~hong-kong-free-pres | Bookmarks (736)

Hong Kong’s giant panda population grew by 200 per cent last year, and authorities hope that the bears’ presence can help boost domestic consumption following a continued decline in retail and restaurant spending. After Beijing announced that it would gift a pair of giant pandas to the city last summer, and the birth of panda […]

Philippine security officials said Thursday they took into custody five more Chinese spies, following the arrest of a compatriot for espionage this month. The arrests come as confrontations between the two Asian neighbours over contested reefs and waters in the strategic South China Sea have escalated in recent months. Two men were arrested at Manila airport […]

Flinging her male teammate into the air, performer Lin Xinmeng practises China’s world-famous lion dance with a troupe that is shrugging off centuries of patriarchal norms. Mixing acrobatics, martial arts and theatre, lion dancing is believed to bring prosperity and protection from evil spirits. Performed across China and around the world, at weddings or during business […]

Donald Trump’s commerce secretary nominee told his US Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday he favors “across-the-board” tariffs targeting countries rather than products, while signaling a hawkish China stance. “We can use tariffs to create reciprocity, fairness and respect,” said Howard Lutnick, a close Trump ally and billionaire CEO of Wall Street firm Cantor Fitzgerald. Lutnick’s appearance […]

Chinese tech and e-commerce giant Alibaba on Wednesday announced the release of Qwen2.5-Max, an advanced artificial intelligence model that the company says outperforms several leading AI systems in key benchmarks. The launch follows Chinese startup DeepSeek’s recent release of models that stunned Silicon Valley and challenged assumptions about US dominance in the booming AI sector. […]

More than a decade ago, construction on an underground rail link connecting Hong Kong to mainland China began beneath Yau Tam Mei Tsuen, a village in the city’s northern New Territories. For some villagers, it was a warning that their homes would one day be ceded to further development. That day is drawing ever nearer. […]

By Montira Rungjirajittranon and Sarah Lai Chinese tourists visiting Thailand for Lunar New Year are worried about being kidnapped by gangsters to work in hellish scam centres, despite efforts to reassure them. Chinese nationals topped the list of visitors to Thailand last year, with nearly seven million making the trip to Thailand in 2024. But […]

Seven people sustained mostly minor injuries in Tuesday’s airplane fire in South Korea, authorities said Wednesday, with local media suggesting the blaze may have been caused by a portable battery stored in the overhead bin. The Air Busan plane, an Airbus A321, was set to fly to Hong Kong from Gimhae International Airport in southeastern […]

Portuguese photojournalist Gonçalo Lobo Pinheiro has spent 14 years documenting life in Macau. In his latest book, Urban Poetry, he has collected 100 colour images shot over the past five years, capturing moments lived during the Covid-19 pandemic and beyond, and exploring as the territory evolves, 25 years after its transfer from Portuguese to Chinese […]

Hong Kong Free Press began 2024 not in its home city, but in Taipei, as voters headed to the polls to elect Taiwan’s next leader. We spoke to young voters about their concerns, and Hongkongers who had moved there in the wake of the 2019 protests and were casting their ballots for the first time.  […]

Chinese AI chatbot DeepSeek’s answers about the Hong Kong protests in 2019, Taiwan’s status and other topics echo Beijing’s party line, according to test questions posed by HKFP. Released outside China earlier this month, DeepSeek has become the most downloaded free app on Google’s and Apple’s app stores in Hong Kong. It also overtook rival […]

A foreign judge will sit on the panel for jailed ex-lawmaker Lam Cheuk-ting’s hearing at the top court next month, in which the government is seeking to overturn his acquittal over disclosing the identity of an officer investigated for his role in the Yuen Long mob attack in 2019. Australian judge James Allsop is among […]

Chinese leader Xi Jinping struck a bullish tone during a speech on Monday ahead of Lunar New Year, after acknowledging “complex and severe situations” in recent months. Xi addressed the gathering of top Communist Party officials as China gears up for its biggest public holiday, which this year runs from January 28 to February 4 […]

Fears of upheaval in the AI gold rush rocked Wall Street on Monday following the emergence of a popular ChatGPT-like model from China, with US President Donald Trump saying it was a “wake-up call” for Silicon Valley. Last week’s release of the latest DeepSeek model initially received limited attention, overshadowed by the inauguration of Trump […]

An animal rights organisation has called for snakeskin to be banned from a Hong Kong fashion trade show ahead of the Year of the Snake. In a statement last Friday, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) said it had released new footage showing snakes being “beaten, beheaded, impaled, and inflated,” at slaughterhouses, adding […]

Hong Kong regulators have imposed a HK$66.4 million fine on Hang Seng Bank for misconduct related to how it sold investment products between 2014 and 2023. The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) on Monday “reprimanded” Hang Sang Bank for what it described as “serious regulatory failures” linked to the financial institution’s sale of collective investment schemes […]

Hong Kong gym chain Physical Fitness has been ordered to wind up after a local court ruled that the company was unable to repay its debt, including more than HK$600 million owed by one branch. High Court judge Linda Chan on Monday ordered the gym chain’s parent company, Physical Beauty & Fitness Holdings Limited, and […]

Hong Kong authorities have condemned American lawmakers’ reintroduction of a bill urging sanctions on the city’s top officials, judges and prosecutors, calling the move “political grandstanding.” In a statement on Saturday, the government responded to US Representatives Young Kim and Jim McGovern’s updated Hong Kong Sanctions Act. The bill, published last week, asks US President […]

McDonald’s has fired Hong Kong activist-artist Luke Ching, who called for the fast food giant to reinstate paying workers for their meal breaks, accusing him of leaking its internal operations. Ching’s termination was effective starting Monday, according to a letter from MHK Restaurants, which operates Hong Kong’s McDonald’s branches, which was seen by HKFP. The […]

China said Monday it was “extremely unlikely” Covid-19 came from a laboratory, after the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) said it believed the virus had more likely come from a lab rather than natural transmission. “The conclusion that a laboratory leak is extremely unlikely was reached by the China-WHO joint expert team based on field […]

Hong Kong pollster Robert Chung has been taken in by national security police to assist with an investigation for the second time in two weeks, according to local media. Multiple local media reports said on Monday that Robert Chung, the CEO of the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute (PORI), was taken from his home […]

A new wave of online harassment that followed a journalism students’ investigation into government “care teams” echoed an “organised attack” last year that saw dozens of reporters targeted, the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA) has said. In a statement released on Sunday, the HKJA said posts on Facebook began appearing four days after Chinese University […]

By Holmes Chan After 13 years in Hong Kong as a refugee, John received plane tickets that would grant his family new lives in the United States — only for them to be snatched away with a stroke of the pen by President Donald Trump. Trump’s executive order to suspend all refugee admissions and halt […]

A Hongkonger who was rescued from a Myanmar scam farm a week ago is set to arrive in Hong Kong along with a Security Bureau-led task force on Monday, the government has said. The task force met the Hongkonger at a Thai detention centre, where the victim had been sent following their rescue from Myanmar, […]