From his newly built three-storey home outside Hanoi, Trinh Tat Thang has watched the surging global gold price with mounting dread. The Vietnamese have a long tradition of holding their wealth in gold, and a parallel practice of borrowing the asset from relatives to build homes rather than cash from a bank. But the debt must be repaid in gold. Family ...

Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison Holdings, controlled by billionaire Li Ka-shing, risks losing its rights to operate major ports at both ends of the Panama Canal after the countrys Supreme Court ruled its subsidiarys contract unconstitutional. The decision was announced in a statement posted on the official social media account of the Panama Judiciary on ...

Teslas falling car deliveries and declining profitability on the mainland have not stopped its Chinese electric-car rivals from imitating the US firms transition into an artificial intelligence entity. Xpeng, Li Auto and Nio, dubbed as Tesla challengers over the past decade, have taken similar steps to diversify into emerging technologies and position ...

The UK and mainland China are considering a new cross-border asset-management link and upgrades to their existing stock connect scheme, as both sides seek closer capital-market cooperation, according to Ashley Alder, chairman of the UKs Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). We are looking at enhancing market connectivity between China and the UK, particularly ...

Nigers military ruler Abdourahamane Tiani on Thursday blamed the French, Benin and Ivory Coast presidents for sponsoring the attack on Niamey international airport, an accusation he made without offering any evidence. Gunfire and loud explosions echoed around Nigers international airport in Niamey shortly before midnight in what two security sources ...

We have selected seven stories from this weeks news across Hong Kong, mainland China, the wider Asia region and beyond that resonated with our readers and shed light on topical issues. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. China close to opening US$10 billion canal linking heartlands to Southeast Asia China is ...

The controversy over mandatory seat belts in Hong Kong has intensified after a former lawmaker said a government statement failed to specify that the rule only applied to new buses registered from January 25 this year, and called on authorities to clarify their approach to enforcement as passengers worried about unwittingly breaking the law. Doreen Kong ...

[The content of this article has been produced by our advertising partner.] Asia is scaling renewable power, electrification and clean manufacturing faster than any other part of the world. Yet the pace is outstripping the availability of skilled workers, creating a bottleneck that could slow progress towards net zero. Global renewable energy jobs reached ...

Remote surgery conducted over thousands of kilometres can be just as reliable as robot-assisted operations done by a medical team in the same room as the patient, according to a new study led by Chinese military researchers and carried out in five cities. The researchers said telesurgery could be a feasible way to overcome the lack of medical services in ...

Subdued Chinese demand was a key contributor to a decline in Australias wine exports last year, according to the Australian government agency that promotes the industry. With consumer sentiment and evolving tastes reshaping the Chinese market, shipments to mainland China fell 17 per cent year on year to A$755 million (US$532.10 million) the biggest single ...

Top Democrats on the Senate and House intelligence committees called on Thursday for US President Donald Trumps chief spy to brief their panels on why she was present at an FBI raid on an election facility in Georgia. Senator Mark Warner and Representative Jim Himes told Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard in a letter that they were deeply ...

A group of three suspects robbed five people on a street in central Tokyo on Thursday night, fleeing with suitcases that the victims said contained around 420 million yen (US$2.7 million) in cash, according to police. A few hours later, a man with luggage containing 190 million yen in cash was attacked early on Friday with pepper spray in a parking space at ...

Lawrence J. Lau is a Hong Kong economist specialising in economic development and East Asian economies. He was an economics professor at Stanford University in the United States before becoming vice-chancellor and president of the Chinese University of Hong Kong until 2010. Lau has held the Ralph and Claire Landau Professor of Economics chair at the ...

Advanced chipmaking engineer Xu Zhenpeng has left the United States to take up a full-time position at Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU), one of Chinas leaders in artificial intelligence hardware research. Before his return to China, Xu led a team at the California-based manufacturing start-up Atomic Semi, developing 3D printing techniques aimed at ...

Thailands slump in visitors from China has become so acute that Chinese tourism workers in Phuket are learning English for the first time to attract new customers, according to a boat tour organiser. Chanchanat Boonlon said her catamaran business was once a cash cow, fully booked each day during high season by large groups of Chinese visitors who flocked to ...

A precautionary recall of infant formula products in Europe has sent South Korean parenting communities into a frenzy, with online mum cafes and forums buzzing over fears that some popular imported brands may pose health risks to babies. While the recall affects several European manufacturers, much of the anxiety in South Korea has centred on Aptamil a ...

The notion that China is flooding the world with excess industrial capacity is usually based on its massive surplus in goods trade, now standing at nearly US$1.2 trillion. That number is real, but treating it as proof of systemic overcapacity is not entirely correct. Goods trade is only one slice of Chinas external balance, and it is increasingly offset by ...

A 10-month-old baby had to be rushed to hospital with his body covered in needle marks after he was allegedly stabbed hundreds of times by his abusive mother. The infants plight sparked a wave of outrage online. A video telling of the childs treatment was posted online recently by an online viewer known as Spine Surgeon Dr Sui Wenyuan. The poster is an ...

The number of children who died by suicide in Japan rose to a record 532 in 2025, the second straight year in which the figure has reached a historic high, even as the countrys overall suicide toll fell to its lowest level in decades. Preliminary statistics released by the health ministry on Thursday showed the figure was up by three from the previous year ...

Venezuelas legislature on Thursday adopted a bill that throws its oil industry open to private investors, in line with US demands following the toppling of leader Nicolas Maduro. Lawmakers in the South American country adopted reforms to a hydrocarbons bill that roll back decades of tight state control over foreign investment in the sector. To lure private ...

As Shanghai resident Adam Liu drives his new Mercedes CLA a German-manufactured car he has long revered this edition of the luxury vehicle is carrying another point of pride: a smart system hailing from his home country. The recently launched pure-electric vehicle was assembled in Rastatt, Germany, but engineers at Beijing-based ByteDance designed its ...

British Columbia Premier David Eby said Alberta separatists who have sought help from Washington in their quest to gain independence from Canada are carrying out an act of immense disloyalty. To go to a foreign country and to ask for assistance in breaking up Canada, theres an old-fashioned word for that and that word is treason, said Eby, the leader of ...

Today, double-digit tariffs imposed by the United States are the new baseline. Breaking decades of low single digits norms, the US rolled out a reciprocal tariff framework in April 2025, setting a 10 per cent baseline and layering on higher rates for specific countries. Embedded in the US national security strategy, this reorientation leaves little scope ...

A man falsely claiming to be an FBI agent showed up to a federal jail in New York on Wednesday night and told officers he had a court order to release Luigi Mangione, authorities said. Mark Anderson, 36, of Mankato, Minnesota, was arrested and charged with impersonating an FBI agent in a foiled bid to free Mangione from the Metropolitan Detention Centre, ...

The mayor of Greenlands capital on Thursday called on media professionals and content creators to act responsibly after a failed attempt by a German comedian to hoist the US flag. Bavarian comedian Maxi Schafroth, 41, attempted to run up the Stars and Stripes on a flagpole near the cultural centre in Nuuk before he was confronted by angry passers-by. When ...