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Imagine a woman sitting at her vanity as a robotic arm reaches across the table, picks up her lipstick, and applies it to her lips while running through her morning schedule. Meet Iron Bestie, a personalised make-up assistant that just snatched top honours at what organisers billed as Hong Kong’s first physical artificial intelligence hackathon, beating more than 160 global competitors in an inten...
Two former relationship managers at Standard Chartered Bank in Hong Kong have been jailed for three years for swindling HK$28 million (US$3.6 million) from 21 Japanese investors who believed their money would fund development projects in Africa. The District Court on Thursday sentenced Woo Man-ho and Chan Tak-ching on a total of four counts of conspiracy to defraud arising from a transnational inv...
Two former relationship managers at Standard Chartered Bank in Hong Kong have been jailed for three years for swindling HK$28 million (US$3.6 million) from 21 Japanese investors who believed their money would fund development projects in Africa. The District Court on Thursday sentenced Woo Man-ho and Chan Tak-ching on a total of four counts of conspiracy to defraud arising from a transnational inv...
Hong Kong should require a double-check mechanism for all embryo biopsy procedures and overhaul its reproductive technology law, the city’s largest political party has proposed following a rare mix-up of specimens at a fertility clinic. The Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) issued the call on Thursday, nearly a month after the Council on Human Reproductive Tech...
The fate of a five-year-old boy starved to death by his mother, who had a history of drug abuse, could have been different had social workers noticed he was “just skin and bones”, a Hong Kong judge lamented in her ruling. Just three months before the boy died in September 2022, a worker from the Social Welfare Department handling the case visited the 37-year-old mother at home and reported observi...
The recent decision by the US government not to extend its Hong Kong-related state of emergency saw the effective lifting of sanctions on nine mainland Chinese and Hong Kong officials. At a Ministry of Commerce press briefing, a spokesman called it “an important step in fulfilling the consensus” reached in negotiations. Some view the move as a part of the wider attempt at stabilising bilateral rel...
In a show of space surveillance strength, a newly launched Chinese satellite tracked a piece of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket crashing into the moon and captured footage of its impact. No visible plume can be seen in the images that appear to show the moment of impact, which is consistent with what other scientists and telescopes reported immediately after the rocket debris struck on Wednesday. China’s...
A dramatic drop in US student visas issued to Chinese and Indian nationals is the latest flashpoint in the debate over education and security after an American think tank framed the fall as a benefit for US students and national security. The report by the Washington-based Centre for Immigration Studies (CIS) has triggered a backlash in China, where Chinese media accused the organisation of recycl...
A dramatic drop in US student visas issued to Chinese and Indian nationals is the latest flashpoint in the debate over education and security after an American think tank framed the decline as a benefit for US students and national security. The report by the Washington-based Centre for Immigration Studies (CIS) has triggered a backlash in China, where Chinese media accused the organisation of rec...
A dramatic drop in US student visas issued to Chinese and Indian nationals is the latest flashpoint in the debate over education and security after an American think tank framed the decline as a benefit for US students and national security. The report by the Washington-based Centre for Immigration Studies (CIS) has triggered a backlash in China, where Chinese media accused the organisation of rec...
Two women who were switched at birth 37 years ago grew up just 4km apart in southern China, discovering that a hospital error had set their lives on divergent paths. Huang Xiaolin and Li Hui were born 55 minutes apart at Qingyuan People’s Hospital in Qingyuan, Guangdong province, in October 1989, according to China Newsweek. Nurses briefly presented the newborns to their mothers before taking them...
A German court on Thursday handed an Afghan man a life sentence for a car-ramming attack in Munich last year which killed a two-year-old girl and her mother and left dozens injured. The court in Munich found the man, named only as Farhad N., guilty of two counts of murder, 23 of attempted murder, and 22 counts of bodily harm, 19 of them serious. The court found that the offences carried a “particu...
In China, robots are being used to inject pigs with vaccines to support intelligent pig farming and meet the production demands of the world’s biggest pork-producing nation. While eating, a pig may not notice the machine approaching from behind before the robot uses a camera to locate the base of the pig’s tail before delivering a needle-free vaccine injection into its buttock. Vaccination is a ro...
In China, robots are being used to inject pigs with vaccines to support intelligent pig farming and meet the production demands of the world’s biggest pork-producing nation. While eating, a pig may not notice the machine approaching from behind before the robot uses a camera to locate the base of the pig’s tail before delivering a needle-free vaccine injection into its buttock. Vaccination is a ro...
Travellers at Hong Kong International Airport grappled with delays and had to take alternative routes to their boarding gates on Thursday morning after concrete fell near the tracks of an automated train system. In a reply to the South China Morning Post, the Airport Authority said the concrete had broken off from a plinth along a section of track at Terminal 1’s West Hall. The damage was discover...
