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A woman in Hong Kong who owned multiple properties has lost HK$10 million (US$1.3 million) after being scammed by a fraudster posing as a prospective tenant. The force revealed on Friday that the 64-year-old retiree, whose properties consisted of residential, commercial and parking spaces, was contacted via WhatsApp by a scammer in May in response to a rental listing she posted on Facebook. Police...
At least eight workers have died following a toxic gas leak at a ship-breaking yard in the southeastern Bangladeshi district of Chattogram, officials said on Friday. The incident occurred at the Ferdaus Steel Shipbreaking Yard in Sitakund subdistrict, an area that hosts many ship-breaking yards where old vessels mostly imported from around the world are dismantled. Soon after the leak, many worker...
After almost four decades of international cooperation in space affairs, Brazil and China have unveiled details of a new project to launch a powerful meteorological and environmental satellite. It will be capable of monitoring the whole of South America, according to the space sciences department at Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE). Adenilson Roberto da Silva, general coordina...
Vladimir Putin’s unprecedented visit to the disputed southern Kuril Islands is among a broader joint push by Beijing and Moscow to pressure Japan over a range of grievances, including sanctions on Russia and the Taiwan issue, experts say. The Russian president’s symbolic visit on Thursday to the far east volcanic archipelago north of Japan’s Hokkaido – which Japan calls the Northern Territories – ...
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr on Friday said talks with China on joint oil and gas exploration had “moved forward” – signalling hopes of a deal before he leaves office in mid-2028, despite ongoing tensions in the South China Sea. Marcos also confirmed for the first time a “provisional understanding” with Beijing over resupply missions to the BRP Sierra Madre at Second Thomas Shoal, alt...
As US-China tech tensions rise ahead of an expected leadership summit next month, analysts argue Washington’s latest restrictions are unlikely to cause a major disruption in China’s AI exports. But they caution that some of the measures – such as limiting access to “open-weight” models – represent a “genuine wild card” that could reshape the global landscape. Hong Kong-based analysts at Citi Resea...
The United States has sent a team of coastguards to train their Taiwanese counterparts as mainland China steps up its presence east of the island. Taiwan’s Coast Guard Administration said on Friday that a two-week training programme led by US instructors started on Monday and included exercises aimed at strengthening small-boat operations and team coordination. “The US instruction team hopes to de...
Tariffs of up to 100 per cent that Washington has announced on imported drones would result in a “lose-lose outcome” for the United States and China, analysts said, as the technology is increasingly taking centre stage in the countries’ tech and trade rivalry. The new levies will further complicate manufacturers’ efforts to shift production to third countries or regions, where supply chains are al...
For Indonesian families who lost loved ones in the 2018 Lion Air crash that killed 189 people, the latest development in the US courts has deepened their pain that justice remains out of reach. Keith Griffin, a Californian lawyer who worked with disgraced Hollywood celebrity lawyer Tom Girardi in compensation suits related to the crash, was sentenced by a federal court in Chicago last week to one ...
The flight crew of Hong Kong flag carrier Cathay Pacific Airways selected the wrong radio frequency due to a mistaken response to instructions, leading to the London-bound flight’s loss of communication with the local air traffic control unit over Romanian airspace last month, an investigation report has revealed. The Hong Kong government said on Friday that the Civil Aviation Department had compl...
Hong Kong authorities received more than 16,000 public submissions for its inaugural five-year plan by the close of its consultation on Friday, with an official noting general support for more focused integration into national development and the strategic cultivation of emerging sectors. Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Janice Tse Siu-wa described the blueprint, which is set to b...
Chinese scientists have achieved the quantum entanglement of cold atoms across a record-breaking 420km (260 miles), a breakthrough they say lays the groundwork for intercity quantum networks. According to a paper published by the peer-reviewed journal Physical Review Letters on August 11, the distance was more than four times previous demonstrations and exceeded the threshold at which direct trans...
A tunnel under construction at a hydropower project in India’s northern hill state of Uttarakhand collapsed overnight, leaving at least seven workers dead, officials said on Friday. A rescue operation was launched after a sudden rush of water and debris entered the tunnel at the Vishnugad-Pipalkoti hydroelectric project in Chamoli district later on Thursday night, said top district official Gaurav...
A drone entered Latvian airspace and was shot down by Italian Eurofighter jets, the military said on Friday. An air alert was lifted after the drone was intercepted, Latvia’s military said on social media, after authorities had urged people across the Baltic state to avoid going outside and seek shelter. The military did not initially identify the drone’s origin, but said a foreign drone had enter...
China has confirmed that its new Y-20B heavy transport aircraft can be converted into an aerial refuelling tanker, potentially boosting PLA Air Force capacities deeper into the western Pacific. A documentary aired by state broadcaster CCTV on August 5 said the Y-20B, an improved variant of China’s Y-20 strategic transport powered by domestically developed WS-20 turbofan engines, could switch betwe...
