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When it comes to the performance of real estate markets in the Asia-Pacific, Japan reigns supreme. Asia’s second largest economy is the deepest, most widely traded, and the safest market in the region. Last year, Japan accounted for 28 per cent of direct investment in Asia-Pacific commercial real estate, data from MSCI shows. The average vacancy rate for grade A offices in Tokyo was 0.7 per cent i...
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday he was willing to meet Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in the United States, suggesting Putin would find such an offer “harder to refuse”. The Ukrainian leader said he made the proposal in a call with US President Donald Trump, and was waiting to see what came of it. Putin has repeatedly rejected offers for a face-to-face meeting with Zelens...
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday said he intends to run in elections scheduled for later this year, as he faces domestic criticism over his wartime leadership. Netanyahu, who is Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, has led his country through three years of war on multiple interconnected fronts and is currently on trial for corruption. In recent months, he has come under mou...
Argentina’s top central banker sat down with his Chinese counterpart in Shanghai, a quiet overture towards Beijing months after Buenos Aires moved to unwind a currency lifeline that Washington had pushed it to abandon. Santiago Bausili, president of the Central Bank of the Argentine Republic, met People’s Bank of China governor Pan Gongsheng on the sidelines of an international symposium organised...
California Governor Gavin Newsom on Monday accused US President Donald Trump of directing the Justice Department to undertake a politically motivated investigation of him and his wife. “Donald Trump isn’t just coming after me because of my mean tweets,” Newsom said in a video statement posted to social media. “He’s coming after me because I am considering running for President.” The Justice Depa...
A federal judge on Monday dismissed a lawsuit by Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI that accused rival Sam Altman’s OpenAI of stealing trade secrets for chatbots. US District Judge Rita Lin in San Francisco, California, said xAI failed to show that OpenAI induced former xAI senior engineer Xuechen Li, a Chinese national, to divulge confidential information related to its Grok chatbot...
Hungary’s parliament approved a constitutional amendment on Monday that allows prime ministers to serve for a maximum of eight years, effectively barring former premier Viktor Orban from holding the role again. Prime Minister Peter Magyar ousted Orban in an election in April after 16 years, gaining a two-thirds majority in parliament that allows his party to roll back or change legislation pas...
US President Donald Trump announced plans on Monday for a major “rally” in Washington on the July 4 Independence Day, further imposing his political brand on celebrations of the United States’ 250th anniversary. The announcement comes a day after the Republican billionaire staged a mixed martial arts fight on the White House lawn – on what just happened to be his 80th birthday – with military hono...
A senior US official on Monday said that President Donald Trump and Vice-President J.D. Vance had signed the memorandum of understanding electronically with Iran to formally reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end the American blockade of Iranian ports. The official also claimed Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf signed the document on Tehran’s behalf. Trump “wanted to sign it persona...
A senior US official on Monday said that President Donald Trump and Vice-President J.D. Vance had signed the memorandum of understanding electronically with Iran to formally reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end the American blockade of Iranian ports. The official also claimed Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf signed the document on Tehran’s behalf. “The president wanted to sign it...
A senior US official on Monday said that President Donald Trump and Vice-President J.D. Vance had signed the memorandum of understanding electronically with Iran to formally reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end the American blockade of Iranian ports. The official also claimed Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf signed the document on Tehran’s behalf. “The president wanted to sign it...
[The content of this article has been produced by our advertising partner.] Last Tuesday (9 June), Hong Kong Metropolitan University (HKMU) held a groundbreaking ceremony for its new campus on a slope site at the junction of Sheung Shing Street and Fat Kwong Street in Ho Man Tin, marking the official commencement of the new campus development project and a new chapter for both the University and t...
The European Union’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas said the bloc has verified reports that China’s military has been “training Russian military personnel to fight in Ukraine”, a development that could deepen tensions between the two sides. Kallas, speaking after chairing a meeting of the EU’s 27 foreign ministers in Luxembourg on Monday, said that the EU was “carefully assessing the implications” of th...
A sample collected from a market in Hong Kong has tested positive for bird flu H9, days after a two-year-old boy who visited the venue contracted a mild strain of the infectious disease. But the Centre for Health Protection (CHP) said on Monday that the risk of a serious bird flu outbreak was low. The boy, who lives in Sha Tin, became ill after visiting Wo Che Market in the district and was later ...
A sample collected from a wet market in Hong Kong has tested positive for bird flu H9, days after a two-year-old boy who visited the venue contracted a mild strain of the infectious disease. But the Centre for Health Protection (CHP) said on Monday that the risk of a serious bird flu outbreak was low. The boy, who lives in Sha Tin, became ill after visiting Wo Che Market in the district and was la...
The US-Iran peace deal is likely to bring immediate relief but not yet reassurance for Asia, as leaders across the region watch whether the Strait of Hormuz reopens, oil prices ease and the agreement can withstand the nuclear talks and geopolitical distrust still ahead, analysts say. The agreement, mediated by Pakistan and scheduled to be signed on Friday in Switzerland, is intended to end more th...
