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 ...

Hong Kong has its mojo back. The citys economy grew 3.5 per cent last year, the fastest pace since 2021, according to an advanced estimate published by the Census and Statistics Department on January 30. A sharp increase in exports, the unexpected driver of growth in many Asian economies last year, was a key factor in Hong Kongs resurgence. The rebound was ...

Mainland investors faced difficult decisions as gold and silver prices extended their rout on Monday in domestic trading, with some rushing to buy the dip ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday and others retreating to the sidelines. Shanghai silver futures dropped 17 per cent to 24,832 yuan (US$3,572) per kilogram as of 2pm, while gold futures declined more ...

The Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac) is revving up the design and testing phase of its widebody C929 airliner, marshalling its resources and mobilising its stakeholders to roll out the indigenous jet on schedule or, potentially, ahead of earlier estimates. Specialists from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) have proactively ...

A new task force led by Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu will formulate Hong Kongs first five-year blueprint to align with Chinas 15th five-year plan, with a political analyst saying the move signals greater government involvement in shaping the citys development. Lee also said on Monday that he would prioritise visits to Eastern Europe and Central Asia to ...

Major Chinese electric vehicle (EV) makers got off to a bumpy start in 2026 as they reported falling deliveries in January due to softening government support. Shares of Hong Kong-listed BYD, Xpeng, Li Auto and Nio plummeted on Monday morning, battered by a bearish delivery outlook in the cutthroat mainland EV market. Lacklustre [sales] data in January ...

The Peoples Liberation Armys anti-corruption investigations into top general Zhang Youxia and others will eliminate a watered down combat capability and give new momentum to the militarys development, according to a commentary by its mouthpiece the PLA Daily. The resolute investigation and punishment of corrupt officials such as Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli ...

Right-wing political scientist Laura Fernandez won Costa Ricas presidential election on Sunday by a landslide, after promising to crack down hard on rising violence linked to the cocaine trade. Fernandezs nearest rival, centre-right economist Alvaro Ramos, conceded defeat as results showed the ruling party far exceeding the threshold of 40 per cent needed ...

Chinas years-long property downturn has carried into 2026, with new-home sales sliding sharply and, by some measures, deteriorating at their fastest pace in recent years. The countrys top 100 developers reported combined contracted sales of 165.5 billion yuan (US$24 billion) in January, down 27 per cent from a year earlier, according to data released over ...

A mainland Chinese student has been jailed for three months for paying an impostor to take an English proficiency test in Cambodia on her behalf and submitting the results to a university in Hong Kong to meet graduation requirements. Tuen Mun Court on Monday ruled that a community service order would not help Huang Xinyi turn over a new leaf after a ...

Interpol issued a red notice for the arrest of one of Indonesias biggest oil tycoons over a US$285 million corruption scandal, police said late on Sunday. Mohammad Riza Chalid, 66, nicknamed the gasoline godfather, is wanted in Indonesia for his alleged involvement in corruption at state-owned oil company Pertamina between 2018 and 2023, including for money ...

Norways crown princess, whose son goes on trial on Tuesday on rape charges, has found herself embroiled in another scandal after newly unsealed files revealed her unexpected friendship with late US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The latest scandal has even raised questions about whether Mette-Marit, a commoner who married Crown Prince Haakon in 2001, could ...

Concerns about Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking have emerged in Japan after a pregnant woman was allegedly tracked down and murdered by her ex-boyfriend using a GPS device hidden in a toy. The death of Haruka Komatsumoto, a 31-year-old manicurist who was allegedly beaten on the head and stabbed in the neck by her ex-boyfriend in her own flat on ...

Chinas frontier artificial intelligence labs are ending the lunar year on a high note, racing to release a series of new AI models in the last few weeks of the Year of the Snake as the country gears up to celebrate the start of the Year of the Horse. Beijing-based Zhipu AI and Shanghai-quartered MiniMax, which just made their stock exchange debuts in Hong ...

Malaysias Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has sought to douse public speculation after his name appeared in a newly released email exchange involving Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted US sex offender whose web of connections to the rich and powerful remains a source of scandal years after his death. Anwar was among several world figures including Indias Prime ...

Hong Kongs construction watchdog should help small firms procure approved scaffolding nets at a lower cost, a leading contractor has said after inspectors found two sites using plastic meshes that failed security tests. Lawrence Ng San-wa, permanent honorary president of the Hong Kong Construction Subcontractors Association, said on Monday that the industry ...

Aviation leaders tackled barriers to growth and the impact of geopolitical tensions on the eve of the Singapore Airshow on Monday, while reaffirming pledges to reduce emissions. Supply chain problems were hurting global airlines and would remain for some time to come, the head of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) warned industry leaders and ...

We have put together stories from our coverage last weekend to help you stay informed about news across Asia and beyond. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. Chinas visa-free waivers spark Korean travel boom, underpin tourism revival 2. Chinas PLA tightens fuel rules as US investigates cause of twin air crashes ...

A woman in Indonesias Aceh province collapsed after being caned 140 times last week for extramarital sex and drinking alcohol in one of the harshest sharia punishments on record. The woman and her partner were struck with a rattan cane in a public park in Aceh province on Thursday as dozens watched, Agence France-Presse reported. Each received 100 lashes ...

Chinese scientists have developed a hydrogel cooling coating for solar panels to boost power output by 13 per cent compared to conventional photovoltaic systems. The transparent layer can reduce the temperature of hotspots overheated areas on solar cells caused by defects, shading from leaves, bird droppings or dirt by 16 degrees Celsius, or nearly 30 ...