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Joab Jorge runs Dream Latte Cafe, a speciality coffee shop and small-batch roastery, with his mother Ces out of their old ancestral home in Pilar, a town in Bataan province some 180km (112 miles) northwest of Manila. Rising electricity costs and frequent blackouts have put a strain on the business, which has already had to raise prices by 10 per cent to cover higher costs for goods and imported co...
A Google executive has told an Australian inquiry that a YouTube video falsely claiming a wounded survivor of an antisemitic massacre in Sydney was a crisis actor bloodied with make-up had met the platform’s standards and would remain online. Google Australia manager Rachel Lord was testifying on Tuesday at a government inquiry into the spread of antisemitism in Australia, including an attack by t...
A mainland Chinese court has claimed jurisdiction over an investor lawsuit against a Hong Kong-listed firm for the first time, with the move likely to increase scrutiny of corporate disclosures. Mainland investors filed the lawsuit with the Beijing Financial Court, alleging that an overseas-incorporated company had failed to disclose irregular loans, unauthorised guarantees and related-party trans...
Taiwan’s flagship “T-Dome” air defence programme is facing delays, after budget disputes left one of its critical indigenous missile systems without a clear funding source. The island’s opposition-controlled legislature approved a reduced NT$780 billion (over US$24 billion) special defence budget in May, rejecting a larger NT$1.25 trillion package proposed by the government. Among the excluded pro...
Taiwan’s flagship “T-Dome” air defence programme is facing possible delays to 2028 after budget disputes left one of its critical indigenous missile systems without a clear funding source. The island’s opposition-controlled legislature approved a reduced NT$780 billion (over US$24 billion) special defence budget in May, rejecting a larger NT$1.25 trillion package proposed by the government. Among ...
As soaring temperatures fuel demand for cooling in Europe, Thailand is pitching itself as a source of relief, promoting rainy-season holidays while exporting more air conditioners. With tourism and outbound shipments two of the Southeast Asian economy’s biggest drivers, Europe’s heatwaves are creating opportunities on both fronts. The Tourism Authority of Thailand has launched a campaign encouragi...
Indonesian authorities are widening their investigation into a case of suspected identity and research fraud at an overseas medical conference, which has exposed gaps in academic oversight and revived concerns about abuses in the nation’s system of publication-driven promotion for academia. The Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology has set up a team to examine papers previously publ...
China has called for shelters to stock up with at least three days’ worth of supplies and rolling weather forecasts to be issued, with rescue teams on 24-hour call as Super Typhoon Bavi is predicted to land on the eastern coast between Saturday night and Sunday morning. In a statement on Tuesday evening, the government of Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, said all departments should be “highly alert” a...
China has called for shelters to stock up with at least three days’ worth of supplies and rolling weather forecasts to be issued, with rescue teams on 24-hour call as Super Typhoon Bavi is predicted to land on the eastern coast between Saturday night and Sunday morning. In a statement on Tuesday evening, the government of Hangzhou, Zhejiang province said all departments should be “highly alert” an...
China has called for shelters to stock up with at least three days’ worth of supplies and rolling weather forecasts to be issued, with rescue teams on 24-hour call as super typhoon Bavi is predicted to land on the eastern coast between Saturday night and Sunday morning. In a statement on Tuesday evening, the government of Hangzhou, Zhejiang province said all departments should be “highly alert” an...
A total of 21 people out of 33 have died and seven injured in a landslide in northwestern China, as typhoon, flooding and other geological disasters continue to ravage the country. The victims, who were mostly woodworkers hired to trim trees in Longnan, Gansu province, were buried on Tuesday. Local government said in a press conference that as of Wednesday morning, everyone involved in the inciden...
Malaysian Transport Minister Anthony Loke says success in Johor’s state polls will be measured by how many seats can be clawed away from Barisan Nasional (BN), imploring voters to seek a better power balance if they want a surer footing with Singapore, the economic powerhouse across the causeway that has soaked up its workers and industry. Loke leads the Chinese-majority Democratic Action Party (D...
Who would have thought that Leon Trotsky inadvertently offered a theory to explain China’s economic leapfrog into the 21st century after bouncing back from history’s worst famine and the Cultural Revolution? In recent decades, some people thought China was done for and would eventually collapse. They might have done better if they had read at least the first chapter of Trotsky’s The History of the...
A girl from a disadvantaged rural family in central China topped this year’s gaokao, attracting numerous live-streamers eager to finance her education, which she declined. The home of 18-year-old secondary school graduate Han Yaping in a Henan province village was recently bustling with live-streamers. This attention came after Han achieved an impressive score of 699 out of 750 in the gaokao, Chin...
A Chinese military magazine has highlighted a spate of non-combat losses across the US Navy, claiming they have eroded the fleet’s capabilities and exposed “systemic pressure and shortcomings”. The report in Naval & Merchant Ships pointed to fires, electrical failures and propulsion issues on America’s most advanced warships in recent months. They include the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier, t...