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and her Italian counterpart Giorgia Meloni agreed on Monday to deepen cooperation in advanced technologies such as semiconductors and strengthen supply chains for critical minerals to bolster economic security while advancing defence ties. The two leaders also welcomed a preliminary agreement between the United States and Iran intended to end their war that t...
As plunging oil prices signal broad market optimism following an initial deal between the United States and Iran, attention has turned to whether Chinese firms sanctioned for Iran-related business will see immediate relief, though analysts remain cautious. “New purchases of Iranian oil ostensibly wouldn’t be subject to fresh sanctions, but at the same time, I imagine we won’t see a rush to lift ex...
A Polish doctor has been taken into custody after 34 human fetuses were found buried in the garden of her former home, the authorities said on Monday. Magdalena H. – a 57-year-old medical pathologist with no previous criminal record – is suspected of using the fetuses to perform experiments and now faces up to 12 years in prison. Her case has whipped up a storm in traditionally Catholic Poland, wi...
One of China’s largest defence contractors displayed a model of a drone assembly line at a leading international defence exhibition, hinting that the firm is planning to make more of the weapons overseas. The state-run North Industries Group Corporation (Norinco) displayed the model during this year’s Eurosatory, one of the world’s largest exhibitions of army weaponry, which is being held in Paris...
Fox Corp is buying Roku in a cash-and-stock deal valued at about US$22 billion in a bet that pairing its sports and news programming with a top TV streaming platform will strengthen its position as audiences shift online. The deal, announced on Monday, gives Fox access to the more than 100 million households using Roku’s streaming platform, potentially helping the cable TV-reliant media company b...
The defacement of the National Bureau of Investigation’s website over the weekend marked an escalation in a wave of attacks on Philippine government pages, with the country’s main investigative agency becoming the third major state body in less than a week to have its site compromised. The incident followed similar attacks on the Senate’s website on Wednesday and the House of Representatives’ page...
In Thaksin Shinawatra’s hometown outside Chiang Mai, neighbours say they hope the royal pardon gifted to the tycoon offers Thailand’s most loved – and quite possibly, most loathed – politician a chance to exit the kingdom’s bear-pit politics ahead of his 77th birthday. But after eight months in jail, a coup against his government, a battery of legal cases, threats to his family, assets – and even ...
Beijing’s long-standing efforts to reinvigorate the domestic economy continue to face headwinds, as the latest credit data points to persistently sluggish consumption and weak investment across China, with the tech sector standing out as a lone bright spot amid the central government’s push for innovation to reduce external reliance. New bank loans totalled 520 billion yuan (US$77 billion) in May,...
Japan is falling into a trap in defending its currency against the US dollar, like Thailand in 1996. Japan’s large forex reserves make the yen a juicy target, rather than deterring currency predators. Its fundamentals are weak and deteriorating, making the yen’s further decline inevitable. Japan can’t raise interest rates aggressively to defend its currency due to its high national debt. It could ...
A Hong Kong court has awarded HK$6.29 million (US$802,698) in damages to a dancer left paralysed after being struck by a falling giant screen during a concert by Cantopop boy band Mirror four years ago. In a written judgment on Monday, the District Court ruled that Mo Li Kai-yin was entitled to substantial damages from his employer, Studiodanz, under the Employees’ Compensation Ordinance after suf...
A Hong Kong court has awarded HK$6.29 million (US$802,698) in damages to a dancer left paralysed after being struck by a falling giant screen during a concert by Cantopop boy band Mirror four years ago. In a written judgment on Monday, the District Court ruled that Mo Li Kai-yin was entitled to substantial damages from his employer, Studiodanz, under the Employees’ Compensation Ordinance after suf...
A Hong Kong court has awarded HK$6.29 million (US$802,698) in damages to a dancer left paralysed after being struck by a falling giant screen during a concert by Cantopop boy band Mirror four years ago. In a written judgment on Monday, the District Court ruled that Mo Li Kai-yin was entitled to substantial damages from his employer, Studiodanz, under the Employees’ Compensation Ordinance after suf...
Two men were convicted on Monday of a plot last year to set fire to property linked to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. The fires in May 2025 damaged the home Starmer moved out of when he became prime minister, as well as an apartment building he once owned a share of and destroyed his former Toyota SUV. Nobody was injured in the blazes. Ukrainian national Roman Lavrynovych, 22, and Stanislav ...
The announcement of an impending Iran deal could not have been a better birthday gift for President Donald Trump – but celebrations could be short-lived if fragile details of the agreement fail to hold. Obstacles will not be easy to overcome, Chinese observers say. Any lasting framework must navigate uncertainties around the fate of Iran’s nuclear programme under its new regime, the mechanisms of ...
