Global South rises as technology reshapes city competitiveness
When China’s political elites gather behind closed doors in Beijing for the Communist Party’s fifth plenum on Monday, much of the attention will be on the quiet preparations for allocating hundreds of pivotal roles in next year’s 21st party congress. At the heart of this transition is the rise of the party’s seventh generation – often referred to as the 7G – who were born in the late 1960s and the 1970s and whose ascent will be critical in shaping China’s political trajectory. Xie Maosong, a...
Police have arrested a 34-year-old man who allegedly mixed rat poison into food left for stray cats in a Kowloon park and was found in possession of a knife. The force said it received a report at around 3.30am on Saturday that a man was suspected of putting poison in cat food that animal welfare volunteers had placed near tennis courts in Shek Kip Mei Park. Officers arrived at the scene and seized a packet of suspected rat poison and a fruit knife measuring around 14cm (5.5 inches) in length...
Parts of two installations in a controversial lighting project along a walking trail on The Peak have been removed, days after Hong Kong’s tourism authorities pledged to balance the community’s needs and said the scheme was not “set in stone”. The removals came hours after Commissioner for Tourism Ann Chan Wai-yan inspected the site on Saturday morning with a lawmaker and a district councillor, following an outcry from residents who accused the Hong Kong Tourism Board of removing trees and...
Fighter jets typically house their main radars behind a radome in the nose, while conventional airborne early-warning aircraft often carry large radar arrays in prominent structures above the fuselage. Although aircraft wings offer a large surface area, their relatively thin cross-sections leave limited internal space for radar equipment. Top Chinese military aircraft designers have now proposed a revolutionary method to integrate large antenna arrays into aircraft wings, using flight manoeuvres...
A prominent Chinese economist’s social media channel has been restricted as Beijing steps up regulatory scrutiny of financial market influencers. Chinese internet users on Saturday noticed that the WeChat account of Ren Zeping, known for his outspoken comments on investments and policies, had been stopped from gaining new followers and a member of his team said posting had been suspended. Clicking the follow button generated a message saying “this account cannot be followed due to its violation...
Over nearly four decades, Operation Santa Claus (OSC) has grown from a quirky holiday fundraiser into an “engine” for community change in Hong Kong. For some beneficiaries, the journey was a full circle. Rachel Chow Chiu-yan learned about the fundraising drive in Young Post when she was a student, later pitched for funds on behalf of a group helping teenage girls and later joined the charity. “Ten to 20 years ago, Operation Santa Claus disbursed some funding to charities that saw it as seed...
Protests across France were largely peaceful on Saturday, despite heightened tensions and sporadic clashes between protesters and the police, but authorities remained on high alert as night fell. The French Interior Ministry counted 410,000 people who hit the streets across the country on Saturday, down from the 550,000 who protested last weekend. The October 17 demonstrations descended into looting and the worst urban rioting France had seen in years. 249 protests took place in France on...
Halloween has arrived early in Hong Kong, with costumed revellers and families thronging the city’s streets a week early and some establishments seeing business increase by up to 20 per cent. The streets of Central were packed on Saturday as visitors and locals alike joined events held under the Tourism Board’s inaugural “Hong Kong Halloween Month”. The campaign, which started last Saturday, involves street celebrations in Central, including Lan Kwai Fong, Kai Tak, Mong Kok and Tsim Sha Tsui...
Taiwan should not rely on a single foreign satellite provider for critical wartime communications, analysts have warned, after sudden restrictions on the use of Elon Musk’s Starlink disrupted Ukrainian drone operations. The episode has renewed debate in Taiwan over the risks of entrusting essential communications to foreign commercial operators whose services could be restricted for political, military or business reasons. Analysts said this was particularly relevant as Taipei was trying to...
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un visited the Chinese border city of Dandong on Saturday, with both sides underlining their traditional friendship and calling to boost cooperation. The trip, Kim’s first visit to China in more than a year, comes ahead of next month’s Apec summit in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, where Donald Trump and other world leaders are expected to gather. He was welcomed and accompanied on his trip by Wang Huning, China’s fourth-ranked official, according to state...
When Grant Newsham, a retired US Marine colonel and security analyst, sat down for an interview that aired last month, he called China’s economic rise illusory and said there were “600 million Chinese at least who live on US$5 a day or less”. His remarks quickly drew online criticism as well as accusations that he was using outdated figures from 2020 while ignoring differences in purchasing power. Some commenters argued that uneven development was common across countries. Others questioned how...
Just weeks before Donald Trump’s second trip to China this year and his third meeting with President Xi Jinping, whom he has called a “truly great” friend, his administration is intensifying its crackdown on Confucius Institutes – Beijing-backed centres that promote Chinese language and culture at universities abroad. Long viewed by critics as instruments of Beijing’s soft power and cultural diplomacy, the institutes are back in the crosshairs of US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, who says the...
