Chinas factory activity faltered in January as weak domestic demand dragged down production at the start of the new year, an official survey showed on Saturday. The official purchasing managers index (PMI) dropped to 49.3 in January, from 50.1 in December, below the 50-mark separating growth from contraction. It missed a forecast of 50 in a Reuters poll of ...

This story was published in the South China Morning Post on February 1, 2006 14 Hong Kong tourists die in Egypt crash by Staff Reporters Fourteen Hong Kong tourists died on Tuesday (January 31, 2006) when their speeding coach ran off a highway in southern Egypt and rolled over. The crash, one of the worst involving Hong Kong tourists, also left 30 injured, ...

* At an Indian gourmet food store, Avanti Mehta is organising a blind tasting of drinks sourced from France, Italy and India. No, this is not wine, it is water. Participants use tiny shot glasses to check the minerality, carbonation and salinity in samples of Evian from the French Alps, Perrier from southern France, San Pellegrino from Italy and Indias Aava ...

Muhammad Syafiq, a 25-year-old banker from Kuala Lumpur, has started noticing something recently that felt like real politics compared with the soft sell of an election campaign poster at train stations in the Malaysian capital. One government programme I think is pretty solid is the Peoples Income Initiative, or IPR [Inisiatif Pendapatan Rakyat], where ...

Taiwans absence from the United States newly released 2026 National Defence Strategy has fuelled fresh debate on the island over whether Washington is deliberately sidestepping the island as it prioritises bigger interests with Beijing. The omission is in sharp contrast with earlier editions of the Pentagons quadrennial flagship strategy, which had ...

A Japanese start-up is expanding a granny business that turns seniors lifetime skills into paid work through cafes, food stalls and community festivals, placing elderly women including those with dementia at the centre of local economies. Based in the Fukuoka prefecture city of Ukiha, Ukiha no Takara, or Ukihas Treasure, draws on cooking, hospitality and ...

As spring approaches and temperatures begin to climb, Hong Kongs cherry blossoms are preparing to burst into full bloom. Within the next week or two, Hongkongers can enjoy this spectacle without leaving the city. The South China Morning Post lists the best spots in the city to enjoy cherry blossoms and how to get there. 1. How to catch cherry blossoms near ...

China has plans to increase its investments in Nepal to take advantage of the countrys rich hydropower resources, according to a Nepalese official. Nepals hydropower sector is particularly attractive to Chinese investors because there is potential to sell some of the power generated to India, said Hong Kong-based Consul General Bindeswar Prasad Lekhak. The ...

In the worlds biggest wholesale electronics marketplace in the bustling Huaqiangbei district of the southern Chinese metropolis of Shenzhen, memory is the new gold. On a Tuesday in January, a merchant surnamed Ye held up a list of prices that looked more appropriate for luxury goods than humble computer parts. A pair of 32-gigabyte, 6000-megahertz Double ...

On a lively weekend afternoon beneath Marina Bay Sands, there is no stage, no spotlight and no audience in the conventional sense. Still, familiar music fills the underground concourse. A group of teenage girls moves in sync to rookie K-pop girl group Hearts2Hearts Focus, counting beats under their breath. A few meters away, another dance team rehearses ...

This year started with a bang from the United States intervention in Venezuela and the investigation opened against US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell to US President Donald Trumps renewed claims on Greenland and the potential for US action following instability in Iran. Amid these crises, gold prices are now over US$5,500 per ounce, up over 27 per ...

North Korea is set to use its coming Workers Party congress to signal an escalation towards carrying out large-scale nuclear retaliation in the event of a conflict with the US, with analysts expecting Pyongyang to unveil plans centred on intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) capable of striking American cities. The move was foreshadowed by North ...

Venezuelas interim president Delcy Rodriguez on Friday announced a proposed amnesty law for hundreds of prisoners in the country, and said the infamous Helicoide detention centre in the capital Caracas, which rights groups have long denounced as the site of prisoner abuse, would be converted into a centre for sport and social services. May it be a law that ...

A recruiter from a major state-owned insurance company sparked controversy by telling a job candidate that they did not deserve weekends off because they only held a bachelors degree. The incident came to public attention on January 18, when a jobseeker from Urumqi, in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region of northwestern China, revealed details of the ...

In the first few weeks of this year alone, the leaders of two of the five eyes in the worlds oldest intelligence-sharing alliance signalled they were ready to rethink their relationship with China. First came Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and then this week it was the turn of his British counterpart, Keir Starmer. As Western economies grapple with the ...

Hongkonger Chan Shuk-wah feels exhausted by the constant ringing of her phone. On any given weekday, nearly all of the calls lighting up her phone are from unknown numbers as many as a dozen each day, mostly selling health checks or pushing loan applications. The relentless calls have disrupted her professional life as a logistics company manager and as ...

Li Xia suffers from an incurable genetic disease that has left him paralysed from the neck down. Yet the 36-year-old has overcome the odds by setting up a mini farm that he cultivates from inside his home in China.

It was a policy meant to ignite a golden age of infrastructure development and put Thailand at the heart of Southeast Asias trade and investment for decades to come. Three years and three prime ministers after it was first proposed, a multibillion-dollar landbridge across Thailands southern neck to slash transport times between Asias main shipping lanes ...

The man who dumped a five-year-old girl in the Everglades leaving her to be killed by alligators had his life spared by a jury on Friday afternoon in a Miami-Dade courtroom. Harrel Braddy, 76, sat quietly when the verdict was read, briefly putting down his head before looking up at the ceiling. His eyes appeared to water. Braddy hugged his lawyers as the ...

The US is poised to avoid a major shutdown after senators agreed on Friday to separate out a controversial bill funding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from a package that also includes funding for the State Department and the Pentagon. The House, which is out of session this week, will still need to approve the package before it can be signed ...

China is expected to look for ways to protect its maritime interests in the face of increasingly assertive efforts by the United States to seize foreign ships it accuses of breaching sanctions on countries such as Iran and Venezuela. In November, a cargo ship travelling to Iran from China was reportedly raided by a US special operations team in the Indian ...

Three news items caught my eye over the past few days. The European Union is finally ready to totally ban the import of Russian natural gas. (You mean they have still been buying Russian gas?) The new National Defence Strategy put out by the Pentagon says the United States will de-prioritise Europe which must address its own regional security needs and ...

Former Google software engineer Ding Linwei was convicted by a federal jury in San Francisco on Thursday of stealing AI trade secrets from the US tech giant to benefit two Chinese companies he was secretly working for, the US Department of Justice said on Thursday. Ding, a 38-year-old Chinese national, was found guilty after an 11-day trial of seven counts ...

Washington on Friday welcomed a Panamanian court ruling cancelling a contract held by a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison Holdings to operate two ports along the Panama Canal, a decision seen as a boost to the United States efforts to counter Chinese influence in the western hemisphere. The reaction came as Panamas government sought to reassure ...

Catherine OHara, a gifted Canadian comic actor and SCTV alum who starred as Macaulay Culkins harried mother in two Home Alone films and created the dramatically ditsy character of Moira Rose in the Emmy-winning comedy Schitts Creek, died on Friday. OHara died at her home in Los Angeles following a brief illness, according to a statement from her agency, ...