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Hong Kong customs has arrested a woman on suspicion of illegally importing seven animals worth around HK$4,300 (HK$549) including a sugar glider and a chinchilla, into the city. A spokesman for the Customs and Excise Department said on Sunday that officers intercepted a 46-year-old passenger at the Lok Ma Chau Spur Line checkpoint the day before, seizing the animals from paper bags she carried. “C...
Malaysia has ramped up health screenings at all international entry points, particularly in the maritime sector, to prevent hantavirus from entering the country, according to Health Minister Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad. Dzulkefly assured the public that as of Sunday, there have been zero hantavirus cases reported in Malaysia or involving Malaysians, noting that the six lab-confirmed cases recently highligh...
Hong Kong recorded 17 per cent growth in investment in the first quarter of the year, driven mainly by machinery purchases and construction-related activities that reflected a steadily improving property market, the finance chief has said. Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po noted on Sunday that while the city recorded its fastest quarterly expansion in nearly five years at 5.9 per cent, not all r...
Hong Kong recorded a 17 per cent growth in investment in the first quarter of the year driven mainly by machinery purchases and construction-related activities, according to the city’s finance chief, reflecting a steadily improving property market. Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po on Sunday acknowledged a gap in perceived economic growth among residents working in different sectors as the city ...
In China, a grey market of API relay platforms is thriving, allowing local developers to bypass restrictions to access top-tier overseas AI models such as Anthropic’s Claude and Google’s Gemini, which are officially unavailable in the country, despite an escalating crackdown by the foreign providers. Such relay stations, which route access to overseas AI models through proxy servers hosted outside...
Iran has sent its response to a US proposal to begin peace talks to end the war, Iranian state media reported on Sunday, as two carriers were allowed to pass through the blockaded Strait of Hormuz. The response, sent to mediator Pakistan, focused on ending the war on all fronts, especially Lebanon, and on the safety of shipping through the strait, Iranian state television said, without indicating ...
A Qatari natural gas tanker crossed the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday for the first time since the start of the Iran war, heading for Pakistan, while Washington continued to wait for Tehran’s response to its latest proposals to begin peace talks. After some 48 hours of relative calm following sporadic clashes last week that have shaken a month-old ceasefire, Kuwait detected several hostile drones in ...
A cargo ship caught fire on Sunday after being hit by an unknown projectile off Qatar’s coast, the British military said, in the latest attack on vessels in the Persian Gulf since a shaky ceasefire stopped fighting between the US and Iran. The Trump administration says the month-old ceasefire remains in effect, but it has been repeatedly tested with Iran restricting traffic through the Strait of H...
Relative calm prevailed around the Strait of Hormuz early on Sunday after days of sporadic flare-ups, as the United States waited for Iran’s response to its latest proposals to end more than two months of fighting and begin peace talks. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Friday that Washington expected a response within hours. But there have been no signs of movement from Tehran on the pro...
Vietnam has become the latest country to enter talks to buy India’s supersonic BrahMos missile – and at least 15 more are reportedly interested – as defence ministries across Asia and elsewhere increasingly look beyond Western-made systems. New Delhi and Hanoi are in advanced negotiations over a potential US$700 million deal, with talks progressing during Vietnamese President To Lam’s visit to Ind...
A diplomatic row has escalated over the conviction of two men linked to Hong Kong’s London trade office on spying charges, as Britain warned against attempts by foreign states to intimidate individuals on its soil and Beijing urged the country to stop “political manipulation” or risk “firm countermeasures”. The United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said on Saturday it had s...
Britain has warned it will not tolerate attempts by foreign states to intimidate or harass individuals on its soil, as it summoned China’s ambassador after two men linked to Hong Kong’s London trade office were convicted of spying on activists. The United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office confirmed on Saturday that Ambassador Zheng Zeguang had been summoned the previous day afte...
Authorities will negotiate with operators of popular care homes in Guangdong province to secure more places for elderly Hongkongers to meet rising demand, the welfare minister has said, amid a ninefold surge in city residents moving into such facilities across the border in recent years. Secretary for Labour and Welfare Chris Sun Yuk-han said in an interview with the South China Morning Post that ...
A team in China has designed a catalyst that can transform nitrate pollution from agricultural and industrial waste water into ammonia – the chemical backbone of urea fertiliser – with nearly three times the efficiency of conventional catalysts. The study detailing this breakthrough was published on March 18 in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, where it was showcased on the front cover...
More than 100 people aboard a cruise ship that departed from Fort Lauderdale in Florida last month have fallen ill from norovirus, according to the US Centres for Disease Control. The Caribbean Princess, a Princess Cruises ship, departed from Port Everglades on April 28 for an 11-day voyage, according to Cruise Mapper. But on Thursday, the CDC announced that 102 passengers and 13 crew members were...
