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During a crackdown on organised crime, Zeng Jianbin, a real estate developer in Mianyang, southwestern China’s Sichuan province, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for being a “gang leader”. In 2023, the Mianyang Intermediate People’s Court convicted Zeng of nine offences, including provoking trouble, illegal lending at high interest and intentional destruction of property. His sentence was parti...
For Asian musicians, the Grammy Awards represent the ultimate dream and recognition of success in the global music industry long dominated by their Western counterparts. When BTS, widely regarded as the world’s most famous Asian pop act, decided not to submit their music for consideration at next year’s Grammys in an apparent protest against the creation of a new best Asian pop music performance c...
An ageing society and a widening income gap threaten Hong Kong’s social fabric. In the last of a five-part series on the city’s five-year plan, we look at what can be done to address these key issues. Read part one here, part two here, part three here and part four here. At 71, Man Chi-ying is the sole carer for her husband, Fung Yu-hoi, a Parkinson’s disease patient. Fung, who is also 71, has sti...
Sales of luxury homes in mainland China’s top cities are picking up as high-net-worth individuals, benefiting from the country’s tech boom, splash out billions of yuan to improve their housing. The buying binge has sparked expectations of a broad market recovery after a six-year property slump across the country, according to brokers. But analysts said such homes represented just a small portion o...
The cables that link Australia with the rest of the world lie mostly unseen, stretched across the seabed and threaded through some of the Indo-Pacific’s busiest and most contested waters. This vulnerability could also become a strategic advantage, a new report says, urging Australia to position itself as an “Indo-Pacific preferred cable hub” as threats to submarine cables raise economic and nation...
Colombia’s new President Abelardo de la Espriella on Saturday called on his US counterpart Donald Trump to suspend tariffs currently targeting the South American nation, which is reeling after a deadly earthquake. US tariffs on Colombian products rose from 10 per cent to 12.5 per cent in late July, with a few exceptions including coffee and oil. “I asked him to consider to temporarily suspend the ...
A China-led team has cleared the last major hurdle in the race to commercialise the most promising alternative to conventional silicon solar technology, paving the way for the next generation of low-cost, high-efficiency panels to be made on an industrial scale. Researchers from China and Canada, led by Nanjing University, have developed a super-stable coating for perovskite – an ultra-thin, light...
Hong Kong’s Northern Metropolis University Town is no longer just a planning concept. After site visits by a university town task force, the government has reportedly absorbed lessons from overseas models, expanded the university town area to more than 1,000 hectares, received 19 proposals from local institutions and moved towards phased site tendering and development. The project has become somet...
Iranian authorities revealed on Saturday that three of Tehran’s pilots who went down early in the Middle East war were still being held in Qatar, calling on the Gulf state to release them. Iran had previously reported one pilot killed and others missing after a sortie to Qatar in March, but news of their alleged capture was not publicised at the time. “Three Iranian pilots were captured alive by Q...
Israeli air strikes on southern Lebanon killed at least 11 people on Saturday, in the deadliest attacks since a truce between Israel and Hezbollah went into effect on June 20. Lebanon’s health ministry and state news agency said an air strike that targeted a home on the edge of Ansar village killed seven people, including three children, and wounded two. The second, on the village of Deir al-Zahra...
Police in Virginia have arrested a 19-year-old in connection with a shooting on Saturday that left five people injured. No one died in the shooting, though one victim sustained critical injuries. Chesterfield county police announced the arrest of Camron Harris of Henrico, Virginia. They found him hiding in a wardrobe on campus on Saturday afternoon. He was not a student at the university, authorit...
Five people were wounded in a shooting involving multiple suspects at Virginia State University early Saturday, prompting a campus lockdown and police investigation just as students get ready for a new school year. It happened near the university’s Quad Annexes, where campus police and Chesterfield County officers discovered five people suffering from gunshot wounds outside campus dormitories. Off...
A shooting involving multiple suspects and five people shot at Virginia State University prompted a campus lockdown early on Saturday. It happened near the university’s Quad Annexes, where campus police and Chesterfield County officers discovered five people suffering from gunshot wounds outside campus dormitories. Officers responded just before 1.30am and the lockdown was lifted at about 9am, cou...
A shooting involving multiple suspects and five people shot at Virginia State University prompted a campus lockdown early on Saturday. The shooting happened near the university’s Quad Annexes, and both campus police and Chesterfield County police are actively investigating. County police said officers discovered five people suffering from gunshot wounds outside campus dormitories when they arrived...
Hong Kong police have launched an internal investigation into a female officer who posted a video of herself dancing in uniform on mainland Chinese social media, and ordered her to remove it. The video, which has gone viral in recent days, shows a short-haired female constable making hand gestures and moving to upbeat music. Her face is partly obscured by a filter featuring dog ears and a muzzle. ...
