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Four hundred years before modern interactive design became a trend, a remarkable ceramic crab was already captivating audiences in ancient China. Placed inside a porcelain cup, this ingenious creature would float and dance to life the moment wine was poured, transforming a simple drink into a mesmerising and joyful spectacle. Between 2018 and 2022, archaeologists unearthed the cup in the ruins of ...
When Russia fires a ballistic missile at Ukraine, air-defence systems have only minutes – sometimes seconds – to detect and intercept the deadly threat. The lack of time has left Kyiv and other cities increasingly exposed to devastating attacks by the missiles that come down so fast and so steeply that Ukraine says only the US-made Patriot defence system can stop them. But Ukraine says it has too ...
Hong Kong police found the body of a man in waters off Stonecutters Island on Thursday morning and believed he had drowned while swimming. The force received a report at 8.24am that a person was floating in the water about 20 metres from a pier near Stonecutters Island in Tsing Yi. Emergency personnel recovered the man from the sea, but he was pronounced dead at the scene. No identification docume...
DeepSeek announced on Thursday a “significant” price hike, amid surging global demand for a new ultra-cheap model, which sparked debate over how the Chinese AI start-up has delivered powerful performance at rock-bottom prices. DeepSeek would raise overall pricing for its application programming interface (API) services “in the near future”, with specific plans to be advised later, the Hangzhou-bas...
The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) will revamp its mandatory education courses for all undergraduates to include national and global perspectives and focus on innovation, entrepreneurship and sustainability. The initiative was announced on Thursday as part of the university’s new five-year strategic plan, which charts its direction and development from 2026 to 2030. It is the first five-ye...
The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) will revamp a mandatory undergraduate programme to incorporate national education materials with a global perspective, as well as focus on innovation, entrepreneurship and sustainability. The initiative was announced on Thursday as part of the university’s new five-year strategic plan, which charts its direction and development from 2026 to 2030. It is th...
The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), the city’s second oldest university, has said it will reform its mandatory General Education programme for undergraduates by integrating national education with a global perspective, as well as concepts of innovation, entrepreneurship and sustainability, into its curriculum. The intiative was announced on Thursday as part of the university’s new five-yea...
The UK’s new foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, was confronted with his past criticism of “racist” Donald Trump as he held talks in Washington with his US counterpart Marco Rubio. Miliband ignored questions about whether he still thought the president was an “idiot, a racist and a misogynist” as he met with the US top diplomat. Miliband was invited to the US capital by Rubio after their recent first ...
Hong Kong police have arrested 25 people, some as young as 13, in a crackdown on a loan shark syndicate that charged victims annual interest rates of up to 282 per cent. Police said on Thursday that the crime ring had extended a total of HK$200 million (US$25.5 million) in loans to about 2,000 residents over the past year, with at least HK$8 million in criminal proceeds funnelled into the core mem...
“Ozempic face” could spawn the next K-beauty craze. South Korean biotech L&C Bio plans to launch an injectable skin booster made from donated human fat to restore lost facial volume, betting demand for cosmetic fixes tied to blockbuster weight-loss drugs will drive its next phase of growth. L&C – which pioneered the use of donated human tissue in K-beauty skin boosters – developed the technology a...
The director of a factory supplying drones to the Russian military was badly wounded and his driver was killed when the car they were in exploded, news reports said on Wednesday. The state Tass and RIA Novosti agencies said that Vladimir Tkachuk was hospitalised in grave condition following the explosion late Tuesday in Bolshoy Istok just outside Yekaterinburg, 1,400km (about 870 miles) east of Mo...
The director of a factory supplying drones to the Russian military was badly wounded and his driver was killed when the car they were in exploded, news reports said on Wednesday. The state Tass and RIA Novosti agencies said that Vladimir Tkachuk was hospitalised in grave condition following the explosion late Tuesday in Bolshoy Istok just outside Yekaterinburg, 1,400km (about 870 miles) east of Mo...
Hong Kong’s securities regulator has put a spotlight on highly concentrated shareholding this year, a move interpreted by market analysts as a warning about sharp price swings on small-cap stocks. As of August, the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) had mentioned 13 cases of high shareholding concentration on the Hong Kong stock exchange, compared with 15 for the whole of last year. The figur...
Following in the footprints of its ambitious Great Green Wall, China is leaning into a solar-powered pivot as part of its decades-long effort to tackle desertification in the arid north. The expanding Great Solar Wall initiative, centred in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, could help to power China’s economic hubs as the country accelerates its transition away from fossil fuels. Transforming ...
Condolences have flooded social media in response to the death of Hong Kong’s Peter Lai Bei-dak, with long-time collaborator and entertainer Sam Hui Koon-kit paying tribute to the legendary lyricist with a handwritten letter. Comments flooded social media as people expressed gratitude for Lai’s contributions, calling him a “grandmaster” and a “legendary genius”. Veteran musician and actor Hui shar...
