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Hong Kong’s Fire Services Department has given approval for 3,600 old low-rise residential buildings to install a new Internet of Things (IoT) smart fire alarm system as an alternative to traditional fire-safety equipment, following a successful pilot scheme in the first quarter of this year. The IoT-enabled system consists of detectors installed in individual flats and public areas of the buildin...
A veteran Hong Kong barrister ordered to demolish alleged illegal structures on his home has lodged a judicial challenge after building authorities refused to consider a constitutional argument he raised earlier. Senior counsel Alan Hoo’s lawyers applied to the High Court for a judicial review over the extent of jurisdiction of the Appeal Tribunal (Buildings Ordinance), saying the statutory body w...
A Hong Kong franchised bus operator has suspended a driver after video footage surfaced online showing him operating a vehicle without either hand on the steering wheel. The incident, which sparked widespread safety concerns on social media on Thursday, prompted KMB to launch an immediate investigation into the driver’s conduct. In a 17-second clip filmed from an adjacent vehicle, the driver can b...
The El Nino weather phenomenon could turn the four to seven tropical cyclones predicted to hit Hong Kong this year into super typhoons, the Observatory has said. The weather forecaster also said on Thursday that the 33.4 degrees Celsius (92.1 Fahrenheit) recorded at its Tsim Sha Tsui headquarters was likely to be surpassed on Friday, when the mercury was set to rise to 35 degrees Celsius. It added...
The El Nino weather phenomenon could turn the four to seven tropical cyclones predicted to hit Hong Kong this year into super typhoons, the Observatory has said. The weather forecaster also said on Thursday that the 33.4 degrees Celsius (92.1 Fahrenheit) recorded at its Tsim Sha Tsui headquarters was likely to be surpassed on Friday, when the mercury was set to rise to 35 degrees Celsius. It added...
Major EU members offered qualified support for the bloc’s flagship industrial plans on Thursday in the first debate over a proposal that has deepened tensions with China. Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Poland all accepted the broad parameters of the Industrial Accelerator Act (IAA), which would put strict conditions on investments into the union from China and other countries, ...
Chinese researchers, in collaboration with Huawei Technologies, have built the world’s first parallel processor using a two-dimensional (2D) semiconductor. As silicon devices approach their physical size limits, Moore’s Law – the observation that computing power doubles roughly every two years, while the cost of computers is cut in half – is hitting a wall. But two-dimensional materials such as mo...
A new Chinese artificial intelligence agent platform is looking to replicate the “lobster craze” sparked by AI agent tool OpenClaw earlier this year, while avoiding some of the privacy and security risks associated with the open-source software. MuleRun, developed by Chinese tech giant Alibaba Group Holding, offers a one-stop service for users to access a range of different AI agents. The platform...
Hong Kong has launched a new solar farm built on restored landfill in Tseung Kwan O, that aims to cut carbon emissions by an amount equivalent to planting about 20,000 trees each year. Jointly developed by environmental services firm Veolia and developers Sun Hung Kai Properties (SHKP) and Citic Pacific, with government support, the facility at South East New Territories Landfill features around 1...
The reshaping of the global economic system we are witnessing has entered an acute phase. This raises several questions. When will the world return to a more stable condition? No less importantly, what places will key countries occupy in the new configuration? To answer these questions, it is useful to view current events through the prism of systemic interstate conflicts, which are among the main...
For many years, India was a key training ground for many of Bangladesh’s senior officials, as well as a source of support and regional guidance. Now, some are being trained in Pakistan, a symbolic shift that has unsettled New Delhi and offered an early clue to how Dhaka’s new government wants to deal with its neighbours. A delegation of 12 senior Bangladeshi bureaucrats attended an executive train...
A Hong Kong secondary school principal filmed swearing at security guards during a student trip to Singapore has resigned and apologised for his failure to “lead by example”. Lee Cheuk‑hing tendered his resignation on Thursday as principal of San Wui Commercial Society Secondary School in Tuen Mun, school manager Edmund Wong Chun‑sek confirmed. Wong, a former lawmaker, said the school’s board of d...
A Hong Kong secondary school principal filmed swearing at security guards during a student trip to Singapore has resigned, days after being suspended from the position. Lee Cheuk‑hing tendered his resignation on Thursday as principal of San Wui Commercial Society Secondary School in Tuen Mun, school manager Edmund Wong Chun‑sek confirmed. Wong, a former lawmaker, said the school’s board of directo...
One in 12 Hong Kong secondary school students is socially disengaged on campus, according to a survey by a social welfare organisation, which is calling for early identification and better support for these “invisible students” before they drop out. The Hong Kong Christian Service (HKCS) surveyed 1,958 Form One to Form Five students aged between 11 and 19 in February and March to identify those wi...
An attacker wounded three people with a bladed weapon at a railway station near Zurich on Thursday morning, before being arrested, Swiss police said. “Shortly after 8.30am, a man injured three people with a bladed weapon” at the station in the city of Winterthur, northeast of Zurich, police for Zurich canton said in a statement. They said the suspected perpetrator – a 31-year-old Swiss man – had b...
