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At least 21 flights connecting Hong Kong and Bangkok were disrupted on Sunday and Monday, with passengers on one service leaving the Thai capital facing a nearly 24-hour delay after the Southeast Asian city was hit by its worst flood in 15 years. Heavy rainfall lashed Bangkok – a top travel destination for Hongkongers – between Thursday and Monday, prompting Thai officials to declare the city a di...
In a first, a Chinese company has achieved high-parameter hydrogen-boron plasma control, marking a “significant and valuable” advance in research into neutron-free magnetic confinement fusion. ENN Group, based in Langfang, Hebei province, announced on Monday that its EXL-50U spherical device – a compact tokamak that uses a magnetic field to confine charged gas, or plasma, for nuclear fusion resear...
Hong Kong authorities have launched a one-month consultation to reform the city’s arbitration laws, as part of efforts to enhance its competitiveness as an international dispute resolution hub and advance an objective laid out in its first local five-year plan. The Department of Justice said on Monday that the one-month stakeholder consultation for amendments to the Arbitration Ordinance, which go...
Hong Kong authorities have launched a one-month consultation to reform the city’s arbitration laws, as part of efforts to enhance its competitiveness as an international dispute resolution hub and advance an objective laid out in its first local five-year plan. The Department of Justice said on Monday that the one-month stakeholder consultation for amendments to the Arbitration Ordinance, which go...
The global electronics industry is entering a structural transition. For over two decades, China served as the dominant manufacturing centre, with an unmatched concentration of suppliers, skilled labour, infrastructure, logistics and engineering capabilities. That concentration is being diluted. But interpreting this as the decline of Chinese manufacturing would be a mistake. China is exporting pa...
The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) plans to double its annual financing to about US$20 billion by 2030 as the Beijing-headquartered multilateral lender enters its second decade, its president said on Monday. Announcing the target at the opening of the bank’s 11th annual meeting in Doha, Qatar, AIIB President Zou Jiayi said member economies had voiced a “remarkably consistent” need for...
More than a third of Hong Kong’s office tenants are expecting to increase headcounts over the next 12 months, but only a fifth are likely to expand their real estate footprint, according to a survey by Colliers. The results of the fourth annual Hong Kong occupier survey by the property consultancy pointed to a “growing disconnect between hiring intentions and office expansion plans, as many occupi...
Chinese chip foundry CanSemi Technology’s Shenzhen initial public offering (IPO) is emerging as one of mainland China’s most sought-after tech listings this year, as investors bet on its push into silicon photonics and its role in domestic artificial intelligence infrastructure. The Guangzhou-based company’s retail tranche was oversubscribed by more than 2,300 times after clawback, according to a ...
A Thai man who zipped a jet ski across flooded Bangkok streets received a suspended jail sentence on Monday for causing a public nuisance after he used the capital – where tens of thousands of households remain submerged – as a backdrop for social media content. The stunt, widely shared on social media on Sunday evening, became a conduit for public anger over both the handling of the flood respons...
Five young British men arrested on explosives and terror charges near a US-operated air force base in England were released on bail Monday, and counterterror detectives said they were investigating “multiple lines of inquiry,” including whether there is a link to Iran. The men were detained early Sunday after three vans were spotted in the countryside near RAF Fairford, a UK-owned base that has be...
Five young British men arrested on explosives and terror charges near a US-operated air force base in England were released on bail on Monday, and counterterrorism detectives said they were investigating “multiple lines of inquiry”, including whether there is a link to Iran. The men were detained early on Sunday after three vans were spotted in the countryside near RAF Fairford, a UK-owned base th...
British police said on Monday that five men arrested under counterterrorism laws near a US-run air base will be released on bail but are still under investigation. The head of UK Counter Terrorism Policing said that the men face stringent conditions and “absolutely remain under investigation as we explore multiple lines of inquiry”. Officers were examining suspected explosives found near the airba...
British police were holding five men on Monday and examining suspected explosives found near a US-operated air force base in England, as counterterror detectives investigated whether the arrests foiled an attempted attack linked to Iran. The men were detained early on Sunday after three vans were spotted near RAF Fairford, a UK-owned base that has been used by American bombers during decades of co...
Beijing deployed its advanced WZ-7 high-altitude reconnaissance drone in the South China Sea for the first time during drills near the disputed Scarborough Shoal on Sunday. The People’s Liberation Army’s Southern Theatre Command announced on Sunday that it had conducted joint air and naval exercises in the waters and airspace around the shoal earlier in the day. In recent years, Scarborough Shoal ...
The Hong Kong government has appointed Bryan Chan Ping-keung, a former executive at bourse operator Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX), as CEO to lead the development and operation of the city’s new central clearing and settlement system for gold. Chan will head Hong Kong Precious Metals Central Clearing (HKPMCC), a wholly government-owned entity established in January to run the clearing sys...