Legendary Hong Kong lyricist Peter Lai Bei-dak, who wrote the lyrics to a string of hits for the city’s Cantopop stars in the 1980s, has died at the age of 76, triggering an outpouring of condolences from fans of “The Lyrical Maverick”. Sports commentator Eric Chung Chi-kwong, a close friend of Lai, announced his death on Wednesday. He told the media that Lai had moved into a nursing home earlier ...
A near-miss on Tuesday involving an All Nippon Airways (ANA) plane coming dangerously close to another jet while approaching Tokyo’s Haneda Airport from Shanghai has thrown aviation safety back into focus – particularly, anti-collision technology and protocols – according to industry professionals based in China. While the intervention of one jet’s traffic collision avoidance system (TCAS) prevent...
My 18-year-old summer intern is very scared of me. She spent the entire week watching me sit in front of my computer, in complete silence, motionless except for the occasional click of the mouse to move to the next electronic document, and barely breathing. She told me this could not be further from what she imagined a barrister’s life to be. And there was one thing she was particularly puzzled by...
Hong Kong’s redevelopment policy is approaching an institutional turning point. Recent government proposals – pilot schemes for additional plot ratios and cross-district plot ratio transfers – are presented as new instruments to stimulate redevelopment in ageing districts. Yet they extend the same paradigm that shaped policy for decades: incentivising redevelopment through floor-area bonuses, rely...
A couple from central China saw their business empire, valued at 100 million yuan (US$15 million), collapse and were plunged into debt after being wrongly accused of fraud. Wang Fei and his wife, Liu Sumin, from Zhumadian in Henan province, began their journey as small-scale farmers before gradually establishing two pig farms. They later expanded into a medicinal herb cooperative and an agricultur...
Claims that the recent magnitude 7.1 earthquake that struck southwestern Japan was man-made have been spreading online, with experts dismissing the theory as unrealistic in technological, financial and practical terms. On July 28, the day the deadly earthquake hit Kumamoto prefecture, a user on social media who has previously shared false claims about earthquakes wrote that the “seismic wave is of...
While global markets watched closely for a joint move by Washington and Tokyo to prop up the Japanese yen this week, Australian dollar traders have been laser-focused on the actions of another power: China. Some analysts view the Australian currency as particularly sensitive to policy moves in Beijing. If China intervenes to boost domestic growth, that could also lift the Australian dollar, the th...
The career of K. Jimmy Hsia, a prominent researcher in interdisciplinary mechanics, has long spanned two worlds – he is an acclaimed scientist and a skilled administrator who unites fields and stakeholders. A fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Hsia has published more than 100 papers and made substantial contributions in the fields of high-temperature deformat...
The career of Kuen Jimmy Hsia, a prominent researcher in interdisciplinary mechanics, has long spanned two worlds – he is an acclaimed scientist and a skilled administrator who unites fields and stakeholders. A fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Hsia has published more than 100 papers and made substantial contributions in the fields of high-temperature deform...
The career of Kuan Jimmy Hsia, a prominent researcher in interdisciplinary mechanics, has long spanned two worlds – he is a laser-focused scientist and a skilled administrator who unites fields and stakeholders. A fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Hsia has published more than 100 papers and made substantial contributions in the fields of high-temperature def...
Hong Kong homeowners could adopt technology-led preventive maintenance of older buildings to avoid costly large-scale renovation, with the upmarket Residence Bel-Air serving as a viable example that saved residents more than HK$1 billion (US$127.5 million). Allen Ha Wing-on, convenor of the Residence Bel-Air owners’ committee, said while the Wang Fuk Court tragedy was a wake-up call to transform t...
Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s once-commanding approval rating has continued to slide in a new survey, as voters weigh his ambitious welfare and village-economy agenda against concerns over household finances and the government’s ability to deliver. The poll by Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting (SMRC) put Prabowo’s approval rating at 51.1 per cent, down from 81.2 per cent in November ...
The Federal Aviation Administration said a military helicopter carrying President Donald Trump on Tuesday was briefly too close to a passenger jet departing Reagan Washington National Airport, but the US leader was not in danger. The incident raised serious questions about why the passenger plane was allowed to depart while Marine One was nearby, a time when commercial traffic is typically halted...
The Federal Aviation Administration said a military helicopter carrying President Donald Trump on Tuesday was briefly too close to a passenger jet departing Reagan Washington National Airport, but the US leader was not in danger. The incident raised serious questions about why the passenger plane was allowed to depart while Marine One was nearby, a time when commercial traffic is typically halted...
The Federal Aviation Administration said a military helicopter carrying President Donald Trump on Tuesday was briefly too close to a passenger jet departing Reagan Washington National Airport, but the US leader was not in danger. The incident raised serious questions about why the passenger plane was allowed to depart while Marine One was nearby, a time when commercial traffic is typically halted...
