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Protesters gathered in Tokyo on Friday to rally against Japan’s decision to ease decades-old arms export curbs, which critics argue erode the country’s post-war pacifist tradition. The new rules permitting the sale of lethal weapons overseas signal a major shift, as Japan ramps up its defence ambitions and seeks to enter the global arms market in part to boost economic growth. The move, announced ...
US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Friday that a US blockade on Iran is going global, adding Tehran had a chance to make a “good deal” with Washington. “Our blockade is growing and going global,” Hegseth told reporters. “No one sails from the Strait of Hormuz to anywhere in the world without the permission of the United States Navy,” he said. Peace talks between Iran and the United States...
Talks on forming a new Danish government are in stalemate one month on from the country’s parliamentary election, slowing decision-making amid efforts to resolve a crisis in ties with US President Donald Trump’s administration over Greenland. Caretaker Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, armed with a royal mandate, is leading coalition talks among the 12 parties in parliament but has so far only wo...
Hong Kong’s fire services chief has acknowledged that better communication with building authorities is needed after an independent committee earlier revealed that his officers had taken no action against possible safety breaches during renovations at Wang Fuk Court, where 168 people were killed in last year’s inferno. But Director of Fire Services Andy Yeung Yan-kin insisted on Friday that author...
Chinese electric vehicle (EV) makers at the Beijing auto show are shifting their focus to overseas markets, banking on opportunities from the Middle East crisis to boost profitability amid weak sales at home. “Going global has become a top choice for Chinese EV builders as they struggle to break even,” said Phate Zhang, founder of Shanghai-based data provider CnEVPost. “The Middle East crisis is a...
Cathay Pacific Airways has raised HK$2.08 billion (US$265.4 million) by selling Hong Kong dollar-denominated bonds to boost its working capital, tapping the Hong Kong dollar public bond market for the first time. Hong Kong’s flag carrier said on Friday that the bond issuance was the biggest of its kind by a locally based, non-public sector company. The three-year bonds, which carry a fixed interes...
Cathay Pacific Airways has raised HK$2.08 billion (US$265.4 million) by selling Hong Kong dollar-denominated bonds to boost its working capital, tapping the public bond market for the first time. Hong Kong’s flag carrier said on Friday that the bond issuance was the biggest of its kind by a locally based, non-public sector company. The three-year bonds, which carried a fixed interest rate of 3.78 ...
US President Donald Trump is sending special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner to Pakistan for talks with “representatives from the Iranian delegation” this weekend, the White House confirmed on Friday. White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told Trump-friendly Fox News that the “America first” president will be “dispatching” the duo “tomorrow morning to engage in direct talks” an...
US President Donald Trump is sending special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner to Pakistan for talks with “representatives from the Iranian delegation” this weekend, the White House confirmed on Friday. White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told Trump-friendly Fox News that the “America first” president will be “dispatching” the duo “tomorrow morning to engage in direct talks” an...
US President Donald Trump is sending special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner to Pakistan for talks this weekend with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, the White House confirmed on Friday. White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told Trump-friendly Fox News that the “America first” president will be “dispatching” the duo “tomorrow morning to engage in talks, direct talks” w...
US President Donald Trump is sending special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner to Pakistan for talks this weekend with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, the White House confirmed on Friday. White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told Trump-friendly Fox News that the “America first” president will be “dispatching” the duo “tomorrow morning to engage in talks, direct talks, i...
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said he will travel to Pakistan on Friday, though the Iranian official described the visit as an Iran-Pakistan bilateral, amid earlier speculation that it could signal momentum towards a second round of direct US–Iran talks. This will be followed by other bilateral sit downs that do not, at this point, involve Washington, he added. “Embarking on timely tour ...
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is expected to travel to Pakistan on Friday, according to sources in Islamabad and the country’s state broadcaster, fuelling optimism for a second round of talks between Washington and Tehran. According to a source, Araghchi will travel with a “small team”, arriving by Friday night, Pakistan time. Earlier, Araghchi had a phone call with Pakistan’s army chief...
Beijing has held naval exercises in waters east of a Philippine island near Taiwan in an apparent response to nearby annual military drills hosted by Manila and Washington. The People’s Liberation Army Southern Theatre Command said on Friday that a naval fleet had “recently” held drills in waters east of Luzon, the northernmost major island of the Philippines. The drills were “a necessary action t...
German prosecutors have charged a 46-year-old man on suspicion of serious sexual abuse of children via live streaming. The man, from the district of Heidenheim in southwestern Germany, is alleged to have paid female accomplices in the Philippines to carry out sexual abuse against girls aged between four and 13 in six instances, the Cybercrime Centre of the Karlsruhe Public Prosecutor’s Office said...