China has criticised the commander of the US Forces Korea (USFK) who has described South Korea as a “dagger” and Japan as a “shield” in countering China’s growing regional influence. It comes as Washington seeks to expand the scope of its South Korea-based command for a greater presence across the Indo-Pacific in what Beijing views as an effort to contain it. During a podcast interview hosted by t...
Germany and the Netherlands will set up a joint tactical headquarters in the Baltics this year to command forces on Nato’s eastern flank and help deter Russia, Berlin said on Thursday. The joint German-Dutch command centre known as 1GNC will “assume a command role on Nato’s eastern flank, specifically in the region of Estonia and Latvia” in coming months, the German defence ministry said in a stat...
A mainland Chinese woman injured while travelling in Hong Kong has become the first patient transferred from the city to the mainland under the Hospital Authority’s cross-border ambulance pilot scheme. The patient, who requested to continue her treatment on the mainland, was transferred from Tuen Mun Hospital to Zhuhai People’s Hospital on Wednesday afternoon, according to the Hospital Authority o...
As news spread on Wednesday that Hong Kong banks were tightening scrutiny on mainland Chinese clients opening savings and investment accounts, Zhe Ye – an auctioneer based in the southwestern province of Yunnan – was stunned. The former asset appraiser had been planning a trip to Hong Kong to open an account, hoping to buy overseas assets ranging from the Nasdaq and S&P 500 to shares in newly list...
Chinese tech companies are racing to deploy artificial intelligence models into robots, shifting the battleground for generative AI from digital chatbots to physical autonomous systems. Alibaba Group Holding’s Qwen3.7-Max model, launched last week, features “tool-calling” capabilities that allow the AI model to act as a digital brain to trigger external software and hardware components. The compan...
Hong Kong’s exports rose by nearly 43 per cent year on year in April, driven by strong global demand for artificial intelligence-related electronics, though the government warned that escalating Middle East tensions could cloud the near-term outlook. Provisional figures released by the Census and Statistics Department on Thursday showed that the total value of exports rose by 42.9 per cent in Apri...
Hong Kong authorities launched a search on Thursday for a 52-year-old man who failed to return home after setting out on a hike on Lantau Island the previous day, when the city recorded its highest temperature of the year. The man left home on Wednesday morning, telling his family he planned to tackle section 8 of the Lantau Trail, which connects Shek Pik Reservoir with Kau Ling Chung on the south...
Over seven in 10 regional companies operating in the Greater Bay Area are maintaining a “cautious stance” on expansion, planning to hire no more than 30 new staff over the next three to five years, a survey has found. There is, however, strong demand in the market for hybrid professionals who can blend technology and management expertise, according to the study. The survey was conducted between Ap...
Vice-President Sara Duterte-Carpio, the daughter of former leader Rodrigo Duterte, has long looked like the politician to beat in the Philippines’ 2028 presidential race, with one of the country’s most powerful political brands behind her, a loyal base in Mindanao and early polls showing her ahead of potential rivals. But two prominent pollsters say her lead is not impregnable. According to Dr Ran...
A project designed to teach elderly residents how to protect themselves during extreme heat has improved their health and reduced medical emergencies, according to researchers. Results from the first two years of the three-year “Beat the Heat” project, released by the Chinese University of Hong Kong on Thursday, showed that tailored home interventions led to a 132 per cent increase in knowledge am...
France will reimburse the cost of weight-loss drugs prescribed to severely obese patients from mid-June in a first for a European Union country, Health Minister Stephanie Rist said on Thursday. Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro medications have led a boom in anti-obesity treatment, attracting interest from governments keen to address rising overweight levels worldwide. Rist estimate...
A US judge on Thursday declined to block President Donald Trump’s executive tightening rules on mail-in voting in a loss for the Democratic Party, whose lawyers argued that it could disenfranchise millions of voters. The decision comes as Trump’s Republicans are locked in a tight battle to keep control of both houses of the US Congress in the November midterm elections. Trump has for years pus...
China’s top military command has issued ironclad measures to enforce discipline among senior officials of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in the latest bid to further tighten controls over the leading ranks’ behaviour. The Central Military Commission (CMC), led by President Xi Jinping, issued the “measures on strengthening the education, management and supervision of senior military cadres” rec...
In China, few foods are as modest yet culturally resonant as tofu. Its origins are most often traced to Liu An, the King of Huainan during the Western Han dynasty (206 BC – AD 9), a nobleman fascinated by the search for immortality. According to legend, Liu gathered alchemists on a mountain in Anhui province, central China, where they experimented with spring water, soybeans and gypsum in an attem...
Oslo’s ban on a missile system for Malaysian warships may lead to further bottlenecks in the country’s crucial naval modernisation project due to a scramble for a replacement and hamper its capability to counter vessels encroaching on its exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea, according to analysts. The Malaysian navy has spent more than a decade waiting for its new littoral combat ships ...
