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Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Saturday skipped a visit to Tokyo’s controversial Yasukuni Shrine and sent an offering instead, but Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi and three other Cabinet members went there on the 81st anniversary of the end of World War II. Despite Takaichi, a conservative, staying away from the shrine that honours convicted war criminals along with the war dead, Chin...
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Saturday sent a ritual offering to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, while the country’s defence chief Shinjiro Koizumi visited the site as Japan marks the 81st anniversary of the end of the second world war. Sources have said Takaichi, a conservative, is likely to refrain from visiting the war-linked shrine on the war anniversary. The shrine hon...
Regional cooperation is a key priority in Hong Kong’s first five-year plan. In the fourth of a five-part series on the plan, we look at how life in the Greater Bay Area can get better, with the right policies. Read part one here, part two here and part three here. Eager to escape Hong Kong’s suffocating housing conditions, university administrative worker Polly Chan decided in 2023 to rent a weeke...
Regional cooperation is a key priority in Hong Kong’s first five-year plan. In the fourth of a five-part series on the plan, we look at how life in the Greater Bay Area can get better, with the right policies. Read part one here, part two here and part three here. Eager to escape Hong Kong’s suffocating housing conditions, university administrative worker Polly Chan decided in 2023 to rent a weeke...
A young Chinese man who has just graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Technology from the prestigious Wuhan University is set to embark on a new life as a doctoral student at the same institution. Peng Wenle is not just another ordinary 21-year-old; he was abducted at the age of three in 2008 from outside his parents’ telephone service shop in southern China’s Shenzhen and wa...
As Leopold Aschenbrenner’s US hedge fund saw assets wiped off by more than two-thirds in a single month, some of China’s new portfolio managers also felt the shock across the Pacific, learning bitter lessons early in their careers. The 50-day market turmoil, sparked by a global correction in artificial intelligence stocks in June, turned some of China’s rookie managers into an unwitting focal poin...
With its padded leather and gold “CC” lock, Coco Chanel’s instantly recognisable bag is practically part of the uniform for any self-respecting Bangkok property agent – an apt accessory for a city that recently edged into the top 10 anywhere for luxury spending. But in chastened economic times liquidity and luxury are no longer in lockstep, challenging many of those with expensive tastes to find n...
Just months ago, disorganised planning from Washington in the lead-up to President Donald Trump’s landmark China visit frustrated Chinese officials. Now, Beijing is watching the same story play out on the other side of the world. With less than six weeks until Chinese President Xi Jinping’s planned trip to Washington – his first state visit since 2015 – Beijing finds itself increasingly unsettled ...
Venezuelan interim President Delcy Rodriguez’s tribute to Fidel Castro has drawn a blistering rebuke from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, highlighting the political tensions surrounding Caracas’ rapprochement with Washington even as China seeks to preserve its economic interests in the South American country. Rodriguez marked the centenary of the late Cuban leader’s birth this week by praising ...
President Donald Trump on Friday said he would “soon” declare the Strait of Hormuz waterway part of US territory after defeating Iran. “After we finish defeating Iran, which is being very badly defeated – pretty soon I’ll be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States,” he said with a chuckle during a political rally at a police academy in Garden City, New York. “It’s true,” he ad...
British academic Jason Arday, who resigned from the University of Cambridge last week amid a high-profile plagiarism storm that featured racism claims, was found dead on Friday, UK media outlets reported. Arday, 41, died after being found unresponsive at an address in south London on Friday afternoon, Sky News and other media said, citing a statement from the capital’s Metropolitan Police Service....
A US appeal court on Friday gave Chinese drone maker DJI another chance to challenge its inclusion on a Pentagon blacklist of companies allegedly linked to the Chinese military. DJI, a Shenzhen-based drone maker, has been engaged in a years-long legal battle with the US Department of Defence to be removed from the list. The latest ruling from the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Ci...
President Donald Trump dismissed concerns on Friday over living conditions and the mental health of service members on a US aircraft carrier deployed against Iran, while confirming the ship would soon rotate out. Asked by reporters whether family members were worried about the situation on the USS Abraham Lincoln, Trump said “no, they’re not”. Trump also rejected the idea that the ship – now in it...
Italian authorities recovered three artworks by Renoir, Cezanne and Matisse worth millions of euros that were stolen earlier this year from a private museum near the northern city of Parma, police said on Friday. A statement from the Italian Carabinieri’s art recovery squad said the artworks were discovered during searches ordered by prosecutors, but no details were given. The investigation is ong...
Luigi Mangione admitted in court on Friday to fatally shooting US health insurance executive Brian Thompson and pleaded guilty to two federal charges of stalking the executive with the intent to kill him. “I shot Mr Thompson in Manhattan and he died,” Mangione said. The guilty plea will avert a federal trial in the closely watched case over the killing of the UnitedHealthcare CEO, a brazen crime ...
