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Singapore’s latest pro-family push has been welcomed by some parents for tackling the costs of raising children, but others say lower fees and more leave are unlikely on their own to overcome deeper worries over time, careers, housing and lifestyle. During the annual National Day Rally on Sunday night, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong announced a raft of measures to make having children more appealing...
Hong Kong preschoolers will be offered free dental check-ups starting next month, with more than 70 per cent of the city’s kindergartens already signed up for the new government initiative. The Department of Health announced on Monday the launch of the Outreach Oral Health Programme for Preschool Children on September 1, aimed at fostering oral hygiene habits and preventing tooth decay at an early...
A Hong Kong court sentenced a former teacher on Monday to 18 months in prison for molesting a student, aged 15 at the time, on two occasions in 2020. District Judge Gary Lam Kar-yan described defendant Cheng Hon-sze’s case as serious and said there was no room for a reduced sentence, even if it was a first offence. Cheng, now 32, was sentenced at Tsuen Wan Court after being found guilty of two cou...
An associate professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) has been acquitted of indecently assaulting a woman who reported him upon discovering he was married, after a court found the pair had been mutually attracted and that the man may have wrongly believed she had consented to being touched. Magistrate Raymond Wong Kwok-fai acquitted Peng Peng, 38, at Sha Tin Court on Monday, followi...
The world’s largest coal-to-liquids plant is turning coal into oil products that can power rockets and serve as machine lubricants while boosting its value sevenfold, according to a Chinese newspaper. The production line, built by China Energy Group Ningxia Coal Industry Co Ltd, began full operations in northwest China’s Ningxia Hui autonomous region last month and processed 24 million tonnes of c...
The Chinese podcaster Zhongshu, who garnered widespread international acclaim for her recent interview with filmmaker Christopher Nolan, is now facing allegations of paraphrasing and plagiarism in her podcasts and published works. The interview between Zhongshu and Nolan concerning The Odyssey, released on July 31, quickly went viral and was celebrated as “smart,” “the most interesting and profoun...
Indonesia has given Malaysian agencies official permission to enter its airspace to conduct cloud seeding operations, Malaysia’s environment minister has said, part of both countries’ efforts to combat the haze blanketing the region. Indonesia has been stepping up efforts to slow the spread of haze caused by forest and land fires across several provinces, which this month led to dozens of scho...
The Netherlands will not participate in next year’s Eurovision Song Contest, its broadcaster has said, adding that the event can “no longer be considered neutral” given divisions over the Gaza war. “It is undeniable that international conflicts are increasingly affecting the contest, undermining its neutral character. The Eurovision Song Contest has therefore become a platform for division,” said ...
A banking veteran has been appointed the new deputy Communist Party secretary and acting mayor of the southern Chinese metropolis of Shenzhen, just months before the city is scheduled to host a series of Apec meetings. The positions have been filled by Li Yun, who spent more than two decades working in financial institutions and has been the vice-governor of Guangdong province since March last yea...
Registration has opened for Hong Kong’s first countryside real-name reservation system capping daily visitors to a popular trail in Sai Kung at 2,000, with a lawmaker and a district councillor welcoming the arrangement as an opportunity to gather data to help shape formal arrangements. The trial reservation system for visits to the Po Pin Chau trail in Sai Kung East Country Park went live at 11am ...
A Hong Kong-listed educational group has completed the largest commercial property leasing deal so far this quarter, as the sector benefits from an influx of immigrant and expatriate families to the city, according to CBRE. The tenant agreed to occupy and transform the entire Tower B at the China Life Centre in Hung Hom, Kowloon into a purpose-built education complex spanning about 36,400 sq ft, s...
Brazil’s presidential candidates opened the televised campaign season on Sunday with a debate that turned repeatedly to the country’s position between Washington and Beijing. The exchange comes in an election cycle already shaped by American tariffs, a visa dispute over election monitoring and the Lula government’s warming ties with China. Ronaldo Caiado, Augusto Cury and Renan Santos took to the ...
In global commercial real estate investment markets, data centres are all the rage. While stock markets continue to suffer bouts of volatility as sentiment oscillates between concerns artificial intelligence (AI) will fall short of expectations and fears it will prove more disruptive than many think, the fundamentals of data centres are exceptionally strong. According to JLL, global data centre oc...
When Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) opened in 1998 to replace its predecessor, the iconic Kai Tak Airport, the world was amazed by its engineering and architectural marvels. HKIA’s construction transformed the geography of northern Lantau Island, adding 1 per cent to the city’s total land mass by reclaiming land to connect two other islands, Chek Lap Kok and Lam Chau. The main terminal, de...
Malaysian politician Mukhriz Mahathir has triggered a social media storm after declaring in a video that he “hates Americans, all of them”, over Washington’s support for Israel – echoing the fierce anti-US rhetoric long associated with his father, former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad. “I hate Americans. I despise Israelis, but I hate Americans, all of them,” Mukhriz said in the video, posted on ...
