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Bourse operator Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) will launch yuan-denominated gold futures early next year, while the city’s de facto central bank plans to introduce more yuan products and platforms to support the diversification and digitalisation of the currency’s internationalisation, speakers at a banking summit said on Wednesday. “We have recently reactivated our gold contract in the U...
Three shooters killed at least 11 people including a woman who was believed to be pregnant in an attack at a house party in South Africa, police said on Wednesday. Three others were wounded in the mass shooting late on Tuesday night in KwaMakhutha township around 30km (19 miles) south of the city of Durban on the east coast. The people had gathered at the house for a party when the suspects entere...
The lawyer for an Indonesian businessman arrested in Singapore for allegedly using counterfeit S$10,000 (US$7,830) notes at a casino has said his client was a victim of fraud himself. The businessman, identified only as Steven, is accused of exchanging 34 fake S$10,000 notes for chips over three visits to the Resorts World Sentosa casino in June. The notes were accepted but later found to be count...
Hong Kong’s first five-year plan gives its universities an opportunity to show what their research can do for the city. Its ambitions for technology, regional development and international cooperation depend on decisions about institutions and people’s lives. Social scientists should help shape those decisions from the outset. The blueprint explicitly addresses public governance, including civil s...
The expulsion of two former leaders from the Chinese armed forces and Communist Party “eliminated a major hidden political danger”, China’s military mouthpiece said on Wednesday. The party expelled Zhang Youxia, former vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), and fellow former CMC member Liu Zhenli for factionalism and disloyalty, state media reported on Monday. The CMC is the count...
A Malaysian tofu pudding seller has pledged to donate 10,000 ringgit (US$2,452) to help former prime minister Najib Razak cover his 50 million ringgit fine, describing the contribution as a personal payback for a lifeline extended to him 14 years ago. In a social media post, Sunny Seow, founder of the Sunnycoco brand, shared that his motivation stemmed from a pivotal moment in 2012 when he was ser...
A Hong Kong and Macau youth delegation trip to Beijing to pay tribute to the national flag has showcased the “fruitful results” of the city governments’ patriotic education efforts, according to the central government. A commentary published by the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office on Tuesday also said that President Xi Jinping and the central government attached great importance to the five-day ...
A Hong Kong man has admitted to repeatedly raping his daughter over six years, using threats and promises to ensure her cooperation. The defendant, identified in court only by his initials, FKY, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to 14 counts of rape for the persistent sexual abuse of his daughter between December 2015 and November 2021, when she was aged six to 10. But the High Court heard that the actu...
A Hong Kong-registered lift engineer held liable for faulty installation work at Queen Mary Hospital’s new block has been sentenced to 160 hours of community service after being convicted of submitting misleading documents and improperly issuing safety certificates. Eastern Court sentenced Law Wing-chai, 54, on Wednesday for two summary offences under the Lifts and Escalators Ordinance. The senten...
We have put together stories from our coverage on science from the past two weeks to help you stay informed. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. J-50 design team reveals leapfrog tech for China’s next-gen stealth fighters China’s next-generation combat aircraft will be able to fly by themselves if a pilot loses consciousness, navigate without satellite s...
Sara Duterte, the impeached vice-president of the Philippines, is facing an increasing risk of conviction and a lifetime ban on politics, as allies of President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr weigh invalidating key votes of support in her Senate trial. The 24-member Senate, where Duterte is on trial, is expected to debate on Wednesday whether the votes of several absent senators should even be counted. Two ...
Two Chinese state-owned banks and Ant International have trialled cross-border digital yuan transfers worth hundreds of millions of yuan, marking the latest step in Beijing’s efforts to streamline settlements and promote wider international use of the digital yuan. The Shanghai branch of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) facilitated its first digital yuan transfer for Ant Internationa...
Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd (CATL) has cleared all regulatory hurdles for its mega factory in Hungary, a development that analysts expect will help the world’s largest producer of electric vehicle (EV) batteries extend its reach to international marques like BMW and Volkswagen. Production of battery cells at the €7.3 billion (US$8.35 billion) plant in Debrecen, the second-largest city in ...
The number of young people arrested in Hong Kong in the first half of the year jumped by around 20 per cent, driven by cases of serious assault and criminal damage linked to debt collection activities. Commissioner of Police Joe Chow Yat-ming said on Wednesday that the force had arrested 1,580 young people aged between 10 and 20 from January to June, an increase of about 20 per cent year-on-year. ...
