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Moscow on Tuesday freed a former US marine jailed in Russia since 2022 after Russian President Vladimir Putin approved a pardon for the ailing American based on humanitarian reasons, US officials said. The White House and the State Department had urged Moscow to release Robert Gilman, 32, so he can receive medical treatment in the United States. Gilman was being held in a prison in Voronezh, abo...
A Hong Kong court has ruled in favour of embattled conglomerate Evergrande in a debt-recovery case, allowing it to recoup about HK$6 billion (US$764.7 million) from a third party after a judge found the borrower’s arguments against enforcement of the loan were “fabricated”. In a High Court judgment handed down on Friday and seen by the South China Morning Post, Judge Linda Chan dismissed an injunc...
China’s hypersonic weapons can now use the stars for guidance when satellite systems like GPS or BeiDou are jammed or fail, according to a project led by the Guangdong Aerospace Research Academy that passed its final expert review on Monday. According to a report published by the academy on August 10, researchers set out to tackle the challenge of developing a star-based navigation system that wou...
At least 14 suspected illegal miners were killed and eight injured when a mine dump collapsed in South Africa’s North West province on Monday night, police said. Search and rescue operations are under way for an unknown number of people who may still be trapped at the site near Rustenburg, provincial police commissioner Arthur Peter Adams said. The collapse occurred as the miners were digging f...
Hungarian lawmakers on Tuesday approved former supreme court chief Andras Baka, a critic of Viktor Orban who was fired during the ex-premier’s time in power, as the country’s next head of state. The post became vacant following the contested removal last month of the previous president, an Orban ally, as pro-EU conservative Prime Minister Peter Magyar pushes to loosen his predecessor’s lingering h...
In a landmark change to Lebanon’s penal system, the country’s parliament on Tuesday approved legislation abolishing the death penalty, replacing it with life imprisonment with aggravated hard labour, the state-run National News Agency reported. The vote makes Lebanon the first Arab country to formally abolish the death penalty. Justice Minister Adel Nassar, who attended the parliamentary session, ...
As the United States and China consolidate their dominance in artificial intelligence, attention is turning to whether Europe can carve out a distinct third pole – a “G3” – or remain in Washington’s technological orbit. The race is rapidly evolving into a contest over international order. In June, Washington signed up 10 more partners for its Pax Silica framework – designed to secure supply chains...
A nuclear plant in northern France shut down three reactors after a swarm of jellyfish clogged pumps used to cool the units, energy group EDF said on Tuesday. Three reactors were taken offline on Monday and output at a fourth was cut by half, EDF said in a statement, leaving just one operating at full capacity. A sixth reactor was already offline for scheduled maintenance. “This situation has no i...
Parents can submit online consent forms from Monday for their children’s seasonal flu vaccinations under a school outreach programme, with Hong Kong authorities seeking to simplify procedures. The Centre for Health Protection said on Tuesday that a digital consent system would be introduced on the eHealth mobile application – the city’s electronic health record platform – for the coming school yea...
The “long peace” is a term coined by Yale professor and Cold War historian John Lewis Gaddis in his 1987 book The Long Peace: Inquiries into the History of the Cold War. It refers to the fact that, from the end of World War II in 1945 into the 1980s, more than 40 years passed without a third world war between the United States and Soviet Union. For centuries before 1945, great powers fought destru...
A US laboratory that once dominated the field of superconducting magnets is now hoping to buy Chinese technology used in a leading particle accelerator, official Chinese media reported on Tuesday. The US Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory once “monopolised” this type of specialised technology, according to Science and Technology Daily. But in May last year it contacted the Chine...
A US laboratory that once dominated the field of superconducting magnets is now hoping to buy Chinese technology used in a leading particle accelerator, official Chinese media reported on Tuesday. The US Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory once “monopolised” this type of specialised technology, according to Science and Technology Daily. But in May last year it contacted the Chine...
Philippine Vice-President Sara Duterte-Carpio was hit with a criminal charge on Tuesday over an alleged death threat against the country’s president, a key part of the case against her at her ongoing Senate impeachment trial. The charge of “grave threats” was filed on Tuesday afternoon in a Quezon City courtroom, Department of Justice (DOJ) spokesman Polo Martinez said. It stems from a National Bu...
Philippine Vice-President Sara Duterte-Carpio was hit with a criminal charge on Tuesday over an alleged death threat against the country’s president, a key part of the case against her at her ongoing Senate impeachment trial. The charge of “grave threats” was filed on Tuesday afternoon in a Quezon City courtroom, Department of Justice spokesman Polo Martinez said. It stems from a National Bureau o...
Alibaba Group Holding is asking app users to open their wallets for its artificial intelligence office assistant, as the Chinese technology giant tests whether businesses and consumers are ready to pay for its digital assistant. The e-commerce giant’s Qwen app now offers three membership tiers for the assistant, with annual plans ranging from 200 yuan (US$29.60) to 1,499 yuan for its flagship vers...