Sweden’s election winner Magdalena Andersson said she is not currently able to form a government, underscoring the difficulty of building a coalition in the fragmented parliament after the election earlier this month. The Social Democrat leader returned her mandate to explore forming a government after the Left Party decided to support a centre-right candidate for parliament speaker in a vote late...
A viral interview with Chinese professor-influencer Liang Yongan has reignited the debate over China’s evolving marriage norms after he argued that at least one-third of people in the country are ill-suited for marriage. Liang, 72, a professor of Chinese language and literature at Fudan University in Shanghai, has emerged as a significant voice on mainland social media, attracting nearly one milli...
India’s Supreme Court on Monday pushed for accountability over a recent spate of rape cases in the national capital and neighbouring districts, saying they reflected a “failure of law enforcement”, local media reported. Hundreds of students protested in Delhi last week demanding better safety for women after a teenager said she was gang-raped by three men at a city park. Protesters, most of them...
Migrant rights advocates have hailed the release of Filipino trafficking victim Mary Jane Veloso after 16 years in detention as a victorious milestone, but warn that her case exposes the dangers that still confront many vulnerable Philippine workers overseas. After coming harrowingly close to being executed years ago in Indonesia, Veloso walked free on Friday night from the Correctional Institutio...
Hong Kong customs officers have seized 400 so-called slimming injections imported from Japan, with an estimated market value of about HK$290,000 (US$36,970), and arrested two local residents in an operation earlier this month. The case came to light on September 5, when officers intercepted a suspicious postal packet imported from Japan at the Air Mail Centre. “Upon inspection, customs officers fo...
China agreed to import at least 10 million tonnes of US coal in each of the next two years, marking one of the few concrete results from President Xi Jinping’s state visit to the United States. The country will also lower tariffs on 1,619 US products, including coal, under a deal to reduce levies on US$30 billion of non-sensitive goods shipped in each direction, according to a White House statemen...
Hong Kong immigration authorities are cracking down on tourists abusing their visas to run unlicensed one-stop shops offering cosmetic, photography and tour guide services. Li Kwing-chiu, a task force commander with the Immigration Department, revealed on Monday that the four women, aged 20 to 31, were arrested for allegedly breaching their conditions of stay by running a one-stop shop that charge...
Hong Kong immigration authorities are cracking down on tourists abusing their visas to run unlicensed one-stop shops offering cosmetic, photography and tour guide services. Li Kwing-chiu, a task force commander with the Immigration Department, revealed on Monday that the four women, aged 20 to 31, were arrested for allegedly breaching their conditions of stay by running an unlicensed one-stop shop...
ByteDance accounts for roughly one-fifth of China’s delivered data centre capacity, making the TikTok owner the country’s largest tenant and a main driver of its artificial intelligence buildout, according to new estimates by research firm SemiAnalysis. The estimate comes from the firm’s tracking of more than 1,000 facilities in China operated by over 60 companies. ByteDance rents nearly all of it...
An escalating diplomatic row over Ukraine’s disclosure of a North Korean prisoner-of-war transfer is threatening to jeopardise South Korea’s future ties with and support for Kyiv, analysts say, even as it hands fresh ammunition to the political opposition in Seoul. South Korea’s presidential official issued a statement late on Sunday demanding an official explanation and apology for Ukrainian Pres...
Chinese electric vehicle (EV) maker Nio has deepened its partnership with Zhejiang Geely Holding Group after agreeing to sell a stake in its battery swap subsidiary to the automotive conglomerate in a deal that values the unit at 16 billion yuan (US$2.4 billion). Geely Holding, controlled by Chinese billionaire Li Shufu, would pay 640 million yuan in cash and contribute its wholly owned battery-sw...
Chinese and US embassies in the Philippines exchanged sharp accusations on Sunday following Washington’s defence of its treaty ally after Thursday’s stand-off in the South China Sea. In a written statement issued on Sunday, the US embassy in Manila backed the Philippines and said Beijing’s “dangerous blocking and irresponsible manoeuvres” had threatened a collision and prevented a lawful resupply ...
Tokyo on Monday rebuked Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov after he voiced opposition over the weekend to Japan’s drive for permanent membership of the UN Security Council, claiming the country was on a “path of militarisation”. Lavrov’s comments came as the security council, tasked with safeguarding peace, is facing calls for reform amid accusations it failed to prevent recent conflicts such ...
Singaporean Najwa Alhabshi remembers spending her teenage years poring over literary classics such as F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and George Orwell’s 1984. The books introduced her to ideologies, philosophies and the American dream while expanding her vocabulary. But as work commitments grew, the pages of her books started yellowing. Finding time to read became harder, and her smartphon...
Hong Kong marine authorities have launched an investigation after a yacht sped directly towards a boat rowed by six athletes during a race in Sai Kung over the weekend, with one of the rowers alleging the act was “deliberate”. The incident came to light on Sunday after one of the rowers, Eddie Lam Yat-ming, an assistant professor at the Hong Kong Metropolitan University’s Lee Shau Kee School of Bu...