Nearly 80 per cent of low-income elderly people surveyed in Hong Kong reported physical or mental distress during periods of extreme heat, prompting calls for stronger government support and heat-prevention measures. Data from the Department of Health cited by Greenpeace identified elderly people as the city’s demographic most at risk from extreme temperatures. The number of hospital discharges an...
A Malaysian Islamic university has formally distanced itself from an academic whose viral claims about ancient Malay civilisation – including that Malays could fly and taught the Chinese “flying kung fu” – have drawn ridicule from historians. In a statement on Sunday, the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) said Solehah Yaacob, a former linguistics professor, had been terminated from ...
Routine Chinese activities are increasingly being framed as threats by Indian intelligence agencies, raising the risk of New Delhi miscalculating and taking “unilateral countermeasures” against Beijing, a Chinese academic has warned. India has stepped up intelligence-gathering as ties with neighbouring China turned sour in recent years, according to Zhao Ruoxi, a researcher with the Macau Universi...
The likelihood that Hong Kong’s weather forecaster will issue a typhoon signal in the next two days is “relatively low”, although multiple tropical cyclones are set to bring unsettled weather to the city later this week. The Observatory said at noon on Monday that Tropical Storm Narra was expected to skirt the coast of the Leizhou Peninsula in western Guangdong province in the coming days while “m...
Military officials from Uganda and Burundi visited Israel last week to discuss deploying troops to Gaza as part of an international security force envisioned by US President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace” for the fragile ceasefire, according to officials. An official with the board said that Ugandan officials had joined a Burundian military delegation and that Uganda was finalising details of its...
Hong Kong should introduce a tiered risk framework and carry out DNA testing and physical checks to identify dogs with aggressive traits, a veterinarian and a lawmaker have said after a woman and two pets were mauled within a week. Monday’s calls for policy change came after the woman, 33, was found dead in Ping Yeung Tsuen last week. Hours before her body was discovered, she had been attacked at ...
Hong Kong should introduce a tiered risk framework and carry out DNA testing and physical assessments to identify dogs with aggressive breed traits, a veterinary surgeon and a lawmaker have said following three fatal canine attacks within a week. The calls made on Monday come after the latest fatal mauling at a pet training centre, where a 33-year-old woman was attacked by a dog suspected of being...
New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said on Monday his party would introduce a bill in parliament that seeks to ban children under 16 from using social media, proposing fines of up to 10 per cent of a platform’s global revenue for non-compliance. The bill would require social media platforms to take reasonable steps to verify users’ ages, including by using existing account information,...
Hong Kong’s leader has called on scientists, leading enterprises and investment institutions from around the world to seize opportunities in the city, describing it as a “golden gateway” for overseas companies to enter the mainland Chinese market and mainland unicorn firms to expand globally. Speaking at the first Global Unicorn Summit on Monday, Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu made a familiar pi...
A twist of fate put a guitar in Nene Royal’s hands. Aged seven, she wanted to join the computer science club at her school in Phuket, Thailand, but it was already full. “The only place left was in the music club, and the teacher handed me a guitar,” she told This Week in Asia. “The moment I started playing, something clicked.” Now just 16, the self-taught rocker has a shot at global stardom on the...
We have put together stories from our coverage last weekend to help you stay informed about news across Asia and beyond. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. Why Chinese foreign minister’s trip to South Korea ‘dealt a low blow’ to Seoul 2. How much of an impact will retiring expats have on Hong Kong’s luxury property? 3. Electrochemist Liu Jiawei moves ...
China is gearing up for what could become its next record-breaking semiconductor stock listing as the parent company of chip giant Yangtze Memory Technologies Corporation (YMTC) prepares to go public on Shanghai’s Star Market. CCSH Corporation, parent of China’s top NAND flash maker, planned to sell between 1.98 billion and 2.43 billion shares, equivalent to 10 to 12 per cent of its enlarged share...
The Philippines is positioning itself as Latin America’s bridge to Southeast Asia, testing whether shared history and culture can translate into hard trade figures as Asean and the Mercosur bloc look beyond their traditional partners. Manila’s Foreign Secretary Maria Theresa Lazaro made the pitch during visits to Brazil and Chile from August 10-13. “Upon this human foundation, commercial bridges t...
Chinese scientists have developed a new tabletop X-ray ghost imaging method that allows them to capture real-time “see-through” video of fast-moving objects. The team’s system could be used to capture dynamic objects such as rotating aircraft engines or biological movements like a beating heart. Importantly, this could all be accomplished with a lower radiation dose and simpler set-up than traditi...
Hong Kong police are investigating a suspected murder-suicide after an 80-year-old man jumped to his death from a residential building, shortly before officers found his 66-year-old wife dead inside their flat with severe head and body injuries. Preliminary investigations showed the couple, married for more than four decades, had planned to divorce due to relationship problems, although authoritie...
