CHINA BREAKING NEWS

Denisovan remains discovered in southwestern China reveal that Yunnan province’s warm, biodiverse plateau was a “hunting paradise” for the hominins during a global glacial period, according to new research published in the journal Nature. Within the region’s coniferous forests and forest-steppe…

Some of my earliest memories of Bengaluru, where I spent my summer holidays, are of looking up in wonder at the towering canopy of trees in Cubbon Park. Even in the height of summer, Bengaluru could be cool enough to require a light jacket. Today, the iconic Cubbon Park, the pride of the city I now…

A Chinese influencer faced widespread criticism after a purported donation of 1 million yuan (US$150,000) to flood relief efforts was allegedly revealed as fabricated. Since July, typhoon-induced torrential rains have ravaged the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region in southern China, resulting in the…

In the fourth of our series of previews on the five-year plan and policy address, to be announced on September 16, Fiona Sun and Edith Lin analyse how to improve livelihoods in the city by tackling the impact of demographic changes and technological advancement. Read part one here, part two here…

China’s new draft law on combating cross-border corruption is as much a weapon against foreign interference as it is a tool against illicit financial flows, analysts say. The draft sets out ways to block extraterritorial investigations and to retaliate against foreign anti-corruption enforcement,…

The US-China race for artificial intelligence dominance has entered a new phase: using AI to build better AI. Leading AI companies in the United States and China are increasingly focused on deploying advanced models to write code, design experiments, and develop training techniques that can be used…

Bessie* left the Philippines for Malaysia more than a decade ago to care for other people’s children. She stayed to look after their parents instead. Certified as a carer, she now freelances around Kuala Lumpur’s Klang Valley, earning up to 25 ringgit (US$6) an hour for round-the-clock shifts, with…

Houthi fighters on Sunday said they used drones and missiles to attack a military base in southern Saudi Arabia as renewed fighting with Yemen’s government forces forced growing numbers of civilians to flee. The attack at the southern Sharurah base targeted “weapons depots and command and control…

A campaign document belonging to Flavio Bolsonaro, the right-wing front-runner in the presidential election to be held in Brazil next month, offered Washington a rare earths supply chain designed to weaken China’s grip, local news site Amado Mundo reported on Saturday. Written in English and dated…

Celine Dion wept tears of joy on Saturday as she fulfilled her dream of returning to the stage after years battling a rare neurological disorder, with a sell-out concert in Paris. The 58-year-old French-Canadian singer appeared visibly moved as she opened her first full concert in six years with…

Danish filmmaker May el-Toukhy’s post-war drama Woman Unknown ⁠won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday, with its star Mathilde Arcel also taking best actress honours in a rare double victory. El-Toukhy was the only woman directing a feature film in the main, 21-strong film…

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei on Saturday called on artificial intelligence firms to slow down the development of the powerful technology, amid mounting worries over the risks of “superintelligent” computer systems. His comments came a few days after AI researcher Jacob Coxon, who left OpenAI to join…

Bulgaria is investigating the cause of a fire at a weapons storage facility operated by EMCO, including the possibility of sabotage and a link to a previous blaze at another of the company’s facilities in August, the interior minister said. No ‌injuries were reported in the fire, which broke out…

Hong Kong health authorities are investigating an outbreak of suspected food poisoning that hit 39 pupils and staff members who ate lunch at a Sha Tin school earlier this week. Twenty-three boys and 14 girls, aged between five and 11, from Baptist (Sha Tin Wai) Lui Ming Choi Primary School and two…

Cryptocurrency billionaire Christopher Harborne said on Saturday he had donated £36 million (US$49 million) to Britain’s anti-immigration Reform UK, matching an already record contribution to Nigel Farage’s party a day earlier as it prepares for the next election. The donation gives the veteran…

The quality of concrete used in three blocks of a public housing estate under construction in Tung Chung requires further testing and review, Hong Kong’s Housing Authority has revealed. According to official documents, the main contractor on the project is Able Engineering. The same company is also…

The People’s Liberation Army may be seeking to give its frontline mechanised units mobile protection against the kind of drone-saturated battlefield that could emerge in a Taiwan conflict. Unverified images posted on mainland Chinese social media on August 29 show a new variant of the Type 19…

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and the crown prince of Abu Dhabi met on the sidelines of the Brics summit in New Delhi on Saturday, marking the highest-level meeting between the two sides since the Iran war began. The bilateral meeting came as the fallout of the war in Iran widened, with Saudi…

The political impasse in Malaysia’s government has regressed to a game of chicken, experts say, with Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and the former ruling Umno party trading barbs and dares as pressure grows for snap polls with more than a year left to term. Relations between Anwar’s Pakatan Harapan…

Brics countries agreed on Saturday to expand trade and payments in local currencies, making another step towards de-dollarisation as the bloc seeks to counter an assertive United States. Facing pressure from Washington, the member nations found enough common ground to overcome some of their biggest…

Chinese President Xi Jinping told Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday that China and India, as the world’s most populous nations and key members of the Global South, bore “significant responsibilities” in an international landscape “fraught with turbulence and change”. Xi said that…

Chinese researchers have modelled a war game scenario suggesting that a complete economic decoupling between the US and China could, unexpectedly, yield dividends for most other nations. Using a quantitative trade model – a data-based economic framework that estimates how changes in trade affect…

Investigators suspect that a train derailment in northwest France which injured 44, one gravely, was the result of sabotage, a police source said on Saturday. A fragment of rail was found on the track, with the possibility of a malicious act being treated as the main line of inquiry as a result,…

When Hong Kong’s Legislative Council vetoed a government bill that would have granted limited recognition to the city’s same-sex couples, 51-year-old Isaac Yick said he was “disappointed but not surprised”. Yick was born and raised in Hong Kong before moving to Canada, where he eventually met and…

A rescue operation was launched in Hung Hom in Hong Kong on Saturday afternoon after a recreational vessel began taking on water and sinking. Emergency services were alerted at around 1.36pm when a man fishing nearby spotted the pleasure boat gradually submerging off the Hung Hom Promenade. Police…

Brics members agreed in New Delhi on Saturday to continue the push to expand trade and payments in local currencies to counter US pressure. The member nations also found enough common ground to overcome some of their biggest diplomatic splits. In addition, Chinese President Xi Jinping used his…