Luigi Mangione admitted in court on Friday to fatally shooting a US health insurance executive and pleaded guilty to two federal charges of stalking the executive with the intent to kill him. The guilty plea will avert a federal trial in the closely watched case over the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, a brazen crime that was condemned by public officials but became emblematic of ...
Luigi Mangione admitted in court on Friday to killing a health insurance executive and pleaded guilty to federal charges of stalking the executive with the intent to kill him. The guilty plea will avert a federal trial in the closely watched case over the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, a brazen crime that was condemned by public officials but became emblematic of Americans’ frust...
Hong Kong’s Urban Renewal Authority (URA) has recorded an operating surplus of HK$338 million (US$43.3 million) for the 2025-26 financial year, after reporting three straight years of losses. At a banquet on Friday to mark the statutory body’s 25th anniversary, chairman Chow Chung-kong announced that the URA had returned to profit in the 2025-26 financial year, recording an operating surplus to fu...
Li, a woman in her late twenties from southwestern China, is anxious about her coming interview for a 10-year US visa. She has big plans for her travels – a weeks-long stay next year that would be her first visit to the country – followed by a planned return trip in two years while pregnant so her child can attain American citizenship. But those plans have been thrown into doubt. Last week, US Pre...
A helicopter pilot has died after crashing in a forest in eastern Germany while carrying out liming work, the police directorate in the city of Chemnitz said on Friday. Workers managed to pull the man from the helicopter after the impact, police said. Despite immediate first aid administered at the scene, the man died from his injuries. The helicopter had no other people on board. Police did not p...
A bomb-disposal team and a unit behind Hong Kong’s light public housing scheme have won this year’s chief executive’s award, praised for embodying civil servants’ professional spirit in “rising to challenges and pursuing excellence”. City leader John Lee Ka-chiu presented the Chief Executive’s Award for Exemplary Performance to the two interdepartmental teams at a ceremony on Friday. Lee praised t...
A woman in Hong Kong who owned multiple properties has lost HK$10 million (US$1.3 million) after being scammed by a fraudster posing as a prospective tenant. The force revealed on Friday that the 64-year-old retiree, whose properties consisted of residential, commercial and parking spaces, was contacted via WhatsApp by a scammer in May in response to a rental listing she posted on Facebook. Police...
At least eight workers have died following a toxic gas leak at a ship-breaking yard in the southeastern Bangladeshi district of Chattogram, officials said on Friday. The incident occurred at the Ferdaus Steel Shipbreaking Yard in Sitakund subdistrict, an area that hosts many ship-breaking yards where old vessels mostly imported from around the world are dismantled. Soon after the leak, many worker...
After almost four decades of international cooperation in space affairs, Brazil and China have unveiled details of a new project to launch a powerful meteorological and environmental satellite. It will be capable of monitoring the whole of South America, according to the space sciences department at Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE). Adenilson Roberto da Silva, general coordina...
Vladimir Putin’s unprecedented visit to the disputed southern Kuril Islands is among a broader joint push by Beijing and Moscow to pressure Japan over a range of grievances, including sanctions on Russia and the Taiwan issue, experts say. The Russian president’s symbolic visit on Thursday to the far east volcanic archipelago north of Japan’s Hokkaido – which Japan calls the Northern Territories – ...
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr on Friday said talks with China on joint oil and gas exploration had “moved forward” – signalling hopes of a deal before he leaves office in mid-2028, despite ongoing tensions in the South China Sea. Marcos also confirmed for the first time a “provisional understanding” with Beijing over resupply missions to the BRP Sierra Madre at Second Thomas Shoal, alt...
As US-China tech tensions rise ahead of an expected leadership summit next month, analysts argue Washington’s latest restrictions are unlikely to cause a major disruption in China’s AI exports. But they caution that some of the measures – such as limiting access to “open-weight” models – represent a “genuine wild card” that could reshape the global landscape. Hong Kong-based analysts at Citi Resea...
The United States has sent a team of coastguards to train their Taiwanese counterparts as mainland China steps up its presence east of the island. Taiwan’s Coast Guard Administration said on Friday that a two-week training programme led by US instructors started on Monday and included exercises aimed at strengthening small-boat operations and team coordination. “The US instruction team hopes to de...
Tariffs of up to 100 per cent that Washington has announced on imported drones would result in a “lose-lose outcome” for the United States and China, analysts said, as the technology is increasingly taking centre stage in the countries’ tech and trade rivalry. The new levies will further complicate manufacturers’ efforts to shift production to third countries or regions, where supply chains are al...
For Indonesian families who lost loved ones in the 2018 Lion Air crash that killed 189 people, the latest development in the US courts has deepened their pain that justice remains out of reach. Keith Griffin, a Californian lawyer who worked with disgraced Hollywood celebrity lawyer Tom Girardi in compensation suits related to the crash, was sentenced by a federal court in Chicago last week to one ...
