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A Russian ballistic missile strike on Friday in Ukraine’s Kyiv region killed 10 people and injured almost 100 others at a site where a defence industry event was being held, Ukrainian officials and industry representatives said. The attack came a day after President Volodymyr Zelensky met in Kyiv with senior representatives of Raytheon, the US company that makes Patriot air defence systems. Rayt...
A Russian ballistic missile strike on Friday in Ukraine’s Kyiv region killed 10 people and injured almost 100 others at a site where a defence industry event was being held, Ukrainian officials and industry representatives said. President Volodymyr Zelensky, who did not name the exact target, said that efforts to determine what happened were under way. “A rescue operation is currently under way ...
India’s Akasa Air and Malaysia’s AirBorneo are pressing ahead with expansion plans despite soaring jet fuel prices and disruption from the US-Israel war on Iran, in a development analysts say shows smaller Asian carriers finding room to grow while larger airlines grapple with capacity constraints. Akasa Air, India’s youngest airline, said last week that it was seeking to raise 10.5 billion rupees ...
India’s Akasa Air and Malaysia’s AirBorneo are pressing ahead with expansion plans despite soaring jet fuel prices and disruption from the Middle East conflict, in a development that analysts say is a sign smaller Asian carriers are finding room to grow as larger airlines grapple with capacity constraints. Akasa Air, India’s youngest airline, said last week that it was seeking to raise 10.5 billio...
Two Peking University alumni made history by winning the Fields Medal this week, a victory that points to a wave of young, high-achieving Chinese scientists behind them. The International Congress of Mathematicians announced that Wang Hong and Deng Yu, who both entered the top Chinese university in 2007, were awarded the highest honour for mathematicians under 40 years of age. It is the first time...
Huawei Technologies founder Ren Zhengfei has thrown his weight behind the Chinese tech giant’s Tau Scaling Law, framing the new chip-design principle as an existential necessity to survive tightening US sanctions. “The Tau Scaling Law is the only path forward for Huawei to break the siege,” Ren said in recent internal remarks posted on Huawei’s Xinsheng Community intranet, according to a report on...
Chinese battery giant Contemporary Amperex Technology Co Limited (CATL) slightly missed market estimates for second-quarter revenue and net profit, as China’s weakening demand for electric vehicles (EVs) outweighed benefits from the energy shock. The world’s largest battery maker reported a record 147.79 billion yuan (US$21.8 billion) in revenue and a record 22.5 billion yuan in net profit for the...
British Prime Minister Andy Burnham was to open his newly created northern office on Friday, as he bids to launch his flagship move to reverse decades of centralising power over England in London. Ahead of officially opening his “Number 10 North” hub in Manchester, Burnham – who replaced Keir Starmer in 10 Downing Street on Monday – repeated his vow to put “more power into every postcode” to spur ...
Salary growth for Hong Kong degree graduates slowed to a five-year low in 2025, with average annual earnings rising by just 2 per cent and sitting at HK$28,000 (US$3,570) a month as underemployment hit a record high. The University Grants Committee (UGC) released the graduate employment figures for last year on its website on Friday. According to the data, the average annual salary of degree gradu...
The Hong Kong Fire Services Department has said paramedics will operate on the “if in doubt, rescue first” principle when determining whether to resuscitate patients in need after the new law on end-of-life directives takes effect next week. Assistant Chief Ambulance Officer Gary Tong Sze-ho of the Fire Services Department said on Friday that rescuers must verify a physical copy of the do-not-atte...
A tornado tore through an industrial site in Batam, Indonesia, ripping roofing from workshop facilities and sending helmeted workers running for cover as weather officials warned that unstable conditions could trigger further sudden storms. The short-lived wind vortex, described locally as a puting beliung, struck VME Process in Tanjung Sengkuang, Batu Ampar, at about 10am on Wednesday, damaging w...
Hong Kong’s trade promotion body will set up a new office in Egypt within the next nine months to expand its footprint in Africa, while recalibrating resources for Nordic countries through its European bases as traditional markets face slower growth. Hong Kong Trade Development Council chairman Frederick Ma Si-hang said on Friday that the organisation had revamped its corporate structure to better...
Recent US trade, tech and visa restrictions targeting China aim to gain leverage ahead of September’s summit between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, though Chinese analysts warn the aggressive pressure risks souring the high-stakes meeting. The assessment came as the two powers seek to establish a new framework of “constructive strategic stability” in line with the two presidents’ agreement following...
China may be developing a new class of nuclear-powered attack submarine with improved range and stealth, according to analysis based on recent satellite imagery. The images, captured at Shanghai’s Jiangnan Shipyard, show what analysts believe is a previously unidentified submarine featuring a dramatically reduced sail compared with existing Type 093 attack submarines – a design they say could impr...
