Live headlines from trusted global sources. Click any story to open it on the original website.
China and Indonesia have launched a new cross-border QR payment system, marking the latest step in Beijing’s drive to build a regional digital payments network as it pushes to internationalise the yuan and reduce dependence on the US dollar. Users can now use domestic mobile apps – such as China’s Alipay and Indonesia’s QRIS – to scan QR codes and make retail payments in either country using their...
Hong Kong’s overall tax revenue rose 22 per cent to HK$458.3 billion (US$58.5 billion) last year, driven by a buoyant stock market and increased property transactions. Commissioner of Inland Revenue Benjamin Chan Sze-wai, on Monday announced the provisional tax figures for the year ending March 31. The increase was led by a 61 per cent surge in stamp duty to HK$102.6 billion, alongside a 20 per ce...
Hong Kong’s overall tax revenue rose 22 per cent to HK$458.3 billion (US$58.5 billion) last year, driven by a buoyant stock market and increased property transactions. Commissioner of Inland Revenue Benjamin Chan Sze-wai, on Monday announced the provisional tax figures for the year ending March 31. The increase was led by a 61 per cent surge in stamp duty to HK$102.6 billion, alongside a 20 per ce...
A 67-year-old driver has been arrested after his vehicle reportedly lost control at a border checkpoint in a traffic accident that killed his 62-year-old wife. Police received a report at 4.41am on Monday that a private car had rammed into multiple traffic cones and a kiosk before coming to rest on its side on the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge near 80 Shun Wan Road. The car, bearing the number pla...
An online media outlet in Hong Kong has been cleared of tax evasion after a year-long review, but the process still cost HK$40,000 (US$5,106) in accounting fees, according to a journalists’ union. The Hong Kong Journalists Association said on Monday it also had been required to prepay HK$730,000 in taxes this year after being under review by the Inland Revenue Department since November 2023. Of th...
A local online media outlet has been cleared of tax evasion after a year-long review, but the process still cost HK$40,000 (US$5,106) in accounting fees, the Hong Kong Journalists Association said on Monday. Describing the case as an “unfair punishment” on media with “zero fault”, the association said it had been required to prepay HK$730,000 in taxes this year, after also coming under review by t...
Lost anti-fascist Yiddish language songs from World War II will be making their Asian debut this month. Yiddish Glory will be performing in Shanghai, a city where some 18,000 Jewish refugees found shelter from the Nazis, Hong Kong and in South Korea. The project is the brainchild of University of Toronto academic Anna Shternshis, who said Shanghai’s own history gave the choice of venue an extra si...
A court in China has ruled it illegal for a company to terminate an employee on the grounds that an artificial intelligence replacement would be cheaper, affirming limits on AI-driven job displacement amid a wave of anxiety over the technology’s potential to fuel unemployment. A 35-year-old worker surnamed Zhou who oversaw AI-generated responses at a fintech firm in Hangzhou, capital of east China...
A drone hit a residential tower in an upscale Moscow district in a rare strike near the city centre ahead of the traditional World War II Victory Day parade. Moscow air defences repelled an attack by two Ukrainian drones, and one hit the building on Mosfilmovskaya Street, according to a post on Monday by Mayor Sergei Sobyanin. Emergency services were sent to the scene, and there were no reports of...
A Hong Kong court has convicted a beautician of exposing her former boyfriend’s identity by uploading the couple’s photos online as part of a blackmail plot, threatening the married man she was having an affair with to pay her HK$2.6 million (US$331,830) after the relationship ended. Deputy District Judge Ivy Chui Yee-mei on Monday found Li Yanlin guilty of doxxing offences related to four videos ...
Singapore and New Zealand on Monday signed the world’s first legally binding bilateral agreement to keep essential supplies – including food, fuel, healthcare products and chemical and construction materials – flowing even during crises. The Agreement on Trade in Essential Supplies was signed by Singapore’s Minister-in-charge of Energy, Science and Technology Tan See Leng and New Zealand’s Ministe...
Singapore and New Zealand on Monday signed the world’s first legally binding bilateral agreement to keep essential supplies – including food, fuel, healthcare products and chemical and construction materials – flowing even during crises. The Agreement on Trade in Essential Supplies was signed by Singapore’s Minister-in-charge of Energy, Science and Technology Tan See Leng and New Zealand’s Ministe...
Nearly all of the residents of the seven towers engulfed in flames at Hong Kong’s Wang Fuk Court last year returned to their former homes to retrieve their belongings over a 15-day operation that ended on Monday, with police investigating at least 16 suspected thefts. The government said 6,265 people from 1,674 households took part in the return programme that began on April 20, including some who...
Residents displaced by the deadly Tai Po fire will have their taxes waived for an additional year, the Hong Kong government has announced. In a statement on Monday, the government said homeowners and residents of Wang Fuk Court would be exempted from the final tax payable for the 2025-26 assessment year to “ease the financial burden on people affected by the fire”. The move follows a similar annou...