At least six universities in Hong Kong have moved into office buildings or shopping centres over the past three years as classroom space has tightened amid rising non-local enrolment, according to the latest data. Among them is the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), which spent HK$345.4 million (US$44 million) in 2025 to acquire a 31,410 sq ft campus in Admiralty for its busin...
South Korea may have lost Canada’s multibillion-dollar submarine order, but analysts say its close-run contest with Germany has handed Seoul a different prize: proof that it can challenge one of the world’s traditional undersea warfare powers on a stage watched closely by defence buyers. Canada chose Germany’s Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems (TKMS) as the preferred bidder for a programme worth about U...
All charges against a radiologist accused of trying to kill his family in 2023 by driving his car off a cliff along the Northern California coast have been dismissed by a judge following his completion of a mental health programme. Prosecutors charged Dharmesh Patel, 45, with attempted murder after he drove his Tesla off a 276-metre cliff along the Pacific Coast Highway known as “Devil’s Slide”, i...
All charges against a radiologist accused of trying to kill his family in 2023 by driving his car off a cliff along the Northern California coast have been dismissed by a judge following his completion of a mental health programme. Prosecutors charged Dharmesh Patel, 45, with attempted murder after he drove his Tesla off a 276-metre (50ft) cliff along the Pacific Coast Highway known as “Devil’s Sl...
Russian strikes on Ukraine overnight killed at least two people and wounded several more, as Moscow sustained its attacks ahead of a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky at a Nato summit. A first large blast in Kyiv was heard even before the city’s air alert sirens sounded, followed by a barrage of four more. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said warehouses were on...
A series of explosions rocked Kyiv early on Wednesday as Russia keeps up its barrage of attacks on the Ukrainian capital while Nato leaders meet for a summit in Turkey. A first large blast was heard even before the city’s air alert sirens sounded, followed by four more, Agence France-Presse journalists in the city said. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said warehouses were on fire in one district becau...
The US Federal Communications Commission said on Tuesday it is adding California-based Digitalsystem Technology to a list of companies posing risks to US national security, citing links to Chinese telecoms firms and its ownership by a Chinese national. The FCC also said it was denying the Los Angeles-based IT company permission to provide international telecommunications services, saying it coul...
For decades, warnings of Hong Kong’s terminal decline have arrived in periodic waves. When Stephen Roach, the former chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia, ignited a firestorm with his February 2024 assertion that “Hong Kong is over”, he pointed to a toxic cocktail of domestic and external pressures. Roach, who doubled down on his “wake-up call” a year ago, argued that the city’s economic glory was bein...
The Iran battlefield might be quieter and diplomacy might have resumed, but the main contest has shifted to the architecture of the Middle East. The question is no longer whether Iran can be contained, the Strait of Hormuz can remain open or another round of escalation can be avoided. The larger issue is who will write the rules after the shock. Three tracks are taking shape. The first is led by t...
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez denounced the “ruthless” US embargo against the communist island during a UN General Assembly debate on Tuesday that took place despite diplomatic pressure by Washington to prevent it. “The government of the United States is carrying out against Cuba a multi-dimensional, non-conventional warfare that has already lasted for almost seven decades now and has bec...
The United States launched fresh strikes against Iran and revoked a temporary licence allowing Iranian oil sales on Tuesday, after three commercial vessels were attacked in the Strait of Hormuz, in a sharp escalation that threatened to unravel last month’s fragile ceasefire. US Central Command said American forces had begun military operations against Iran in response to attacks on commercial ship...
The US military launched a series of strikes against Iranian targets early on Wednesday after three merchant ships were struck in the waters off Oman. In a statement posted to social media, US Central Command said American forces launched the strikes “to impose heavy costs for targeting and attacking commercial shipping crewed by innocent civilians in an international waterway”. “Iran’s demonstrat...
The US Treasury Department on Tuesday revoked a licence that temporarily lifted oil sanctions on Iran, calling Tehran’s actions in the Strait of Hormuz “wholly unacceptable”. “Iran’s actions in the Strait were wholly unacceptable to the United States and will be met with consequences,” a US official told Agence France-Presse, after attacks on tankers in the key waterway. The waiver announced in Ju...
Colombia’s president-elect Abelardo de la Espriella on Tuesday suspended the transition process with President Gustavo Petro and accused him of planning a coup to stay in power, after the incumbent leader refused to recognise results of the country’s election. Petro said Monday that he refused to recognise de la Espriella’s victory in the June 21 presidential run-off election over the Petro coalit...
Colombia’s president-elect Abelardo de la Espriella on Tuesday suspended the transition process with President Gustavo Petro and accused him of planning a coup to stay in power, after the outgoing leader refused to recognise results of the country’s election. Petro said on Monday that he refused to recognise de la Espriella’s victory in the June 21 presidential run-off election over the Petro coal...