Hong Kong police have launched an internal investigation into a female officer who posted a video of herself dancing in uniform on mainland Chinese social media, and ordered her to remove it. The video, which has gone viral in recent days, shows a short-haired female constable making hand gestures and moving to upbeat music. Her face is partly obscured by a filter featuring dog ears and a muzzle. ...
Taiwan’s push to build a modern counter-drone shield has come under renewed scrutiny after an official audit uncovered technical shortcomings and a key procurement programme collapsed following repeated testing failures. The developments have fuelled concerns that Taipei’s efforts to match Beijing’s rapidly evolving drone technology are being undermined by capability gaps, procurement failures and...
Hong Kong authorities have conducted a counterterrorism drill at the revamped Huanggang border crossing and used a new “crowd flow” test to simulate an unexpected surge in passenger numbers, with about 5,000 civil servants taking part. The counterterrorism exercise on Saturday was the first such drill to be held at the redeveloped checkpoint building. A Security Bureau spokesman said civil servant...
The upgraded Huanggang border crossing between Hong Kong and Shenzhen is due to begin service following about six years of redevelopment. Sources previously said the Huanggang Port Hong Kong Port Area could open as early as September, becoming the city’s second round-the-clock checkpoint. Following the overhaul, the Huanggang checkpoint will no longer serve goods vehicles. The South China Morning ...
With the death of former Chinese premier Zhu Rongji, both China and the wider world have lost a great leader. Zhu took personal risks for better US-China ties. He believed that productive Sino-American relations were good for China and for the world. He was a global leader before China had achieved its current great power status. In mid-1990, when I was president of the National Committee on Unite...
The US push to promote “burden sharing” among its allies in the Indo-Pacific has seen it focusing on increasing its military capacity while lowering the political temperature in an effort to reassure its allies. But some analysts have questioned its chances of succeeding, arguing that this deterrence strategy has intensified great power rivalry and polarisation in the region, while driving deeper ...
China has published ecological assessment reports on nine disputed South China Sea features, amid an escalating row with Washington over Beijing’s establishment of a “national nature reserve” in the contested waters. On Friday, the Ministry of Natural Resources’ South China Sea Bureau issued its 2025 marine ecological early-warning and monitoring bulletin, alongside a separate marine ecological pr...
The US is readying unprecedented economic measures against Iran, as President Donald Trump seeks to intensify efforts to force Tehran to capitulate after almost six months of war. The president said in a brief interview with Fox News that the US was planning to hit Iran’s economy hard, and that he did not care if the conflict were to end before the November US midterm elections, which would hinge ...
Hong Kong’s inaugural five-year plan should prioritise the Northern Metropolis mega development, strengthen the city’s position as an international financial centre and advance its artificial intelligence (AI) strategy, major business chambers have said. In submissions for the city’s first five-year plan, groups including the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong (AmCham) and the Federation of...
Hong Kong parents and concern groups have urged authorities to reinstate student subsidies after textbook prices recorded their sharpest increase since the Covid-19 pandemic, amid the growing use of digital learning tools. Prices for a list of textbooks now range from HK$4,000 (US$510) to HK$6,000, representing an average increase of 3.6 per cent for the 2026-27 academic year, the highest since th...
Wearing a black mariner’s cap and with a wall-to-wall bookshelf as a backdrop, Cambridge University professor Alan Macfarlane greets his social media audience with a soft ni hao – “Hello” in Chinese. In his latest video, Macfarlane follows this signature opening by thoughtfully answering a question pulled from the comments: why has making genuine friends become so difficult? Few would have expecte...
At the Goodtime Chinese School in the Bethany suburb of Portland, Oregon, an American child stops school director Zhou Yanzhuo, of China, in the hallway to ask a question in English. She requests that he speak in Chinese and the third grader, who has no Chinese heritage, handily switches languages. The child is one of several dozen students attending rigorous summer classes for Chinese language in...
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Saturday his government would provide free online coaching lessons for competitive exams, weeks after massive youth-led protests forced the education minister to resign. Modi said the initiative was aimed at easing the financial burden on millions of families caught up in the country’s fiercely competitive education system. The 75-year-old leader made th...
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Saturday his government would provide free online coaching lessons for competitive exams, weeks after massive youth-led protests forced the education minister to resign. Modi said the initiative was aimed at easing the financial burden on millions of families caught up in the country’s fiercely competitive education system. The 75-year-old leader made th...
For decades, the three days of summer considered the hottest of the year were among the busiest for South Korea’s dog meat restaurants, as diners sought traditional stamina-boosting foods to endure the heat. The third “boknal”, or hot day, of 2026 on Friday carried an added sense of finality. It was the last before a nationwide ban on the breeding, slaughter and sale of dogs for meat takes full e...
