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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...
It may not be the most majestic creature on our beautiful planet, but the humble silkworm deserves a place alongside horses, cattle, cats, and dogs due to its profound impact on human civilisation. The luxurious fabric spun from the silkworm’s natural secretion ignited the creation of a vast global trade network, connecting Asia with the Mediterranean. This network became a catalyst for transforma...
China’s electric vehicles (EVs) already lead the way in terms of battery and autonomous driving technologies. Now, the country’s auto brands are adding a new dimension to the notion of intelligent cars: turning them into full-scale entertainment centres. A new wave of Chinese-developed EVs is hitting the market equipped with everything from voice-activated artificial intelligence (AI) assistants, ...
Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said he would speed up the pace of reforms and strengthen an anti-corruption drive as he sought to rebuild public support after a string of electoral defeats and party departures. Anwar acknowledged shortcomings by his administration that had led to frustration among Malaysians. While the economy grew 6 per cent last quarter and unemployment was low, Anwar sa...
Hong Kong authorities have suspended the main contractor and lift subcontractor working on a new clinical block at Queen Mary Hospital from tendering for public works after serious defects left most lifts unreliable and delayed the launch of services. An engineer and a lawmaker said on Saturday that the extent of the defects was “extremely rare” in Hong Kong and unreasonable, while the government’...
Hong Kong authorities have suspended the main contractor and lift subcontractor working on Queen Mary Hospital’s new clinical block from public works tenders after serious defects left most lifts unreliable and delayed the launch of services. The Architectural Services Department said in a social media post late on Friday that the contractors’ poor performance had been recorded in assessment repor...
China has “strongly condemned” Japanese leaders for visiting the controversial Yasukuni Shrine and making an offering on the 81st anniversary of Japan’s announcement of surrender in World War II. Beijing said it had lodged a formal protest after Japanese defence chief Shinjiro Koizumi and others visited the shrine on Saturday. China and many other Asian countries view the site as a symbol of Japan...
China has “strongly condemned” Japanese leaders for visiting the controversial Yasukuni Shrine and making an offering on the 81st anniversary of Japan’s announcement of surrender in World War II. Beijing lodged a formal protest after Japanese defence chief Shinjiro Koizumi visited the shrine on Saturday. China and many other countries in Asia view the site as a symbol of Japanese militarism. Japan...
Hongkongers should exercise extreme caution in guarding their personal data, especially during online shopping and membership sign-ups, the city’s privacy watchdog has said after privacy complaints jumped more than 60 per cent year on year in the first half of 2026. Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data Ada Chung Lai-ling said on Saturday that residents’ personal data had become a valuable, trade...
Hong Kong’s fintech hub Cyberport has added 66,000 square metres of space in its fifth-phase expansion and filled half of its offices with tenants including mainland Chinese tech companies, according to its chairman. Simon Chan Sai-ming also said on Saturday that Cyberport was positioning itself as a key driver in Hong Kong’s inaugural five-year plan by pushing artificial intelligence (AI) develop...
Russia is confounding expectations that its influence in the Middle East would drastically decline after the downfall of Syria’s Assad regime in 2024. At the time, Moscow operated about 100 military facilities in the war-torn country, following its intervention in the Syrian civil conflict from 2015 to prop up then president Bashar al-Assad in alliance with Iran and its regional proxies. When Assa...
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung proposed talks with North Korea to formally end the long-running Korean war, as Pyongyang deepens ties with Russia while asserting its status as an “irreversible” nuclear state. The two Koreas remain technically at war because their 1950-53 conflict, triggered by a North Korean attack, ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty. Lee made the proposal in...
Hong Kong’s lush forests are teeming with more wildlife ranging from birds arriving from neighbouring regions to newly discovered reptile and insect species, experts have found, as they urge authorities to devise a conservation list to protect vulnerable local species. The call by the city’s conservationists to formulate a “red list” – a long-awaited measure since 2014 – coincided with National Ec...
Third plenums are ordinarily the quiet part of Vietnam’s political calendar. Between its five-yearly congresses, the Communist Party of Vietnam governs through numbered plenums of its Central Committee (CC): the first two settle personnel decisions, and the third, six months on, usually does no more than ratify the term’s work programme. This time, the third plenum of the 14th CC, held from July 2...
