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A total of 39kg (85 lbs) of bread was recently dumped along a roadside in a national park in western Japan, prompting police to investigate who discarded it and why. The loaves were left near crash barriers in Daisen-Oki National Park in Tottori Prefecture between August 14 and 20. The incident has prompted the spread of fake images and videos attempting to link the dumping to a sharp increase in ...
Scientists in South Africa are investigating why masses of sardines have washed up dead or dying along parts of the country’s west and south coast – and if a herpes virus detected in the fish is responsible. The mass mortality of sardines this month has so far stumped the country’s Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, though scientists have come to at least one conclusion: it is ...
Japan plans to deploy fighter jets in India for the first time next month, a decision experts say reflects Tokyo’s desire to strengthen security cooperation with “like-minded” countries in the Indo-Pacific region as it ramps up defence spending in response to China’s growing military power. According to a Japan Air Self-Defence Force announcement on Tuesday, Tokyo will conduct a joint training exe...
Hong Kong’s elite Diocesan Boys’ School (DBS) is set to offer the International Advanced Level curriculum from 2027, becoming the city’s first school to offer three university pathways if it secures the Education Bureau’s approval. Headmaster Ronnie Cheng Kay-yen made the announcement on Saturday at a Primary One admission talk on campus, after the school obtained approval from Cambridge Internati...
Mutinying soldiers led armed clashes in Niger’s capital on Saturday, alarming residents, but the ruling junta said it had largely wrested back control after hours of heavy exchanges around some of its most sensitive sites. While the fighting had subsided later on Saturday, the rebel troops were said by a regional security source and an African diplomatic source to be holed up in an airbase near th...
Clashes erupted in Niger’s capital on Saturday between the presidential guard and elements of the armed forces, after a night of heavy gunfire in parts of the city. Niger has been ruled for three years by a military junta that has struggled to contain jihadist violence, which has blighted the west African country for around a decade. “There was an attempt by insurgents from the Nigerien armed forc...
Gulf states are making a strategic pivot as the war in Iran drags on into its sixth month but observers warned that their shift towards self-reliant defence networks could test China’s “involvement without commitment” strategy in the region. The war has forced Gulf leaders to face the reality that neither the United States nor China is able to protect them from attacks by Iran. On Wednesday, the I...
Nearly 600 pupils and their teachers at a Hong Kong primary school closed after the deadly Wang Fuk Court blaze will be reunited at a newly renovated campus in Tai Po, ending months spent across two temporary sites. Tai Po Baptist Public School, formerly located near Wang Fuk Court, opened its new premises at Fu Shin Estate on Saturday, with pupils, teachers and parents expressing relief at finall...
Video footage taken moments before a catastrophic mudslide hit a border post in Tibet shows how one police officer stationed there tried to guide civilians to safety. The clip, which shows the officer trying to direct people away from the police station at Gyirong Port, went viral online in China over the weekend. State broadcaster CCTV said the officer, whom it named as Huang Peng, also rushed in...
A family embarked on a remarkable 3,500km journey from eastern China to the northwestern region of the country to help their son commence his university life, garnering significant attention online and receiving a wealth of good wishes. The boy graduated from high school in Zaozhuang, Shandong province, this summer before being accepted at Xinjiang Second Medical College in Karamay, a prominent ci...
At least 37 people have died after a Russian drone struck a warehouse near Kyiv’s western suburbs overnight, sparking a huge fire and explosions, authorities said on Saturday. The warehouse appeared to have been storing “explosive objects”, Ukrainian prosecutors said, opening an investigation into criminal negligence. Officials did not give details about the nature of the facility. Both Russia and...
At least 27 people have died after a Russian drone struck a warehouse near Kyiv’s western suburbs overnight, sparking a huge fire and explosions, authorities said on Saturday. The warehouse appeared to have been storing “explosive objects”, Ukrainian prosecutors said, opening an investigation into criminal negligence. Officials did not give details about the nature of the facility. Both Russia and...
Singapore state investor Temasek, the majority shareholder of Singapore Airlines , on Saturday backed the airline’s investment in Air India, as scrutiny grows over its stake in the loss-making Indian carrier. Air India’s request for about US$1.5 billion in fresh equity from owners Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines was first reported by Reuters this week. Singapore Airlines owns 25.1 per cent of I...
Vietnam is seeking to end executions for drug trafficking under a draft revision to its Penal Code, a notable shift in a country with one of Southeast Asia’s toughest anti-drug regimes. The proposal, presented to lawmakers last week, would remove trafficking from Vietnam’s list of capital crimes. Last year, Hanoi kept the offence on the list during an earlier round of death penalty reforms. If pas...
China’s shrinking car market has received another reality check as regulators step in to police the hi-tech offerings that carmakers use to drive sales. A nationwide inspection campaign assessing the quality of Chinese-made cars that was announced this week would see some consumers shelve purchase plans, exacerbating a bearish outlook for the country’s auto sector, dealers and analysts said. Vice-...
