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Major French supermarket chains Intermarché and Coopérative U were hit by a cyberattack that caused their refrigerators to defrost, the two retailers told AFP Monday. Some 150-200 Intermarché shops were targeted, along with almost 100 Coopérative U outlets, in the attack, they said. Paris prosecutors confirmed the attack, which reportedly also hit other major chains, and also indicated it had prom...
The much-anticipated opening of the revamped Huanggang Port border crossing between Hong Kong and Shenzhen on Monday was marked by excitement, eagerness and confusion. At around 8am, 1½ hours after the control point opened, many private vehicles were neatly lining up for immigration clearance. The use of new technology, a new location and a new facility meant that extra time and patience were need...
US start-up OpenAI’s latest advances in artificial intelligence may be a tipping point that leads to a breakthrough for the robotics industry as soon as next year, according to the founder of Chinese giant Unitree Robotics. Wang Xingxing, also the CEO of the Hangzhou-based company, said on Monday that OpenAI’s recently released GPT-6 model prompted expectations that a breakthrough could happen “wi...
Indian opposition leaders and student activists marched on the Supreme Court on Monday to demand the resignation of the country’s election chief over alleged voter roll manipulation, as authorities erected heavy barricades and shut six metro stations across New Delhi. The rally went ahead after the Chief Justice of India turned down a meeting request from an opposition delegation, urging them inst...
More than 120 robots, including humanoid machines designed for factory work and elderly care, will be showcased at two major Hong Kong electronics fairs, as mainland Chinese manufacturers seek to expand the commercial applications of AI and tap overseas markets. The Hong Kong Electronics Fair (Autumn Edition) and electronicAsia will open on Tuesday at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre...
The visit by star-studded Manchester City, the most successful English football team of recent times, was a highlight of Hong Kong’s football festival this summer. Supporters, sporting the club’s colours, flocked to Kai Tak Stadium, turning it into a sea of blue. Now, the club has plumbed the depths, found guilty by an independent tribunal of systematic breaches of the English Premier League’s fin...
Saudi Arabia said it was dealing with new drone and cruise missile attacks on Monday, posing fresh security threats to the kingdom following the weekend’s deadly strikes on Riyadh airport. “We have detected and are monitoring a threat involving drones and cruise missiles against the kingdom and the threat is being dealt with,” the state-run Saudi Press Agency reported. It cited Defence Ministry sp...
When Liverpool fans greeted Manchester City at Anfield on Sunday with jeers and banners demanding the Abu Dhabi-owned football club be relegated, they took aim at what critics have long dubbed “sportswashing” – the practice of using high-profile sports investments to launder a tarnished international reputation. Focusing solely on public relations, however, obscures a much deeper network of high-s...
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will visit Azerbaijan and three Balkan countries amid Beijing’s push to shore up its trade corridors and geopolitical influence in the regions. Wang will attend the seventh summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in Baku, Azerbaijan, on Thursday “as special representative of President Xi Jinping”, according to China’s...
The US Navy aims to field a relatively low-cost hypersonic missile on its carrier-based fighters, a weapon that could pose a new challenge to the air defences protecting Chinese warships and coastal military installations, experts said. California-based defence company Castelion’s Blackbeard is designed to fly at more than five times the speed of sound and strike ships and land targets. Unlike mor...
Weeks of high-wire negotiations between China and the EU culminated in a surprise trade deal that will, among other measures, impose strict quotas on Chinese hybrid car exports to the bloc and slash Chinese tariffs on a variety of European goods. The deal, unveiled on Friday, takes some of the heat out of searing bilateral trade tensions and temporarily averts the prospect of a bruising trade war ...
Hong Kong will step up health surveillance measures for arrivals after a laboratory worker at an anti-plague research institute in Russia died from pneumonia, but authorities have stressed the risk to residents remains low. According to World Health Organization (WHO) information provided by Russian authorities, there was no evidence of ongoing transmission, the Centre for Health Protection (CHP) ...
Jury selection took place on Monday for the trial of British actor and comedian Russell Brand over alleged historical crimes including rape and other sexual offences. Brand, 51, once one of Britain’s most high-profile broadcasters and former husband of US singer Katy Perry, faces three counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault and one count of indecent assault relating to six women from 1...
Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) is planning further measures to boost market liquidity, attract more international investors and expand the use of China’s currency, including through yuan-denominated gold futures and stock trading, according to a blog post by its CEO on Monday. The plans come as the city steps up efforts to reinforce its position as a leading international financial centre...
An investment surge into artificial intelligence may be helping prop up a global economy battered by energy supply shocks, but the technology’s potential to cull jobs requires swift mitigation if Asia’s youth are to secure a place in the future workforce, delegates were warned at the IMF–World Bank annual meetings in Bangkok on Monday. Soaring energy prices, persistent inflation and mounting debt ...
