The United Nations on Friday officially declared a famine in Gaza, the first in the Middle East, with its experts saying 500,000 people were facing catastrophic hunger. UN aid chief Tom Fletcher said the famine was entirely preventable, saying food could not get through to the Palestinian territory because of systematic obstruction by Israel. But Israels ...

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said he was surprised by Beijings questioning of the security of its H20 artificial intelligence chips and that it would be up to the US government to decide whether the company can produce a new product for the Chinese market. Huang made the comments during a visit to Taiwan on Friday, where he had meetings scheduled with top ...

Hong Kongs alleged transshipment of Western-sanctioned dual-use goods for Russias war effort in Ukraine remains a major concern for the European Union, the blocs top envoy in the city has said. At an event on Friday to mark Ukraines Independence Day, Harvey Rouse, the head of the EU office in Hong Kong, said he had continued to raise the issue with city ...

A trainee surgeon was released from custody on bail on Friday after he was accused of secretly video recording hundreds of medical colleagues in the restrooms of Australian hospitals. Ryan Cho, 28, is likely to face around 500 charges relating to 4,500 intimate videos he secretly recorded with phones mainly in the staff restrooms of three Melbourne ...

A couple in China have filed a lawsuit against a car manufacturer after their five-year-old daughter adjusted the car seat, which inadvertently led to the death of their two-year-old son due to suffocation from being trapped by the seat. However, the Shanghai Pudong District Peoples Court dismissed their lawsuit, stating that the tragedy was caused by the ...

Beijings liaison office chief in Hong Kong has called on the city to tell the stories of the war of resistance against Japanese aggression well to strengthen young residents sense of national identity. Zhou Ji, director of Beijings liaison office in Hong Kong, also said on Friday that Hongkongers should carry forward the great spirit of the war to unite ...

Hongkongers could have the chance to witness a blood moon as part of a total lunar eclipse if the weather is favourable next month, the local forecaster has said. The Hong Kong Observatory said on Friday that the eclipse would start at 11.26pm on September 7 when the moon enters the penumbra, or partial shadow. The total eclipse would only start at 1.30am ...

Chinas electricity consumption surpassed the 1 trillion kilowatt-hour mark in July, energy authorities said, as scorching heatwaves pushed demand to levels equivalent to the annual usage of all Asean nations combined. Power usage in the country rose 8.6 per cent year on year to reach a historic high of 1.02 trillion kilowatt-hours (kWh), according to data ...

Two nude statues of girls in a public park in western Japan are the latest casualties in what critics call an overly cautious purge of post-war art once hailed as symbols of peace and cultural sophistication. The statues in question designed by sculptor Seiichi Abe to mark the 1988 opening of the Seto Ohashi Bridge connecting Kagawa and Okayama prefectures ...

A fleet of large civilian cargo ships has sailed through the Taiwan Strait since heading south from the Bohai Sea off northern mainland China, prompting speculation about a possible joint amphibious landing drill with the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA). The seven ro-ro, or roll-on/roll-off ships, with the Yantai-based Bohai Ferry Company in Shandong ...

Leather goods manufacturer China International Development Corporation (CIDC) has invested HK$100 million (US$13.9 million) to acquire a 20 per cent stake in Hong Kong-based asset tokenisation start-up NVT, signalling growing enthusiasm for digital assets in the city. The partnership would allow CIDC to use NVTs tokenisation infrastructure, positioning ...

Chinese authorities have announced new rules targeting the rapid expansion of medical science accounts on social media and other unofficial channels to counteract false and misleading medical information online. On August 1, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), the National Health Commission (NHC), the State Administration for Market Regulation ...

A former Hong Kong firefighter was sentenced to six years and three months in prison after being found guilty of raping a female friend in a hotel room while she was intoxicated. High Court Judge William Tam Yiu-ho said on Friday that Chan Cheuk-hin, 28, had committed a serious offence that caused the victim to suffer from severe depression, anxiety and ...

A plate of sweet pork exposed a deepening rift among Filipino loyalists rallying behind former president Rodrigo Duterte outside his detention centre in the Netherlands after a birthday bash ended in a bitter shouting match. A viral video from the August 15 celebration in The Hague showed former Duterte spokesman Harry Roque berating other guests after ...

The deepfake scandal at the University of Hong Kong hundreds of non-consensual, sexually explicit composites reportedly found on a students laptop feels like a sequel to a much older story from 2008, when intimate photographs copied from actor Edison Chens computer were leaked on the internet. Then, the harm was privacy invasion: real images, created in ...

Japan is positioning itself as a partner offering a transparent and human-centred approach to development in Africa, providing an alternative to Chinas economic influence through what analysts describe as a rules-based and mutually accountable model. Unveiling a proposal to create a regional economic zone linking the Indian Ocean to Africa, Japanese Prime ...

From Paris to Athens, and Lisbon to Berlin, Europeans are enduring a prolonged and punishing summer heatwave amid global warming. And rising right alongside the blazing temperatures are Chinas exports of air conditioners (ACs) to the continent, with a nearly 60 per cent jump by volume in July, compared with the same time last year, according to Chinese ...

Former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra was cleared on Friday of royal defamation charges, relieving one of the threats to his embattled dynasty, which has dominated Thai politics for two decades. Thaksins family has long jousted with the nations pro-military, pro-monarchy elite, who view their populist movement as a threat to Thailands traditional ...

The executive director and CEO of Hang Seng Bank has bought a home in Hong Kongs Tai Hang district, joining a growing coterie of financiers on the hunt for high-value residential property that has helped to drive the citys lived-in home prices to a five-month high. A lived-in flat measuring 1,193 sq ft (110.8 square metres) at Flora Garden was handed over ...

A man who had been married for 15 years secretly married his younger colleague, committing bigamy, which is a criminal offence in Singapore. He got exposed while visiting his second wife, who had given birth at the hospital where his first wife worked. Vaithialingam Muthukumar, a 49-year-old Indian national, was sentenced to three months and three weeks ...

The United States has formally asked the Philippines to extradite controversial televangelist Apollo Quiboloy, reigniting scrutiny over the detained preachers alleged trafficking and abuse network, as well as sparking questions over whether Manila will hand him over. Philippine Ambassador to Washington Jose Manuel Romualdez confirmed the request on ...

Teachers should be given more training to identify serious child abuse cases, Hong Kong lawmakers and a school representative have urged, after education authorities updated guidelines that mandate reporting of suspected incidents from next year. According to an Education Bureau circular issued on Wednesday, educators, social workers, therapists and ...

Chinese sportswear and equipment maker Li Ning posted a drop in interim profit, as weak consumer sentiment weighed on spending and intensifying industry competition squeezed profitability, with management warning of stronger-than-expected challenges in the second half. Net profit for the six months to June fell 11 per cent to 1.74 billion yuan US$241.9 ...

The Philippines is weighing a total or partial ban on online gambling as analysts warn that the booming industry once hailed for fuelling school-building and social programmes is fast becoming a public health crisis that exploits the poor and vulnerable. Dozens of bills are now under committee review in Congress, with 10 proposing a total ban and 30 ...

Hong Kong health authorities will launch a five-day enforcement operation on Monday to combat illegal smoking in smoke-free areas within public transport facilities. The Department of Health said on Friday that its Tobacco and Alcohol Control Office would take enforcement actions under the operation, named Laserflame. To protect public health, it is the ...