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The front page of the Danville Register & Bee, a local newspaper in southern Virginia with a circulation of fewer than 4,000, carried an unusual headline. “LEADER: CHINA BEHIND THE MISCONCEPTIONS”, it read, above a photograph of two homes dwarfed by a data centre behind. The leader in question was Vic Ingram, chair of the Danville-Pittsylvania Regional Industrial Facility Authority (RIFA), a local...
Hong Kong companies should accelerate their expansion into the Middle East, the Asean bloc and Central Asia to reduce their exposure to geopolitical risks, a lawmaker has said, as the United States moved to disrupt immigrant-visa appointments worldwide. Jonathan Lamport, the representative for the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce (HKGCC) at Legislative Council, said the visa uncertainty reinf...
Hong Kong companies should accelerate their expansion into the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Central Asia to reduce their exposure to geopolitical risks, the city’s commercial-sector lawmaker has said, as the United States moved to disrupt immigrant-visa appointments worldwide. Jonathan Lamport, the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce’s (HKGCC) representative in the Legislative Council, said t...
Meta agreed to pay a coalition of US states as much as US$16.7 billion and to impose sweeping new limits on how teenagers use Facebook and Instagram, according to a court filing on Wednesday that ends a landmark trial in California. The settlement, which a federal judge quickly approved, resolves claims by 29 states that Meta deliberately engineered its platforms to hook young users, misled the pu...
Meta Platforms has agreed to pay US$17 billion and add child-safety measures to its Facebook and Instagram platforms to end a landmark trial over teen social media addiction and settle claims filed by 47 US states, state attorneys general announced on Wednesday. California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey were among 29 states that sued the tech giant in 2023, but the deal cuts short the trial, w...
Beijing has vowed to retaliate against Washington’s expanded Iran sanctions targeting Chinese entities, threatening a clash that could erode recent stability in the US-China relationship and become a new flashpoint weeks before President Xi Jinping visits the US, according to observers. But they say that efforts on both sides, such as this week’s Track 1.5 dialogue, could serve as a check on tensi...
As geopolitical tensions intensify, China’s steel sector – the world’s largest – is facing trade-restrictive measures in overseas markets and shrinking margins, but the country must strive to avoid the mistakes of America’s rust belt, according to an article in the Communist Party’s top theoretical journal. The piece, published in the latest issue of the Qiushi Journal and written jointly by the j...
Iran and Oman have reached agreement on their share of the Strait of Hormuz and its revenues, but the vital waterway will not be reopened if the US does not accept their conditions, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Wednesday. Iran and Oman have held on-and-off talks for weeks about controlling traffic through the strait, which handled one-fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas shipments...
Asian workers and families already facing years-long waits for US visas could be pushed deeper into uncertainty by a global pause on immigrant visa appointments, as President Donald Trump’s administration tightens legal immigration through new screening and higher costs, experts warn. The US State Department on Tuesday said it had launched a global training initiative for consular officers at all ...
The family of a Hong Kong man imprisoned in the Philippines for more than two decades has appealed to city authorities for help after he remained in custody despite a court in the country recently ruling that he had finished serving his lengthy sentence. Tang Lung-wai was arrested in the country in July 2000 for the possession of methamphetamine, also known as Ice, and placed on remand. He was lat...
China’s delay of a high-stakes mission to hunt for water ice near the moon’s south pole may slow its lunar ambitions, but is unlikely to change the bigger contest with the United States over who can build a lasting presence on the moon, according to space experts. No reason was given when Chang’e-7 was postponed until next year, just hours before Sunday night’s scheduled lift-off, though a major t...
Scientists in China have created a self-exercising muscle graft that might allow bedridden people to gain the benefits of working out without any physical exertion. With just an injection of muscle cells below the skin, the cells self-assembled into muscle grafts, which not only improved whole-body muscle mass in mice but also led to improvements in bone density, endurance, liver function and cogn...
Scientists in China have created a self-exercising muscle graft that could allow bedridden people to obtain the benefits of working out without any physical exertion. With just an injection of muscle cells below the skin, the cells self-assembled into muscle grafts, which not only improved whole-body muscle mass in mice but also led to improvements in bone density, endurance, liver function and co...
Prince Harry and his family arrived back in Britain on Wednesday, the BBC reported, days after it was revealed the couple were relocating six years after quitting royal duties and moving to the United States. Last week, Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, surprised even their close family when it was disclosed that they would move back from California to somewhere outside London for...
Hong Kong customs officers have seized HK$11 million (US$1.4 million) worth of suspected men’s sexual health pills and cancer treatment drugs in a Sheung Shui warehouse, arresting two people. Inspector Shirley Woo Suet‑yi of the customs syndicate crimes investigation bureau said on Wednesday that officers had noticed a rising demand for controlled pharmaceutical products in recent weeks. Investiga...