While leading US artificial intelligence developers such as Anthropic and OpenAI unveil new models with enhanced cybersecurity capabilities, China is also aggressively scaling up its own AI-driven cyber defence market. Anthropic’s Mythos, launched in April, sparked a rapid global response due to its ability to discover and exploit cybersecurity vulnerabilities with unprecedented speed and efficien...
Two Singaporean nationals missing for days were confirmed dead on Sunday from the eruption of Mount Dukono on Indonesia’s Halmahera Island, the local rescue agency said. Rescuers found the bodies around the crater rim and evacuation was under way, agency head Iwan Ramdani said. “Evacuation of the bodies is still hampered by eruptions that continue to occur and bad weather,” Iwan said, adding rai...
The search for two missing Singaporean hikers after a volcanic eruption of Mount Dukono was still hampered by continuous eruptions and bad weather on Sunday, an Indonesian official said, though they were feared to be dead. Some 150 personnel with two thermal drones have been deployed since Sunday morning, the head of local rescue agency Iwan Ramdani said, with the focus of the search around 10...
Amid the crackle of vinyl records and the nostalgia of Cantonese golden oldies, Holy Lee Hau-yin, a Hong Kong mother of three young children, is spinning a new narrative as a professional disc jockey and turning a page on her troubled past. After suffering an abusive marriage and the exhaustion of a decade of childcare, Lee will spend Mother’s Day on Sunday with renewed hope. The 28-year-old is se...
Yasuyuki Watanabe has not seen his daughter in more than 15 years. But he is not celebrating the landmark custody reform that Japan has just implemented. Until last month, Japanese law required one parent to hold sole custody of children after a divorce, leaving the other party reliant on informal goodwill or court-encouraged visitation to maintain a relationship with their child. For Watanabe, 54...
Occupants of a cruise ship struck by a deadly hantavirus outbreak that has sparked international alarm began flying home from Spain’s Canary Islands on Sunday in a complex repatriation operation. Three passengers from the MV Hondius – a Dutch husband and wife and a German woman – have died, while others have fallen sick with the rare disease, which usually spreads among rodents. No vaccines or spe...
A cruise ship hit with a deadly hantavirus outbreak arrived in Spain’s Canary Islands on Sunday, where most of the nearly 150 people on board will be evacuated and flown home after weeks at sea. The Dutch-flagged MV Hondius arrived near the Spanish port of Granadilla escorted by a civil guard vessel, confirmed by data from the maritime tracking service VesselFinder. Passengers and some of the crew...
A cruise ship hit with a deadly hantavirus outbreak is headed for Spain’s Canary Islands, where most of the nearly 150 people on board will be evacuated and flown home after weeks at sea. The Dutch-flagged MV Hondius is expected to reach waters off Tenerife at dawn on Sunday, where WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is due to help coordinate the ship’s evacuation. Three passengers from the ship ...
Hong Kong’s West Kowloon is poised to emerge as the second-most important office sub-market after Central with the completion of new buildings that will accommodate banks and insurance companies, according to industry officials. However, there was expected to be limited demand from newcomers or via corporate expansion, with leasing activity dominated by relocations and higher vacancy rates in some...
There is growing unease in how we describe political systems today. Words that once seemed clear no longer illuminate as they should. “Free”, “democratic”, “liberal” and “authoritarian” are among the most commonly used terms in political discourse, yet their meanings have become increasingly blurred and contested. This is not simply a matter of semantics. It reflects a deeper mismatch between the ...
A casual peace sign in a selfie has become China’s latest online privacy concern after experts warned that the popular pose could expose users’ fingerprints. In a mainland workplace reality show aired in April, financial expert Li Chang used a celebrity selfie to show how clearly visible fingers in a photograph could put personal biometric data at risk. Li said fingerprints could potentially be ex...
The Hong Kong Bar Association has proposed criminalising bid-rigging by introducing a “double-track” approach to the Competition Ordinance, describing it as a quick fix to increase deterrence and encourage more whistle-blowers to expose industry malpractice following the city’s deadliest fire in decades. Under the current civil regime established in 2015, the ordinance only punishes individuals in...
Every year for the past three years, Edward Sugiana has made the same pilgrimage from Vancouver to a memorial hall on the southern fringes of Seoul that has become one of K-pop’s most sacred and sorrowful sites. Inside a small private room, Post-it notes from fans cover the walls alongside flowers and photographs of the girl group Kara. Nearly seven years after her death, visitors continue to arri...
China wants artificial intelligence to become a new engine of growth, powering everything from factory upgrades to scientific discovery. But outside the country’s technology hubs, the economic benefits promised by AI may be harder to realise. Recent studies suggest that AI will widen regional divides. Big cities with deep pools of talent, capital and innovative firms are best placed to adopt the t...
Beneath the shining white glaciers of the Andean mountains lie valuable deposits of gold, copper and molybdenum which, until recently, were off-limits to the mining companies that have set their eyes on these untapped minerals. That could be about to change, after legislators in Argentina agreed to amend the Glacier Law that has prohibited all mining and exploration activities in the country’s gla...
