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A woman in eastern China has been left unable to sleep with her eyes shut and is constantly crying because of a bungled double eyelid operation she underwent six years ago. The woman, surnamed Wang, drew wide attention on mainland social media after she shared her legal disputes with the cosmetic clinic in late May. In June 2020, Wang went to Meixi Cosmetic Surgery Clinic in Suzhou, Jiangsu provin...
The Trump administration has walked back its announcement that non-citizens seeking permanent US residency, commonly called a green card, would need to return to their home country to apply, The New York Times reported. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) told the newspaper on Friday that its policy announcement last week was not a requirement for all applicants, but would rather be implemen...
The Philippines is no stranger to politically weaponised memes and internet trolls. What has changed is the way information warfare is waged, now requiring nothing more than a smartphone and a well-crafted prompt. Supporters of former president Rodrigo Duterte helped pioneer the industrialised use of social media to spread disinformation, rewarding loyalists and destroying opponents through the ru...
The world is not “well prepared” for the next pandemic, Tom Frieden, the former head of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said, citing the current response to the Ebola outbreak and cuts to US public health efforts. “This Ebola outbreak is not going to cause a pandemic, it’s not going to cause a significant risk to large numbers of Americans,” Frieden, the CEO of Resolve to Save Lives...
When China broke out one of its “big guns” in last year’s trade war with the US – an array of export controls on rare earth elements – it helped spur a temporary truce in the pitched conflict between the two economic superpowers. After Beijing’s announcement, many around the world expressed shock at the size and scope of China’s response to Washington’s sky-high tariffs. But for Japan, a squeeze o...
Russia’s state nuclear energy company Rosatom said on Saturday that a Ukrainian drone had struck the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Europe’s largest, causing no damage to key equipment, but the Kyiv military denied it. Rosatom’s head Alexei Likhachev called the incident “deliberate” and said it left a hole in the wall of a turbine hall. “This afternoon, a Ukrainian kamikaze comba...
Think of Hong Kong as a living dictionary. Every old arcade, footbridge and mixed-use tong lau, or tenement building, is an entry worth studying. As the city embarks on another redevelopment cycle, we should be leafing more carefully – not erasing the dictionary’s words but learning how to write new ones in the same spirit. Here are five key words that should be at the centre of any sensitive, for...
US President Donald Trump will headline an event commemorating the nation’s 250th anniversary on the National Mall next month after several musical performers scheduled to appear in the celebration cancelled, citing concerns about its association with him Danielle Alvarez, an adviser to Freedom 250, told The Washington Post that “Trump will personally kick off this historic celebration on Wedn...
US President Donald Trump will headline an event commemorating the nation’s 250th anniversary on the National Mall next month after several musical performers scheduled to appear in the celebration canceled, citing concerns about its association with him Danielle Alvarez, an adviser to Freedom 250, told The Washington Post that “Trump will personally kick off this historic celebration on Wedne...
US President Donald Trump said on Saturday that he was considering cancelling a planned series of concerts on Washington’s National Mall commemorating the nation’s 250th anniversary after a string of artists withdrew from the event, and replacing them with a speech and political-style rally instead. The concerts were planned as part of the larger Great American State Fair, a 16-day event runni...
Pop culture fans packed the inaugural Hong Kong edition of Comic Con, an exhibition featuring international and local animated figures and products, fuelling hopes among digital entertainment vendors that business will be strong over the three-day event that ends on Sunday. Giant statues of characters from Japanese hits such as Dragon Ball and One Piece dominated the crowded show floor at the Conv...
The world can learn diplomatic lessons from Asean, East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta has said in a strongly worded rebuke to existing global power structures. At the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on Saturday, Ramos-Horta, who leads the newest and 11th member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, argued that the bloc epitomised how dialogue could prevent conflict and yield dividends...
Hong Kong should urgently address its bottlenecks in developing a yacht economy by improving immigration procedures, upgrading mooring facilities and curating niche tourism itineraries following Beijing’s policy relaxation on yachts from the city sailing to mainland China, industry leaders have said. Their calls came on Saturday after Beijing allowed Hong Kong and Macau yachts to enter designated ...
The world faces challenges from “hegemonism” and “bloc confrontation” driven by “certain countries”, China’s delegation to Asia’s premier security conference said on Saturday, without directly naming the United States. Major General Meng Xiangqing, the head of the Chinese delegation to the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, sent the warning during a special session on managing threats to strategic ...
Sri Lanka’s Buddhist hierarchy suspended on Saturday a senior monk accused of sexually abusing an 11-year-old girl, in a high-profile case that has shocked the religiously conservative nation. In a rare disciplinary move, 71-year-old Pallegama Hemarathana was stripped of his responsibilities as the chief custodian of a highly venerated ficus grown from a sapling of a tree believed to have sheltere...