Forty years ago, the Stockholm Document turned the political promise of the 1975 Helsinki Final Act into a more practical system of confidence-building. Amid the Cold War, Europe’s East and West did not disarm, abandon deterrence or begin to trust one another. Instead, they agreed that military competition could be made safer through prior notification, observation, information exchange and verifi...
Read more: https://sc.mp/cc3d3c A landslide at the China-Nepal border has hit a key checkpoint with Tibet, resulting in “major casualties”, according to state media and footage shared online. The landslide began in Nepal’s Rasuwa region on Wednesday and struck Tibet’s bordering southwestern county Gyirong, according to Xinhua.
After two years of a cautious thaw, China and India are heading towards a pivotal test: can the relationship move beyond managed optics to meaningful engagement? President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are expected to cross paths next week at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Sources expect a short, tightly managed encounter on the side...
After two years of a cautious thaw, China and India are heading towards a pivotal test: can the relationship move beyond managed optics to meaningful engagement? President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are expected to cross paths next week at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Sources expect a short, tightly managed encounter on the side...
At least 72 people were dead and hundreds of others – many of them foreign tourists – were missing on Wednesday night, hours after massive flash floods and landslides engulfed a border area between China and Nepal. Chinese state media reported that the disaster struck Nepal at around 9am, spilling over into Gyirong county in the Tibet autonomous region, causing “major casualties and missing person...
Hundreds of people – many of them foreign tourists – were missing on Wednesday night, hours after a massive landslide engulfed a border area between China and Nepal. Chinese state media reported that the disaster struck Nepal at around 9am, spilling over into Gyirong county in the Tibet autonomous region, causing “major casualties and missing persons” at a border checkpoint in the county, which is...
Rescue operations are under way after a landslide at the China-Nepal border engulfed a key border checkpoint, resulting in “major casualties”, according to Chinese state media. The landslide began in Nepal at around 9am on Wednesday and also struck Tibet’s Gyirong county, which is under the administration of Shigatse city, according to Xinhua. Footage circulating online showed the landslide engulf...
Beijing has vowed to develop emerging industries such as 6G and robotics into new drivers of economic growth by the end of the decade, while pledging renewed efforts to curb cutthroat competition in the domestic automotive industry. Vice-minister of Industry and Information Technology Xin Guobin outlined plans through 2030 to develop a range of hi-tech industries as new pillars of the economy and ...
For years, South Asian students – particularly from India – treated an overseas undergraduate degree as the default springboard to an international career. That assumption is now changing. Students across the region are still drawn to prestigious Western institutions, but tightening visa restrictions, rising costs and uncertain post-graduation job markets in countries like the United States are pr...
Chinese artificial intelligence firm MiniMax on Wednesday posted a 283 per cent surge in first-half revenue to US$116.6 million, powered by a 700 per cent jump in its enterprise business, though top-line growth remains off pace to hit full-year analyst forecasts. Revenue for the six months ended June 30 accounted for roughly 32 per cent of the US$363.77 million expected by analysts for the full ye...
Hong Kong health authorities have confirmed that no child has shown signs of poisoning after drinking a batch of infant formula found to contain excessive levels of lead. The Department of Health gave an update on Wednesday, a month after Macau authorities alerted the public that a batch of Frisolac Prestige Stage 1 infant formula, manufactured by the Dutch company Royal FrieslandCampina, might co...
Hong Kong health authorities have confirmed that no child showed signs of poisoning after drinking a batch of infant formula found to contain excessive levels of lead. The Department of Health gave an update on Wednesday, a month after Macau authorities alerted the public that a batch of Frisolac Prestige Stage 1 infant formula, manufactured by the Dutch company Royal FrieslandCampina, might conta...
Few have spent as much time in the waters surrounding Singapore’s southwestern islands as fisherman Hamzah Mohamad, 71. The former resident of Pulau Sudong has been fishing, primarily by setting up bubu – wire fish traps in Malay – in the rocky coral reefs surrounding Sudong, Bukom and Semakau for more than half a century. He knows the underwater reefs by heart, what the wind changes mean for visi...
China has reminded its officials of their lifelong responsibility for serious environmental damage on their watch, tying green efforts more closely to performance assessments in the country’s push for higher-quality growth. The conditions and potential disciplinary action were outlined in revised rules released on Tuesday by the Communist Party and the State Council, China’s cabinet. Under the rul...
Facing a far larger Chinese military presence at sea, the Philippines is looking to drones not as a substitute for warships and aircraft but as a relatively low-cost way to make its forces harder to find, suppress and outmanoeuvre, analysts have said. The administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr has focused on expanding the military’s drone fleet as part of its external defence strategy. D...