The number of juveniles arrested in Hong Kong in the first half of this year jumped by around 20 per cent, driven by cases of serious assault and criminal damage linked to debt collection activities. Commissioner of Police Joe Chow Yat-ming said on Wednesday that the force arrested 1,580 young people aged between 10 and 20 from January to June this year, an increase of about 20 per cent. Among the...
Malaysians on social media are offering increasingly outlandish solutions to a months-long royal tussle in Negeri Sembilan state, from making rival claimants sleep on a bed of nettles for a week to putting the entire state through Islamic spiritual healing. The dispute has left Negeri Sembilan with two men claiming the throne, a state government at odds with the palace and no clear legal route to ...
The global AI trade is staging a comeback, as a confluence of falling oil prices, Meta Platforms’ launch of a new agentic tool, and anticipation surrounding the China-US leadership summit reignite interest in technology stocks. The Nasdaq-100 Index hit an all-time high on Tuesday, surpassing the previous record set in June. In Asia, China’s chip-heavy Star Market 50 Index and South Korea’s Kospi g...
Shenzhen Camsense Technologies, a maker of spatial sensors for robotic vacuum cleaners, launched a Hong Kong initial public offering (IPO) that aims to raise about HK$680 million (US$86.7 million), despite headwinds from Washington’s recent import ban on foreign-made vacuum robots. “The export and procurement for our existing client products remain normal, with potential disruption limited to new ...
North Korea could be using missile tests to take its denuclearisation off the US-China summit agenda and drive home its demands for recognition as a nuclear power as a prerequisite for talks with Washington, according to analysts. On Sunday, North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles towards the Sea of Japan, or East Sea, which, according to South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff, were dete...
Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado tried three times in the past 24 hours to return home but was unable to complete the journey. Machado sought to travel from Panama to Venezuela by different routes, according to a person with direct knowledge of her plans. The attempts came as acting President Delcy Rodriguez visited New York for the United Nations General Assembly, where she met w...
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[The content of this article has been produced by our advertising partner.] Nearly 100 students from 10 US universities who travelled through China under Future Makers 2026 jointly wrote to President Xi Jinping after the programme, sharing what they had seen and experienced during the trip. In his reply to the students, Xi encouraged young people from both countries to promote friendship and co-o...
Female prisoners in Myanmar are subjected to widespread torture, sexual violence and life-threatening medical neglect, Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday, underlining the chronic ill-treatment of thousands of detainees in the war-torn nation. Since the military seized power in a February 2021 coup, a protracted civil war has gripped the impoverished Southeast Asian nation, devastating several r...
The Hong Kong government has rejected an annual European Union report alleging that the administration is undermining the city’s fundamental freedoms, calling its claims “unfounded and biased”. The more than 4,500-word statement, issued early on Wednesday morning, followed the publication on Tuesday of the EU’s 2025 annual report on Hong Kong. The report was jointly issued by the European Commissi...
A coach accused of slapping an eight-year-old boy and ordering him to stand under the hot sun during a training camp in Hong Kong has been spared from criminal prosecution after she agreed to a three-year good behaviour bond. Chief Magistrate Victor So Wai-tak on Wednesday imposed the bond on Zhao Yiqun, 51, who faced two child abuse charges after she was alleged to have mistreated the boy during ...
Kuala Lumpur is making it easier and cheaper to bring international music stars to the city, hoping that a bigger concert calendar can help Malaysia capture more of Southeast Asia’s booming live-music economy. But as more global acts come to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian musicians are asking whether the concert boom is creating more opportunities for local artists too. Fuad Alhabshi of Malaysian rock ba...
Paris prosecutors said Tuesday they had opened several probes after receiving complaints concerning women filmed on the street without their consent using smart glasses. Anyone wearing smart glasses can take photos, film videos, listen to music, make phone calls, translate text or interact with an AI assistant. Meta’s smart spectacles, developed in partnership with Ray-Ban maker EssilorLuxottica, ...
Ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Washington this week, attention is already turning to the aircraft that will carry him and how it stacks up against America’s famous presidential plane. The aircraft carrying China’s leader, often referred to in state media and official statements as a zhuan ji, or special plane, remains far less known to the world than Air Force One, despite both c...
Melaka on Wednesday officially called for a state election – the latest test for Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s government, which is already facing an internal feud and growing public frustration over failed reforms. The state assembly was dissolved effective from Wednesday following an official notification sent to the country’s Election Commission the previous day by Ibrahim Durum, the...
Singaporeans are among the most open to allowing an artificial intelligence agent to shop for them, but they also want the strictest guard rails, research shows. The latest agentic AI study from Global Payments released on Wednesday indicates the hoops agentic AI will need to jump through to be trusted to make purchases without human intervention. The study, which surveyed seven countries includin...