Hundreds of vulnerable children in Hong Kong are waiting for temporary homes, with a local charity urging more households from diverse backgrounds to step forward as demand for foster placements continues to outstrip supply. Mother’s Choice said 222 children remained on the official waiting list for placement, adding that single carers now make up nearly 10 per cent of foster parents in its Projec...
The US agency set up to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative is blending national security with development finance to try to secure a critical minerals supply chain, according to analysts and officials. Created in 2019 during President Donald Trump’s first administration, the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) puts its money into private-led projects rather than those led ...
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Saturday expressed her determination to achieve a “breakthrough” in resolving the long-standing issue of Japanese nationals abducted by North Korea, vowing to weigh all options, including summit talks. At a rally in Tokyo calling for the return of Japanese abductees, Takaichi urged North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to take a “courageous step” together for the benefit...
Five villagers trapped deep in a flooded cave in Laos have been freed, ending a 10-day underground ordeal that relied on expert cave rescuers racing against time to dive the group through flooded passages before fresh rains further complicated the mission. Hugs, cheers and tears met four of the group who emerged thin and muddied on Saturday afternoon to be quickly wrapped in foil blankets to regul...
The popular scheme allowing Hong Kong vehicles to travel north to Guangdong province has been extended by five years, mainland Chinese authorities have announced, as the initial three-year period is set to expire. Under the Northbound Travel for Hong Kong Vehicles scheme, eligible private car owners in Hong Kong can drive into Guangdong via the Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macau Bridge without a mainland numb...
The popular northbound cross-border scheme allowing Hong Kong vehicles to travel to Guangdong province has been extended by five years, mainland authorities have announced, as the initial three-year implementation period is set to expire. Under the “Northbound Travel for Hong Kong Vehicles” scheme, eligible private car owners in Hong Kong can drive into Guangdong via the Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macau Bri...
China has pledged to improve the accuracy, reliability and transparency of AI through a new national evaluation framework, as policymakers move to establish common standards for assessing the fast-evolving technology. New guidelines released by the central government said Beijing would create a common yardstick for AI, allowing models, computing power and data quality to be measured and compared u...
Liu Bin, a Chinese archaeologist credited with discovering a vast 5,000-year-old prehistoric city that rewrote the history of Chinese civilisation, has pleaded guilty to taking bribes and embezzlement. The celebrated academic, who discovered the Liangzhu ruins – a Unesco World Heritage site in eastern China’s Zhejiang province – and long oversaw its excavation and heritage nomination, accepted the...
The body of a dead humpback whale known as “Timmy” has been brought ashore on the Danish island of Anholt, where experts hope a postmortem examination will shed light on how it died. A live streaming by the News5 broadcaster showed a vehicle slowly dragging the bloated carcass out of the shallow water by a rope onto the beach on Saturday morning, leaving behind a deep furrow in the sand. The Danis...
The body of a dead humpback whale known as “Timmy” has been brought ashore on the Danish island of Anholt, where experts hope a postmortem examination will shed light on how it died. A live streaming by the News5 broadcaster showed a vehicle slowly dragging the bloated carcass out of the shallow water by a rope onto the beach on Saturday morning, leaving behind a deep furrow in the sand. The Danis...
Seventeen countries have agreed to collaborate on defence strategies for critical marine infrastructure such as undersea cables, an effort that analysts warn may be undermined by the absence of superpower involvement. At the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on Saturday, defence ministers and representatives from these countries attended the launch of the Guiding Principles for Underwater Infrastru...
There is a good deal more to the rapid rise in bond yields around the world, not least in Asia, than meets the eye. It suggests a recognition by financial markets that governments are spending beyond their means, tax revenues and borrowing power. The implication is that either taxes need to rise or public spending needs to fall, or alternatively that financial markets, stock markets in particular,...
America’s latest defence strategy worryingly downgrades the importance of the Indo-Pacific, a US senator warned on Saturday, even as the Pentagon chief delivered a speech reassuring allies of commitment at a defence forum in Singapore. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, a staunch critic of the US-Israeli war on Iran, told a media round table at the Shangri-La Dialogue that she was concerned the Trump ad...
A retired American teacher is planning to travel to China in late summer for a reunion with a female farmer he assisted decades ago. In 1999, Ronald Sakolsky, then teaching English in China, was inspired by Inner Mongolian farmer Yin Yuzhen’s battle against desertification and donated US$5,000 to support her tree-planting efforts in the Maowusu Desert. This contribution enabled Yin to plant some o...
Hong Kong authorities will crack down on flavoured tobacco substances in the next phase of their enhanced smoking control measures, with the health minister describing such products as a “poisoned chalice” designed to hook younger people. Secretary for Health Lo Chung-mau warned on Saturday that flavoured tobacco was mostly delivered through e-cigarettes, with additives containing menthol or sugar...