More than 50 restaurants and shops have joined a “tourism everywhere” initiative to promote Hong Kong’s bustling Central district among residents and tourists and boost local spending. The Hong Kong Small and Medium Enterprises Association on Friday revealed the programme to promote hidden delicacies and goods in Central, aligning with the government’s objective to turn everywhere into a tourist d...
Australian mining giant BHP’s decision to adopt a yuan-denominated index for a major Chinese buyer poses a challenge to the US dollar’s long-standing dominance in iron ore pricing, delivering a hard-won victory for Beijing, analysts said. But while the agreement marked a breakthrough in Beijing’s push to gain greater commodity pricing power at a time when the United States faces growing “geopoliti...
Amid the artificial intelligence boom, the world has been laser-focused on technologies like graphics processing units and memory chips. However, a quieter miracle has been unfolding in the mainland stock market. Optical modules, which allow ultra-fast communications in data centres, have minted a new class of industrial upstarts. In the past year, shares in Shenzhen-listed Zhongji Innolight, the ...
A suspected Chinese underwater drone hauled out of Indonesian waters this month has sharpened global focus on a security race that analysts say has been years in the making across South and Southeast Asia: undersea surveillance. The torpedo-shaped device was found near the Lombok Strait, one of the few deepwater channels through which submarines can transit submerged between the Pacific and Indian...
China’s industrial giants are rapidly scaling up the use of AI-powered robots to operate vital infrastructure, with the country’s main grid operator unveiling a blockbuster plan to deploy thousands of bots to handle a range of roles – from inspecting remote substations to performing maintenance on ultra-high-voltage power lines. The State Grid Corporation of China has earmarked 6.8 billion yuan (U...
Community members and activists have gathered on the University of Michigan campus to pay tribute to Wang Danhao, a semiconductor researcher from China who took his own life after being questioned by US federal agents. About 30 people attended the vigil, organised by peace advocacy group Code Pink to mark one month since Wang died. They formed a circle around an altar set with candles, flowers, in...
The wind industry smells opportunity in Europe. At an expo in Madrid this week, the convention floor was abuzz as hundreds of European, American, Japanese and Korean exhibitors vied to pitch their products, knowing the continent urgently needs to shore up its energy security amid the US-Israel war on Iran. But there was one glaring absence: not a single company operating a booth was Chinese, with ...
Former Philippine vice-president Leni Robredo’s refusal to seek national office in 2028 has intensified the search for someone to unite the country’s fractured opposition against an early presidential bid by Vice-President Sara Duterte-Carpio. Robredo, President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr’s strongest rival in the 2022 election and long seen as the opposition’s most recognisable figure, said she would no...
China’s military mouthpiece has urged the People’s Liberation Army to speed up integration of artificial intelligence and said AI-driven warfare was at a “turning point” – as seen in the US-Israeli campaign against Iran. In a commentary on Thursday, PLA Daily pointed to the use of AI in the Middle East war and said it was the first time the technology had been integrated into the entire cycle of o...
A young girl in southwest China firmly refused to leave the tombs of her grandparents, who had died within six months of each other, and would sometimes sleep there. A touching video that melted millions of hearts on social media shows the girl, whose age was not disclosed in the report, lying in front of a tomb in Liupanshui, Guizhou province, in mid-April, as reported by Dafeng News. In the vira...
Life insurance sales in Hong Kong rose 50.6 per cent to another record last year as affluent customers continued to buy policies in the city for wealth transfer, protection and medical needs. The industry wrote HK$330.9 billion (US$42.2 billion) in new life policies in 2025, compared with HK$219 billion a year earlier, which was also a record, according to data from the Insurance Authority release...
Indonesia’s blasphemy law has once again come under scrutiny after former vice-president Jusuf Kalla was reported to police over remarks linking past Muslim-Christian conflicts to beliefs about martyrdom. The case is unusual because it involves Christian complainants against one of the most senior Muslim figures in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation and reflects what critics have lon...
The US government has imposed sanctions on a Cambodian senator alleging he is at the heart of a sprawling scam network, as the Southeast Asian nation comes under intense pressure – including from China – to eliminate a cybercrime industry worth nearly US$20 billion a year. The US Treasury tagged Senator Kok An, a tycoon with close ties to former leader Hun Sen whose son is now prime minister, and ...
The head of Hong Kong’s City University, Professor Freddy Boey Yin Chiang, has resigned with immediate effect for personal reasons, leaving his post two years earlier than expected. The university expressed its gratitude to Boey, a Singaporean, for his contributions to CityU during his three years as president. “The executive committee of the [university’s] council has appointed provost and deputy...
HK Electric will cut fuel surcharges for customers in May but has warned that costs could rise significantly later in the year due to the impact of the conflict in the Middle East. The company said on Friday that its fuel clause charge for May would fall by 4.4 HK cents per kilowatt-hour to 26 HK cents per kWh, citing a deferred effect under the monthly adjustment mechanism based on January’s aver...