Alibaba Group Holding is asking app users to open their wallets for its artificial intelligence office assistant QwenWork, as the Chinese technology giant tests whether businesses and consumers are ready to pay for its digital assistant. The e-commerce giant’s Qwen app now offers three membership tiers for QwenWork, with annual plans ranging from 200 yuan (US$29.6) to 1,499 yuan for its flagship v...
Hong Kong authorities have launched a search in waters west of the city for a man believed to have fallen overboard from a sightseeing vessel travelling between Shekou and the Hong Kong–Macau–Zhuhai Bridge. The operator of the cruise, which had departed from Shekou in neighbouring Shenzhen for a sightseeing trip of the mega bridge, reported the incident at around 3pm on Tuesday after crew members ...
Hong Kong has opened a new trade office in Malaysia, with a minister saying the move is part of a strategic push to deepen regional ties and will help position the city as a bridge between the country and the Greater Bay Area. Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Algernon Yau Ying-wah said on Tuesday that the opening of the Economic and Trade Office (ETO) in Kuala Lumpur will strengthen...
Hong Kong has opened a new trade office in Malaysia, with a minister saying the move is part of a strategic push to deepen regional ties and will help position the city as a bridge between the country and the Greater Bay Area. Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Algernon Yau Ying-wah said on Tuesday that the opening of the Economic and Trade Office (ETO) in Kuala Lumpur will strengthen...
Hong Kong has opened a new trade office in Malaysia, with a minister saying the move is part of a strategic push to deepen regional ties and will help position the city as a bridge between the country and the Greater Bay Area. Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Algernon Yau Ying-wah said on Tuesday that the opening of the Economic and Trade Office (ETO) in Kuala Lumpur will strengthen...
A casual remark from his wife inspired a man in southwestern China to transform a barren valley into a breathtaking sea of hollyhocks spanning 80 hectares. Zhou Xiaolin and his wife, Yin Jie, now live amid the vibrant blooms in Chengdu, Sichuan province, where they personally tend to their sprawling garden. Their love story drew national attention after they featured on a China Central Television ...
Beijing has confirmed that a 23-year-old paratrooper died in a training accident in northwestern China, a revelation that follows recent reports of several accidents and deaths in its military. State media said on Sunday that Xia Shiyuan, of Huaiyuan county in Anhui province, was involved in an incident shortly after leaving an airborne aircraft during a scheduled training exercise in Golmud, Qing...
A new defence pact between Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey has raised questions in New Delhi over whether Islamabad could use the agreement to build wider security ties with Muslim-majority countries in India’s neighbourhood, analysts have said. The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, signed on Friday, states that an armed attack on any one of the three countries would be treated as an attack on all ...
Hong Kong developer Wharf (Holdings) is increasingly relying on Hong Kong’s luxury-home market to offset weakness in mainland China, while paring investments and building up cash as it navigates an uncertain outlook. Revenue from Wharf’s Hong Kong development properties nearly tripled to HK$1.35 billion (US$172 million) from HK$475 million in the first half, with operating profit rising more than ...
Chinese police have dismantled more than 1,000 gangs and detained about 8,200 suspects, just 10 days after the country’s top security official announced a year-long campaign against organised crime. The Ministry of Public Security said on Monday that the crackdown focused on crimes that had evolved into “more covert” forms and spread rapidly online. “New types of crimes such as online predatory le...
A Syrian court sentenced ousted leader Bashar al-Assad to death on Tuesday after a trial in absentia, convicting him of crimes including killings, torture, and arbitrary arrest during the country’s nearly 14-year war. It was the first conviction against Assad, who was ousted in a rebel offensive in December 2024 that ended decades of his family’s iron-fisted rule over Syria and the brutal war ...
China has detained several Japanese nationals, including top executives of companies with offices in China, for allegedly violating export restrictions on dual-use goods, Japanese newspaper The Mainichi said, citing multiple sources. Dual-use items comprise goods, software and technologies with both civilian and military applications, including critical minerals essential for manufacturing drones ...
Amid widespread store closures by foreign fast-fashion players in China, US apparel brand Gap is defying industry headwinds. It plans to open 50 new stores in mainland China this year and return to Hong Kong by year’s end, following a localisation overhaul that has attracted more Chinese consumers. This expansion comes at a time when the world’s second-largest consumer market faces sluggish overal...
The cremations of the victims of the Debsirin school shooting in the Thai province of Nonthaburi had barely begun when another body was added to the country’s rising toll from gun violence. On Monday morning, a former MP for Nonthaburi fired four rounds at a local official inside a car – then calmly strode away, the pistol tucked back into his belt. Police Colonel Thongchai Yenprasert was shot ove...
A South Korean actress has apologised for the controversy surrounding her great-grandfather’s pro-Japanese ties during Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule, a day after calling the accusations “groundless”. “After further checking, we have confirmed that records of great-grandfather Ahn Sang-ho being listed as a councillor of the Daejong Chinmokhoe in 1916 actually existed,” Ha Young’s agency Bistrus Ent...