A Hong Kong dancer left paralysed after being struck by a giant screen at a concert by Cantopop boy band Mirror delivered court testimony for the first time on Monday, with his lawyer revealing he had received treatment in Beijing and Thailand. The District Court is assessing the damages to be awarded to Mo Li Kai-yin after finding Studiodanz liable for compensation under the Employees’ Compensati...
A Hong Kong dancer left paralysed after being struck by a giant screen at a concert by popular Cantopop boy band Mirror testified for the first time in court on Monday, with his lawyer revealing he had received treatment in Beijing and Thailand after the accident. The District Court assessed the damages to be awarded to Mo Li Kai-yin after finding Studiodanz liable for compensation under the Emplo...
Washington may have framed the Lobito Corridor as de-risking mineral supply chains from Chinese influence, but governments in Africa are prioritising a “handshake” with Beijing and other corridors to create a seamless transcontinental connection. The United States views the Lobito Corridor as a direct rival to the China-backed 1,860km (1,156-mile) Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority (Tazara) that st...
A young Chinese man who risked his life to save a driver from a burning truck, called his mother during his heroic act to tell her that he “might not return”. The actions of Zhang Jian, 24, who is from eastern China’s Shandong province and was on his way home from central China’s Shanxi province at the time of his intervention, have moved many people online. While passing through the Baotashan Tun...
South Korean scientists have identified a potentially promising new pathway for treating ischemic stroke, long considered one of the most difficult challenges in modern medicine. According to the South Korean team, doctors in China are interested in a partnership and learning more about an experimental drug that it has developed to combat the disease. The team’s study, titled “Oxidative stress-ind...
More than 300 families have been evacuated after massive amounts of ash billowed from the Mayon volcano over the weekend due to the collapse of lava deposits from its slopes, Philippine officials said on Monday. There was no explosive eruption from Mayon, which has been erupting mildly on and off since January, but huge deposits of lava on its southwestern slope suddenly cascaded down in a pyrocla...
We have put together stories from our coverage last weekend to help you stay informed about news across Asia and beyond. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. Durian Express? China brings in cheaper fruit with new Southeast Asia train 2. ‘Structural shift’: new routes for Middle East freight to bypass Hormuz 3. ‘Nowhere to go’: helpers pushed out of park...
Select FamilyMart convenience stores in Japan have installed boxes to collect used clothing and household goods for reuse, joining similar initiatives taken by retailers, as a step to reduce waste and attract more customers. In a trial launched jointly with Bookoff Group Holdings, which buys and sells used goods, boxes were installed in around 30 FamilyMart stores in residential areas of Tokyo. Bo...
Judges in Shenzhen – China’s Silicon Valley – processed 50 per cent more cases last year than in 2024 with the help of a pilot system powered by AI technology, according to the city’s Intermediate People’s Court. It said the artificial intelligence-driven system would now be introduced in the courts of dozens more Chinese cities. In a social media post on Tuesday, the Shenzhen Intermediate People’...
Malaysia’s anti-corruption agency on Monday questioned former economy minister Rafizi Ramli over a billion-ringgit semiconductor deal with British chip designer Arm Holdings, escalating a politically sensitive inquiry that has swept up ministers, senior officials and one of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s most outspoken former allies. Rafizi, the Pandan MP and a former senior figure in Anwar’s refo...
Ultra-low-priced Hong Kong tour packages reliant on commissions and pushing mainland Chinese visitors to make additional purchases remain prevalent despite tighter government regulations, the South China Morning Post has found. The business model has come under renewed scrutiny after the Travel Industry Authority revoked the licences of a travel agency and its tour guide over four cases of suspect...
A United Airlines plane hit a light pole and a delivery truck on a New Jersey highway while landing Sunday at Newark Liberty International Airport, officials said. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) officials said the Boeing 767 landed safely after arriving from Venice, Italy, and the agency would investigate the incident. No injuries were reported on the plane, and the truck driver was taken t...
Hong Kong’s Exchange Fund, the war chest used to defend the local currency, reported its smallest investment gain in five quarters as the Middle East crisis weighed on stock market performance. The fund gained HK$34.5 billion (US$4.4 billion) in the first quarter, 56 per cent lower than HK$79.2 billion a year earlier, according to data released by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) on Monday....
Hong Kong universities are rapidly gaining favour among mainland Chinese families as they shun the intense domestic competition of the gaokao and uncertainties stemming from Sino-US tensions, embracing the city’s generous non-local admission quotas. The Blue Book on Mainland Students Studying in Hong Kong released late last month underscores this trend, attributing it to geographic proximity, cult...
On a quiet March morning at Incheon International Airport, the head of a government agency responsible for administering industrial accident insurance stood before a memorial adorned with flowers and a photo of Nguyen Van Tuan. The 23-year-old Vietnamese worker had died 10 days earlier in a conveyor belt accident at a gravel factory in Icheon, Gyeonggi province. Korea Workers’ Compensation and Wel...
Congratulations to Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po for getting the city’s budget to sail through the Legislative Council. It wasn’t always such smooth sailing and Chan would do well to acknowledge as much. When Chan was first given the keys to the city’s coffers, they were full. Successive financial secretaries faced political pressure of a very different kind. There weren’t many issues that o...
