The eldest son of Norways crown princess has been arrested, just before his trial opens on charges including rape in a case that has been an embarrassment to the royal family, police said on Monday. Marius Borg Hoiby was arrested on Sunday evening and is accused of assault, threats with a knife and violation of a restraining order, police said in a ...

Donald Trumps repeated threats against Greenland and rising tensions with Iran may have been a factor in the latest round of talks between China and Russia, according to Chinese observers. On Sunday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Sergei Shoigu, the head of the Russian Security Council, met in Beijing, where according to the Chinese foreign ministry, ...

China has tightened tax incentives and raised preferential rates in several sectors as part of a broader push to generate more government funds, after experiencing a sharp drop in fiscal revenues amid an economic slowdown and persistent deflationary pressure. The Ministry of Finance and State Taxation Administration released a slew of detailed provisions ...

Hong Kongs cryptocurrency investors remain cautiously optimistic despite a sharp market sell-off over the weekend that pushed major digital assets to months-long lows. Bitcoin slid to US$74,541 on Monday morning, its lowest level in 10 months, extending a decline of about 40 per cent from its record high above US$126,000. That peak had been fuelled in part ...

More private hospitals in Hong Kong are expected to join the governments free newborn screening programme for rare genetic conditions this year, according to health authorities. The scheme tests newborns for inherited metabolic disorders, enabling early identification and treatment while easing the long-term burden on the public healthcare system. The ...

Sarah Ferguson, the ex-wife of Britains former prince Andrew, called late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein a legend and the brother I have always wished for, according to newly released documents. While the friendship between Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor who was stripped of his royal titles last October and Epstein has been in the spotlight for years, the ...

The shortest wavelength of a laser beam generated from a crystal has been realised in a laboratory at the Xinjiang Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, according to a new paper. At 158.9 nanometres (nm), it leads to all-solid-state lasers with the highest output energy recorded. The all-solid-state solution offers a ...

Business confidence in Hong Kong has reached its highest level in two years, with more than half the companies polled by the American Chamber of Commerce in the city expressing optimism about their outlook for 2026, noting that geopolitical tensions had largely stabilised. However, the chambers survey also found that 43 per cent of respondents ranked ...

Artificial intelligence (AI) may look automated, but it runs on human labour. Behind every chatbot and image generator are thousands of people labelling images, tagging text, moderating content and training systems to understand language and culture. This invisible workforce has quietly become a critical layer of the global AI economy. India has emerged as ...

Thai police have arrested two Russians on suspicion of murdering a fellow national after the victims dismembered body was found in scrubland near the resort town of Pattaya, a heinous crime detectives believe is linked to debts to criminals. Body parts of the 30-year-old victim, Mikhail Emelianov, were found on Sunday scattered across a section of abandoned ...

Singapore is set to establish a national space agency in April, a move that industry insiders believe will cement the city states role as a pre-eminent regional hub for extraterrestrial innovation. The launch of the National Space Agency of Singapore (NSAS) aims to capture a slice of a global space economy projected to reach US$1.8 trillion by 2035, while ...

Taiwans main opposition party reaffirmed its view of mainland China as family as the vice-chair of the Kuomintang (KMT) left for talks with counterparts in Beijing on Monday. The trip by KMT vice-chairman Hsiao Hsu-tsen has drawn fierce criticism from Taiwans ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and reignited debate over the islands cross-strait ...

China is looking to escalate measures against cybercriminals operating inside and outside its borders by banning convicted citizens from leaving the country, even after they have completed their sentence. The draft Cybercrime Prevention and Control Law bill comes as China doubles down on working with Southeast Asian countries to crack down on cross-border ...

Indias newly unveiled budget signals a bid to cement its status as a global manufacturing powerhouse through a raft of policy measures, but analysts say the US$630 billion allocation will still require supplement as the country seeks new markets to diversify its trade. The measures, rolled out in Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharamans budget speech on Sunday, ...

Chinese electric vehicle (EV) maker Xpeng Motors showcased its humanoid robot in front of hundreds of onlookers at a mall in the southern metropolis of Shenzhen over the weekend, but a backwards flop became headlines, reflecting the bumpy journey ahead for such machines. After completing a smooth catwalk to the centre of the audience on Saturday, Iron, the ...

US President Donald Trumps nomination of Kevin Warsh to head the Federal Reserve is unlikely to support a sustained rebound in the US dollar despite the possibility of short-term relief, Chinese economists said. Persistent doubts about the Feds autonomy during Trumps second term could cap any durable recovery, as policy appeared increasingly geared towards ...

Hong Kong police have arrested more than 680 people in a series of recent operations targeting deception and money laundering, with suspected criminal proceeds reaching HK$620 million. In one operation, officers from the cybersecurity and technology crime bureau focused on combating the misuse of bank accounts. Between February and September last year, ...

An Australian woman died after her backpack caught on a ski lift on a Japanese mountain and she became suspended mid-air, police said on Monday. The 22-year-old woman was preparing to get off the lift on Friday morning at Tsugaike Mountain Resort in Hakuba Valley, a popular ski destination in the central region of Nagano. But a loose buckle from her ...

A Chinese couple who left their young children at a hotel following a fight have ignited a heated discussion over how to punish irresponsible parents. The Beijing Chaoyang district police posted on January 22 that they received a phone call from a man who claimed to have been looking after his friends two children at a hotel. The children, a seven-year-old ...

Gazas Rafah border crossing with Egypt reopened on Monday for limited traffic, a key step in the Israeli-Hamas ceasefire but a mostly symbolic development on the ground as few people will be allowed to travel in either direction and no goods will be going into the war-torn territory. Within the first hour of the opening, no one was actually seen crossing in ...

Some 500 guests are expected to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) finance ministers meeting in Hong Kong in October, the first to be held in the city, with authorities set to appoint a team led by two senior officials to oversee planning for the event. Speaking at a Legislative Council meeting on Monday, Secretary for Financial Services ...

China secured the most new shipbuilding orders globally in 2025 despite a slight dip in market share, showing enduring market dominance amid industry turbulence sparked by US threats targeting the Chinese maritime sector, official data showed. Chinese shipyards secured 107.8 million deadweight tonnage (DWT) in new orders in 2025 a 4.6 per cent year-on-year ...

President Xi Jinping has called for Chinas yuan to become a global reserve currency, underscoring ambitions to carve out a greater role for it in world finance. The country needed a powerful currency that could be widely used in international trade, investment and foreign exchange markets, and attain reserve currency status, Xi said in a commentary ...

South Korean actor Kim Seon-hos agency, Fantagio, has issued a statement defending the star of Netflixs Can This Love Be Translated? after he was accused of setting up a shell company to evade taxes. The claims are similar to those levelled against actor-singer Cha Eun-woo, a fellow Fantagio artiste, just days before. Cha is under investigation for ...

Alibaba Group Holding has joined rivals including Tencent Holdings and Baidu in rolling out Spring Festival red-packet giveaways to drive mass-market adoption of its artificial intelligence, committing 3 billion yuan (US$432 million) to spur spending across its ecosystem as it seeks to extend its edge in foundational models to consumer-facing products. The ...