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage won his self-triggered by-election in southern England on Friday, but saw his strategy to silence critics backfire when his main rival, Count Binface, a comedian dressed as a trash can, took more than a quarter of the vote. In a highly unusual move, Farage, one of Britain’s leading Brexit campaigners, did not turn up at the vote count in the southern English seaside r...
Gene-editing therapies for the nervous system may need at least another round of studies before they are safe enough to enter human trials, according to one of the world’s most influential figures in the commercialisation of brain science. “The techniques are reasonably well established for animal experiments, but they really haven’t been as mature for human studies,” said Karoly Nikolich, an adju...
A 73-year-old Chinese female entrepreneur has recently become the 22nd passenger of the domestically developed spacecraft CYZ1. On August 8, Huang Xiaochi was officially designated as passenger No 022 for CYZ1, a project by the commercial space start-up InterstellOr. Huang is scheduled to embark on a suborbital mission aboard the spaceship in 2028, reaching the Kármán line, the widely recognised b...
The disbarment of Workers’ Party chief Pritam Singh in Singapore is a professional blow for the leading opposition figure, but is not expected to further damage his political standing. Singh, 50, was struck off the roll of advocates and solicitors in a disciplinary hearing on Thursday, a decision that political analysts say reflects the hardline stance of the country’s legal system against dishone...
Chinese museums have been criticised for spelling errors in their information boards, including one in Zhejiang province where one of the captions for an exhibition about the Long March turned the Red Army into a “red car”. Such mistakes are especially embarrassing given the high importance the authorities attach to Communist Party history and come amid an ongoing push to promote “red tourism” or ...
Hong Kong recorded a 15 per cent drop in the number of investment scam cases in the first half of this year, but losses remained high at HK$1.65 billion (US$210 million), with police warning of fraudsters posing as representatives of legitimate overseas firms to swindle local investors. Senior Superintendent Fanny Kung Hing-fun said on Friday that some of these firms of purported overseas origins ...
Hong Kong has raised its full-year economic growth forecast for 2026 to a range of 3.5 to 4.5 per cent following a 4.3 per cent expansion in the second quarter, supported by buoyant external trade and resilient domestic demand. Releasing its half-yearly economic report on Friday, the government revised its 2026 growth forecast from the previous range of 2.5 to 3.5 per cent, citing a stronger-than-...
Hong Kong has raised its full-year economic growth forecast for 2026 to a range of 3.5 to 4.5 per cent after expansion of 4.3 per cent in the second quarter, supported by buoyant external trade and resilient domestic demand. Releasing its half-yearly economic report on Friday, the government revised its 2026 growth forecast from the previous range of 2.5 to 3.5 per cent, citing a stronger-than-exp...
A UN investigative report accusing Myanmar’s military of carrying out a “sustained campaign of deliberate attacks on civilians” has muddied Min Aung Hlaing’s push for regional acceptance – but analysts say it is unlikely to derail his efforts to win recognition for his post-election government. The report by the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM), a body appointed by the UN Hum...
In a rare intervention, the US has propped up the Japanese yen. The move is seen as a bid to hold off a further rise in yields for US government bonds – amid Japan’s sell-off of US Treasuries to fund its shoring up of the yen – a rise that threatens the US artificial intelligence bubble. That the United States bought yen for the first time in decades – coordinating with Japan – had a bigger psycho...
China should try to make sure that its new international artificial intelligence body is not seen as “naturally opposed” to the United States and its allies in case it puts off prospective members, analysts have warned. They said the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organisation (Waico) was not designed as an alternative to the US Pax Silica partnership, which was established last Decembe...
A teenager who fears dying young has narrowly escaped death twice this year after contracting influenza and respiratory virus infection, enduring what he described as his “most emotionally devastating breakdown”. Chen Tsz-kin, 17, was diagnosed with the incurable muscle-wasting disease at the age of 18 months and was told that people with the condition had an average life expectancy of 18. In a Fa...
A teenager who fears dying young has narrowly escaped death twice this year after contracting influenza and respiratory virus infection, enduring what he described as his “most emotionally devastating breakdown”. Chen Tsz-kin, 17, was diagnosed with the incurable muscle-wasting disease at the age of 18 months and was told that people with the condition had an average life expectancy of 18. In a Fa...
The United States’ organ transplant system has been plunged into a crisis of public trust after federal health authorities decertified a major organ procurement organisation (OPO) over allegations that organs were harvested from donors who may still have been alive. The scandal has sent shock waves through Chinese communities and validated growing fears among Chinese students and parents. On Augus...
A Hong Kong court has sentenced a former jewellery procurement manager to six years and eight months behind bars for stealing HK$11 million (US$1.4 million) worth of diamonds from suppliers to fund his gambling habit. Mui Ka-fai, 63, pleaded guilty on Monday to three counts of theft for reselling the small diamonds he misappropriated for personal gain while working for Tse Sui Luen Jewellery betwe...