A truck driver has fled the scene after his vehicle crashed into roadside barriers and burst into flames on Hong Kong’s Lantau Island, with debris from the collision injuring a taxi driver and passenger travelling behind. The incident occurred at around 3.15am on Saturday during an amber rainstorm warning. A 16-tonne truck carrying electronic parts was heading towards the airport when it crashed o...
At one of the world’s biggest electronic dance music festivals in Belgium, entranced revellers recently found themselves dancing to sounds more often heard on a Singapore commute than a Tomorrowland stage. They included the MRT warning to “Sila berhati-hati di ruang platform” (“Please mind the platform gap” in Malay), familiar to millions who ride the city state’s metro system, and the piercing, r...
Picture a fisherman hauling in his nets on a calm morning at sea, when his smartwatch suddenly vibrates with an alert: “Magnetic anomaly detected – possible submarine passing 500 metres below.” Far‑fetched as it sounds, Chinese scientists have just taken a decisive step towards making that scenario real. A team from the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science and the Ningbo Institute of Materials Tec...
A powerful magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck off the coast of Indonesia early Saturday, killing at least 47 people, collapsing buildings and homes as well as causing panic in a region prone to deadly quakes. Authorities said more than a dozen people were injured. Authorities issued a tsunami warning but later lifted it when Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency said monitoring s...
A powerful magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck off the coast of Indonesia early Saturday, killing at least 40 people, collapsing buildings and homes as well as causing panic in a region prone to deadly quakes. Authorities said more than a dozen people were injured. Authorities issued a tsunami warning but later lifted it when Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency said monitoring s...
A powerful magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck off the coast of Indonesia early Saturday, killing at least 38 people, collapsing buildings and homes as well as causing panic in a region prone to deadly quakes. Authorities said more than a dozen people were injured. Authorities issued a tsunami warning but later lifted it when Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency said monitoring s...
A powerful magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck off the coast of Indonesia early Saturday, killing at least 20 people, collapsing buildings and homes as well as causing panic in a region prone to deadly quakes. Authorities said six people were injured, and two others were missing after a landslide triggered by the quake. Authorities issued a tsunami warning but later lifted it when Indonesia’s Meteorol...
A powerful magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck off the coast of Indonesia early Saturday, collapsing buildings and homes, killing at least five people and causing panic in a region prone to deadly quakes. The governor of East Nusa Tenggara Province, Emanuel Melkiades Laka Lena, told a press conference the five people died from collapsing rubble as they slept. Authorities issued a tsunami warning but l...
A powerful magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck off the coast of Indonesia early Saturday, collapsing buildings and homes, killing at least two people and causing panic in a region prone to deadly quakes. Authorities issued a tsunami warning but later lifted it when Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency said monitoring showed no significant sea-level changes that would pose a threa...
For years, the conventional wisdom in Washington was that America’s China policy was moving in one direction: tougher. But walk into a classroom at Georgetown, Rice or another US university where the next generation of diplomats and foreign-policy professionals is being trained, and the picture looks less settled. A generation that has grown up with China’s rise is increasingly sceptical of the id...
When Brunei’s Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah recently stripped his daughter-in-law of a royal title, the move drew attention for its unusually public glimpse into discipline inside one of the world’s few remaining absolute monarchies. But it also offered a small example of what analysts who study Southeast Asia’s royal families describe as a wider challenge for the region’s monarchies: how to preserve au...
Thirty lions and tigers that were kept alive – barely – for years in cramped concrete cages at a closed Argentine zoo began entering jumbo-size transport crates on Friday as they embarked on ambitious journeys to wildlife sanctuaries halfway across the world in South Africa and the United States. The cats are being rescued from the former Lujan Zoo, about 70km (43 miles) northwest of Argentina’s c...
More than 86,000 football fans passed through Kai Tak Stadium over two nights recently as Manchester City faced Inter Milan and Chelsea took on Juventus. Supporters filled nearby malls and restaurants, with some merchants reporting foot traffic three to four times higher than usual. For those few hours, Kai Tak offered a glimpse of what Hong Kong’s day-to-night economy could become: international ...