A Hong Kong taxi driver contesting an HK$8.4 million (US$1.07 million) personal injury lawsuit has denied deliberately ramming his car into a crowd during the 2019 anti-government protests, insisting he lost control of the vehicle after being assaulted by vigilantes. Henry Cheng Kwok-chuen took the witness stand on Friday to defend against the claim by Park Hoi-lam, who suffered serious injuries i...
Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings has fired a manager at its WeChat division after details of his multimillion-yuan bonus package leaked online, sparking animated discussion across social media. The employee, surnamed Ye, was dismissed for passing sensitive corporate information to external parties, which caused a “severe negative impact both inside and outside the company”, according to an inte...
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations and China have called for a lasting settlement to the current war in the Middle East and pledged further cooperation on energy security. A joint statement, released after a meeting between the bloc’s foreign ministers and their Chinese counterpart in Manila, came amid an ongoing energy crisis. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has caused prices to rise ...
A series of explosions sounded near a military base hosting US forces in northern Iraq and sirens rang out in Bahrain on Friday, hours after the American military said it finished its 13th night of strikes against Iran. The conflict has flared again over the past week, as the US has pounded Iran while Tehran has attacked ships in the Strait of Hormuz and targeted US assets and allies in the region...
In an era where short-form videos and viral commentary can dominate public discourse on geopolitics, one Chinese political scientist is on a mission to correct what he calls a “negative one” level of understanding. Yan Xuetong, honorary president of Tsinghua University’s Institute of International Relations in Beijing, is doing this by challenging the public to avoid social media sensationalism an...
Southeast Asia’s governments have spent months trying to blunt the effects of war-driven energy shocks from the Middle East, but renewed fighting between the United States and Iran has exposed how limited those defences are, analysts have warned. The latest flare-up has revived fears of a second round of fuel disruption across the region, where many economies remain heavily dependent on imported o...
When a man in China went travelling and helped a Taiwanese tourist take pictures, they chatted casually only to find out that the tourist was a long-lost relative of the man’s family. This incredible experience was shared on social media by the man, Chen Jie, who lives in Shanghai, the Xiaoxiang Morning Herald reported. In early July, Chen took a business trip to Yunnan province in southwest China...
Massive forest fires burned out of control in southwestern France and central Spain on Friday, prompting authorities to evacuate an estimated 200,000 people from their homes. Some even fled by boat when flames swept through the touristic area on France’s Atlantic coast. Dozens of firefighters were injured, authorities said in France, but no deaths were reported in either country. Some 141,000 fled...
Spain’s government declared a national emergency on Friday after wildfires forced the evacuation of some 10,000 people in the central region of Madrid, while in southern France around 40,000 people also had to flee. Fire there has ravaged over 10,000 hectares (25,000 acres), French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said, saying the blaze was “the largest of the season”. “As I speak, gradually, 40,00...
Malaysia has ordered the UN refugee agency to stop registering new refugees while it builds a biometric identification system that officials say will give them greater control over a population of more than 215,000 displaced people. But rights advocates warn the freeze risks leaving newly arrived asylum seekers with no way to prove they need protection, opening a dangerous gap in a country that do...
A Hong Kong police officer has been removed from duty after he repeatedly swore at a passer-by with a loudspeaker in a patrol van, a source has said. According to a video clip circulating on social media on Friday, a police vehicle marked “AM 7155” on its roof arrived at Cho Yiu Chuen housing estate in Lai King with its siren on. Someone inside the vehicle then appeared to use the on-board loudspe...
A Hong Kong police officer has been removed from duties after he repeatedly swore at a passer-by with a loudspeaker in a patrol car, a source has said. According to a video clip circulated on social media on Friday, a police car marked “AM 7155” on its roof arrived at Cho Yiu Chuen housing estate in Lai King with its siren on. Someone inside the vehicle then appeared to use the on-board loudspeake...
After devoting the first half of 2026 to an ineffectual, expensive and inconclusive military adventure in Iran, it seems US President Donald Trump is about to turn afresh to the wars he loves best – the tariff wars he still believes can make America great again. He can’t quite walk away from the war in the Persian Gulf. Iran’s refusal to capitulate has left Trump with an awkward obligation to figh...
Stock exchange operator Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) will allow all listing applications to remain confidential and will reduce market-capitalisation requirements for listings by start-ups and international firms immediately, it announced on Friday. Confirming a report by the South China Morning Post, HKEX will proceed with confidential filing as it proposed in March in its biggest set ...
The US imposed tariffs as high as 12.5 per cent on 60 trading partners, including China, after President Donald Trump adopted a different method for pursuing his global trade war. The levies, which are related to forced labour, replaced a temporary 10 per cent global tariff that expired on Friday. The 10 per cent tax was imposed after previous Trump tariffs were struck down by the US Supreme Court...
Life insurance sales in Hong Kong rose 51 per cent in the first quarter to another record high, driven by affluent customers from mainland China and overseas buying policies for wealth transfer, protection and medical needs. The industry wrote HK$141.1 billion (US$18 billion) in new life policies in the first quarter, compared with HK$93.4 billion a year earlier, according to data from the Insuran...