Scores of travellers at Hong Kong International Airport faced delays and were forced to take alternative routes to their boarding gates after an automated train serving Terminal 2 broke down on Thursday. Photos circulating on social media on Thursday morning showed crowds gathered outside the platform doors, while signs erected at the terminal said the train was “temporarily not in service”. Passe...
Scores of travellers at Hong Kong International Airport faced delays and were forced to take alternative routes to their boarding gates after an automated train serving Terminal 2 broke down on Thursday. Photos circulating on social media on Thursday morning showed crowds gathered outside the platform doors, while signs erected at the terminal said the train was “temporarily not in service”. Passe...
A pilot allegedly caught with tens of thousands of Ecstasy pills in Jakarta is the most high-profile case in a recent string of arrests that police and criminologists say points to a growing problem: transnational syndicates are using Malaysia to move drugs and recruit couriers. The case was followed within days by other arrests involving Malaysians in Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore, suggesting...
Chinese state television has broadcast rare footage apparently showing the US Air Force’s Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan as a target of the PLA’s missile force. During an episode of the CCTV documentary Securing Victory on Monday, a satellite image of an airbase was seen in the background as People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force officers discussed an exercise and combat scenarios. The image – w...
A gunman killed a social media influencer during a live stream in Mexico’s volatile northwestern state of Sinaloa, authorities said on Wednesday, a public killing that underscored ongoing violence targeting social media personalities in the Latin American nation. The influencer, Cesar Gastelum, was killed on Tuesday night in the Sinaloa state capital of Culiacan, officials said. Mexican authoritie...
Beijing has launched a cybersecurity review into products sold in China by US technology firm Palo Alto Networks, the Cyberspace Administration of China announced on Thursday. The administration said the probe was being conducted to “ensure the secure and stable operation of critical information infrastructure, prevent cybersecurity risks and vulnerabilities, and safeguard national security”. Palo...
Beijing has launched an investigation into products sold in China by US cybersecurity and cloud computing firm Palo Alto Networks, the Cyberspace Administration of China announced on Thursday. The administration said the review was being conducted to “ensure the secure and stable operation of critical information infrastructure, prevent cybersecurity risks and vulnerabilities, and safeguard nation...
In just two months, Yale graduate Edward Kuperman went from being praised by Chinese state media to being bombarded with accusations that he was a spy. It began with a June 18 article from state news agency Xinhua, in which he was described as an eager 24-year-old sinophile who made the unconventional choice of spurning China’s eastern metropolises and choosing to live in Dunhuang, in the country’...
China announced new drone supply chain export controls and counter-sanctions against seven American firms in retaliation for US trade restrictions imposed last week targeting Chinese companies. Sales to United States entities of “drones, their key components and related technologies” will be subject to “strict case-by-case scrutiny”, the Ministry of Commerce said on Wednesday, with the measures ta...
Britain’s new Labour government is trying to reassure Southeast Asia that its push to rebuild ties with Europe will not come at the region’s expense, analysts have said, after Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband made an Asean meeting in Manila his first overseas stop. Appointed by Prime Minister Andy Burnham on July 20, Miliband attended the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Foreign Ministers’ Meet...
Hong Kong authorities should set targets in the city’s first five-year development plan to increase the average living space for public housing tenants and raise the minimum size of subsidised sale flats as supply grows, a concern group has urged. The Federation of Public Housing Estates also said on Thursday that the government should make clear it aims to reduce the average waiting time for publ...
North Korea fired at least one “unidentified projectile” over the Sea of Japan on Thursday, Seoul’s military said, with Tokyo reporting it as a possible launch of a ballistic missile. The latest launch came a day after Pyongyang accused Japan of “transformation into a war state” as Tokyo beefs up its military stance in the Pacific. “North Korea fires unidentified projectile towards East Sea,” Sout...
North Korea fired an unidentified projectile on Thursday towards the sea to the east of the Korean peninsula, South Korea’s military said. Japan’s government said Pyongyang had fired what could be a ballistic missile. The launch follows a series of tests this year, including short-range ballistic missiles, artillery rockets and other tactical weapons designed to bolster the isolated state’s...
A Philippine Navy personnel who previously served aboard the BRP Sierra Madre, one of Manila’s most sensitive military outposts in the South China Sea, is under investigation over alleged illegal drug use, sources have told This Week in Asia. The 34-year-old sailor was also involved in resupply missions to and from the grounded warship, which has long served as an Armed Forces of the Philippines o...
Uniqlo’s new stand-alone hijab line for Malaysia was meant to expand the Japanese clothing giant’s reach in one of Southeast Asia’s most prominent modest-wear markets, but its initial marketing has been met with online controversy. Ahead of the exclusive launch next Monday, teaser images posted on Uniqlo Malaysia’s social media showing the scarves wrapped turban-like around the head, leaving parts...