Global diesel prices remain near record highs as Gulf producers struggle to restore refined-fuel exports, despite a recovery in crude shipments and pledges by more countries to release reserves. Net diesel exports from Gulf countries averaged 390,000 barrels per day in August, just over a quarter of their levels before the US-Israel war on Iran, according to the latest available data by the Intern...
About 9 per cent of stroke and heart failure cases may be prevented in Hong Kong over the next decade through a government co-care scheme, according to a university projection. Launched in 2023, the Chronic Disease Co-care Scheme has enrolled over 200,000 residents as of January. Originally a pilot scheme, it was regularised in March, with around 40 per cent of those who completed screening diagno...
Weeks of high-wire negotiations between China and the EU culminated in a surprise trade deal that will, among other measures, impose strict quotas on Chinese hybrid car exports to the bloc and slash Chinese tariffs on a variety of European goods. The deal, unveiled on Friday, takes some of the heat out of searing bilateral trade tensions and temporarily averts the prospect of a bruising trade war....
Taiwan’s defence ministry plans to allow military pilots to serve until the age of 58 as it grapples with the prospect of “having fighter jets but no pilots”. The proposed retention scheme comes as the island’s air force prepares to form operational squadrons around 66 new F-16V Block 70 fighters ordered from the United States, adding pressure to an already stretched pool of experienced pilots. Un...
American-born economists Robert Hall and Michael Woodford have won the 2026 Nobel economics prize “for microeconomic foundations of macroeconomic stabilisation”, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said on Monday. Hall is affiliated with Stanford University in California, and Woodford with Columbia University in New York. The announcement was made in Sweden’s capital Stockholm. We are better...
Robert Hall and Michael Woodford have won the 2026 Nobel economics prize “for microeconomic foundations of macroeconomic stabilisation”, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said on Monday. Hall is affiliated with Stanford University in California, and Woodford with Columbia University in New York. The prestigious award, formally known as the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in ...
Shenzhen Transsion Holdings drew a lukewarm response for its HK$3.36 billion (US$428 million) Hong Kong share offering, heightening worries over market sentiment for new listings in the fourth quarter. The maker of Africa’s bestselling phones closed its bookbuilding on Monday, with preliminary figures showing the offering attracted about 14,000 applications and was oversubscribed roughly 3.5 times...
Police in southwestern China have debunked a terrifying rumour after an alarmed homeowner was told by a neighbour that bones found on her rooftop belonged to a buried young boy. On October 5, a woman surnamed Li from Chengdu, Sichuan province, told local media outlet Sichuan Observation that she had found what appeared to be a grave on the rooftop above her flat. Li bought the second-hand flat on ...
China accounts for about 5 per cent of the equipment and materials directly supplied to the US chip industry when measured by country of manufacture, but its grip on certain rare earths needed for chipmaking is over 90 per cent, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA). While 95 per cent of the nearly US$27 billion annual spending by American chipmakers on manufacturing equipment ...
A Beijing-educated former official at the US federal drug regulator has been appointed to lead Hong Kong’s new medical products body, tasked with accelerating the clinical use of medicines and medical devices as part of a regulatory overhaul. Dr Li Zili, who previously worked at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), would take up the post of controller for medical products regulation under th...
A Beijing-educated former official at the US federal drug regulator has been appointed to lead Hong Kong’s new medical products body, tasked with accelerating the clinical use of medicines and medical devices as part of a regulatory overhaul. Li Zili, who previously worked at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), would take up the post of controller for medical products regulation under the D...
Indian factories, smelters and households are being hit by blackouts and rising energy costs as the impact of plunging coal stockpiles at the country’s power stations ripples through the economy. The weakest monsoon since 2015 has curbed hydropower output, while hotter-than-normal weather has buoyed demand for air conditioning and farm irrigation. That has seen coal-fired power stations, which sup...
China agreed to cut millions of hybrid car exports to the European Union over the next four years, easing simmering trade tensions ahead of a key meeting of European leaders later this week. The deal will slow exports to half or less the pace currently predicted by the EU, the bloc’s trade chief, Maros Sefcovic, told a press conference in Beijing on Friday after two days of negotiations. Next year...
Hong Kong police have arrested a domestic helper on suspicion of murdering a 93-year-old widowed cancer survivor she was caring for, with an investigation suggesting the elderly woman was assaulted repeatedly in the hours before her death. The woman, surnamed Kwan, was found unresponsive in her flat in Long Yiu House at Tak Long Estate in Kowloon Bay on Sunday morning, police said. The 52-year-old...
Hong Kong police have arrested a domestic helper on suspicion of murdering her 93-year-old employer, a cancer survivor who lived alone, with an investigation suggesting she was repeatedly assaulted in the hours before her death. The elderly woman was found unresponsive in her flat in Long Yiu House at Tak Long Estate in Ngau Tau Kok on Sunday morning, police said. The 52-year-old helper, hired to ...