Speak a few sentences of your hometown dialect into a microphone at a museum in central China, and a machine will pinpoint exactly where you are from. The interactive voice-recognition booth is among star attractions at a new language resources hall that opened on Monday at the Hunan Museum in Changsha. The hall showcases recordings and other language materials from Chinese dialects, minority lang...
Hongkongers can present either their identity card or home return permit at the revamped Huanggang border checkpoint instead of both documents under the latest agreement with mainland Chinese authorities, the security minister has revealed. Secretary for Security Chris Tang Ping-keung announced the measure after a drill at the crossing involving more than 20,000 civil servants on Saturday. “Reside...
Hong Kong’s Nepalese community and other local organisations have launched fundraising drives to support those affected by deadly flash floods at the Himalayan nation’s border with the Tibet autonomous region, as the city government earmarked HK$50 million (US$6.38 million) to support relief efforts. In a social media post on Saturday, Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu said the HK$50 million would ...
Hong Kong’s Nepalese community and other local organisations have launched fundraising drives to support those affected by deadly flash floods near the country’s border with Tibet, as the city’s government earmarked HK$50 million to support relief efforts. In a social media post on Saturday, Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu said the money would come from the Disaster Relief Fund and that its advis...
Hong Kong’s government has earmarked HK$50 million (US$6.3 million) from the Disaster Relief Fund for those affected by deadly flash floods near Nepal’s border with Tibet’s Gyirong county, which have left hundreds dead and thousands missing. Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu announced the move in a Facebook post on Saturday. “I express my deep condolences for the victims and extend my heartfelt sym...
Hong Kong’s government has earmarked HK$50 million (US$6.3 million) from the Disaster Relief Fund for those affected by deadly flash floods near Nepal’s border with Tibet’s Gyirong County, which have left hundreds dead and thousands missing. Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu announced the move in a Facebook post on Saturday. “I express my deep condolences for the victims and extend my heartfelt sym...
A woman in her fifties has been fined for repeatedly banging on her ceiling with a backscratcher and contacting her upstairs neighbour over noise, with a South Korean court ruling that her actions amounted to stalking. The Chuncheon District Court fined the 55-year-old woman, identified only as A, 2 million won (US$1,400) for violating the Act on Punishment of Crimes of Stalking, according to lega...
Norway opened a new chapter in its history on Saturday under King Haakon VIII, after the death of his father Harald, a unifying figure who was on the throne for 35 years. A national period of mourning was declared in the Scandinavian kingdom following the king’s death on Friday at 6.35am, aged 89. Norwegians gathered on Saturday to say goodbye to the king in front of the royal palace, where he ...
Seven words, spoken almost in passing on a recent afternoon in Srinagar, have set off a diplomatic tremor across South Asia. “This is an important part of India,” Sergio Gor told reporters on August 19, during the first visit by a US ambassador to Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir in six years. Within hours, Pakistan had summoned the top American diplomat in Islamabad, Natalie Baker, to delive...
Several ride-hailing firms have expressed interest in operating the long-awaited online platforms in Hong Kong, just one day after the government opened licence applications setting out nine requirements, the transport chief has revealed. Secretary for Transport and Logistics Mable Chan said on Saturday that two to three firms had expressed interest in operating ride-hailing service platforms, emp...
China is being urged to use human translators to refine AI renderings of its political messaging, amid concern that literal translations can make Beijing’s language sound more threatening abroad. An article in a state-affiliated academic newspaper said the country should strengthen its translation capacity and guard against AI-generated distortions to improve how its policies and intentions were u...
Chinese artificial intelligence companies are carving out a distinct lead over their US rivals in video generation, leveraging vast short-video ecosystems, looser copyright rules and aggressive pricing to dominate an arena where compute alone does not dictate success, analysts say. While US tech giants such as OpenAI and Anthropic continue to lead in frontier closed-source large language models (L...
More than 1,000 luxury items and 80 real estate properties forfeited in Singapore’s S$3 billion (US$2.4 billion) money laundering case would go under the hammer from September 7, audit firm Deloitte said on Saturday. The properties will be auctioned by SRI, Edmund Tie & Company and Knight Frank, while auction house Hotlotz will handle the luxury goods, comprising jewellery, watches and handbags. S...
Mukti Patel has huddled with family and friends at her parents’ Richmond, Virginia, home since her dad, sister and two other relatives went missing in the catastrophic flash floods along the Nepal-China border. She knows the hotel they were staying in was swept away. But as she shared memories of them on Friday, she caught herself. “I shouldn’t talk in past tense yet,” she said. “We don’t know any...
Hong Kong’s legal community has hailed a move by mainland China to make permanent a pilot scheme allowing lawyers to practise in Greater Bay Area cities, predicting the demand for such cross-border legal services will continue to grow. Secretary for Justice Paul Lam Ting-kwok said on Saturday that amendments passed by the country’s top legislative body the previous day would further accelerate the...
