Gongtao, deputy director general of t...
Hong Kong residents on government welfare can receive cash incentives of up to HK$45,000 (US$5,740) over three years if they secure stable employment and transition to a scheme that promotes self-reliance, authorities announced on Monday. The cash incentive scheme, funded by the Community Care Fund, will launch on October 1. It targets families moving from the Comprehensive Social Security Assista...
A Shenzhen-based investment veteran has revealed on social media that he spent 13 million yuan (US$1.9 million) over nine years to send the woman who deceived him to prison. The story of Li Ping has drawn significant attention online. His 15-minute video, released on June 30, has garnered 69,000 likes and 9,000 comments, news portal guancha.cn reported. Li, 52, said in his clip that during the per...
China will make vehicle connectivity a mandatory part of its automotive safety framework, as Washington seeks to block Chinese cars using the technology over national security concerns. A national standard released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on July 2 requires all new vehicles equipped with intelligent driver assistance systems to support continuous safety monitoring, d...
A United States citizen infected with the Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was admitted to Frankfurt University Hospital early on Monday, officials said. The patient arrived at the hospital’s special isolation unit at around 3am local time after contracting the Bundibugyo variant of the Ebola virus in Congo, the hospital said. The US CDC said on Friday that a US citizen worki...
China has become just the second country after the United States to achieve the controlled recovery of a reusable orbital space rocket. Friday’s successful capture at sea of the booster stage of a Long March-10B rocket after its maiden launch used a novel technique different from that of Elon Musk’s recently listed SpaceX and previous Chinese attempts. Instead of landing using extendable hydraulic...
New satellite images suggest China’s land reclamation at Antelope Reef in the South China Sea is nearly finished, according to researchers. One image taken on June 22 showed that dredgers within the lagoon of the teardrop-shaped coral atoll in the Paracel Islands had been replaced by cargo barges, an indication that land reclamation was near completion, London-based research group the Open Source ...
Filipino domestic workers continue to endure widespread labour exploitation and sexual abuse in Saudi Arabia, according to a new Amnesty International report. The rights watchdog found conditions had barely improved despite years of promised reforms, including last year’s abolition of the kingdom’s notorious “kafala” sponsorship system. The report, based on interviews conducted in March with 19 Fi...
To challenge the global launch market dominance of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Beijing is adopting a coordinated, multi-company “wolf-pack” strategy fuelled by recent engineering breakthroughs in reusable rocketry. The milestones come as a wave of aerospace firms push to secure the capital needed to scale operations and capture global market share. According to exchange filings in Shanghai and Hong Kong, ...
To challenge the global launch market dominance of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Beijing is adopting a coordinated, multi-company “wolf-pack” strategy fuelled by recent engineering breakthroughs in reusable rocketry. The milestones come as a wave of aerospace firms push to secure the capital needed to scale operations and capture global market share. According to exchange filings in Shanghai and Hong Kong, ...
A South Korean court sentenced former president Yoon Suk-yeol on Monday to two years in prison for illegally receiving free opinion polls in exchange for political support, adding to his growing legal woes. Yoon, 65, is already in detention while appealing against a separate life sentence for leading an insurrection through his declaration of martial law in 2024. In a separate case, a court handed...
A South Korean court sentenced former president Yoon Suk-yeol to two years in prison on Monday after finding him guilty of illegally receiving opinion polling services worth 270 million won (US$179,800) for free from a political broker, local media said. The Seoul Central District Court found Yoon violated political funding laws by receiving 14 rounds of polling from the political broker at no ...
A South Korean court sentenced former president Yoon Suk-yeol to two years in prison on Monday after finding him guilty of illegally receiving opinion polling services worth 270 million won (US$179,800) for free from a political broker, local media said. The Seoul Central District Court found Yoon violated political funding laws by receiving 14 rounds of polling from the political broker at no ...
