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Chinese hackers were involved in most of the cyberattacks against Taiwan last year, which doubled to a daily average of 2.4 million, Taiwanese security officials said. China regards Taiwan as part of its territory and for years has been ramping up military, diplomatic and political pressure on the island to accept its claims of sovereignty. […]

A 19-year-old student has pleaded not guilty to insulting China’s national anthem during a 2026 World Cup Asian qualifier in Hong Kong last June. Lau Pun-hei entered his not guilty plea to the charge under the National Anthem Law on Monday morning at the Eastern Magistrates’ Courts. The prosecution told Magistrate Don So that they […]

An operation that saw police and environmental hygiene officers deployed to investigate illegal shopfront extensions in a residential Hong Kong neighbourhood that was hosting a week-long independent book fair did not uncover any violations, authorities have said. Inspections began on December 27, the first day of a book fair featuring 20 local independent publishers. Books […]

Hong Kong police have arrested 31 people over the alleged use of deepfake technologies to stage online romance and investment scams targeting victims in Taiwan, Malaysia, and Singapore, with losses exceeding HK$34 million. The Commercial Crime Bureau said on Sunday that it had raided two premises in Kowloon Bay on Thursday and Friday. The operation […]

China’s central bank has outlined a “moderately loose” monetary plan aimed at boosting domestic demand to spur growth, days after President Xi Jinping called for more proactive macroeconomic policies. Beijing last year struggled to lift the economy out of a slump fuelled by a property market crisis, weak consumption and soaring government debt. Officials have […]

A Chinese scientist has named 16 new spider species after songs by popular “Mandopop” musician Jay Chou. Mi Xiaoqi, a professor at Tongren University in China’s southwestern Guizhou province, listed the newly discovered arachnids in a paper published in the academic journal Zoological Research: Diversity and Conservation. The paper, published in December, has gone viral […]

December 2024 was the 54th month since a Beijing-imposed security law was enacted in Hong Kong, and nine months since further security legislation was passed into law by Hong Kong’s opposition-free legislature. As the public was beginning to feel the festive vibe on Christmas Eve, the government announced another round of action against overseas activists. […]

Hong Kong’s weather service said Friday that 2024 was the city’s hottest year since records began 140 years ago, mirroring a global trend of rising temperatures and extreme weather sparked by climate change. The Hong Kong Observatory said it “has confirmed that 2024 was the warmest year in Hong Kong since records began in 1884, […]

The United States on Friday slapped sanctions on a Beijing-based hacking outfit with links to the Chinese government, accusing it of targeting “critical” US government infrastructure. The US Treasury said it had targeted Integrity Technology Group, Incorporated, for its role in multiple attacks since 2021 against US entities often within “critical infrastructure sectors.” US State […]

Hong Kong made the news on several occasions in 2024 whether for passing new security legislation, censorship laws, or the mystery surrounding the deaths of several monkeys at a city-centre zoo. HKFP rounds up 15 headline-making moments from the last 12 months. Expats unavailable in Hong Kong The entertainment world was abuzz in January with […]

Hong Kong retail sales have fallen for a ninth consecutive month with a 7.3 per cent drop logged in November compared with the same period the previous year, as the government pointed to changes in both visitors’ and residents’ consumption patterns. Year-on-year sales fell to HK$31.7 billion in November, according to provisional estimates released by […]

A Hong Kong social worker who sought to challenge authorities’ approval of a planned technology hub has been arrested over alleged false statements to authorities for elderly allowance and public housing, according to local media reports. Eddie Tse told HKFP on Friday afternoon that he had no comment after he was granted bail from a […]

Hong Kong’s Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) has reported a case of suspected theft involving document files that contained the personal data of around 100 people who had filed complaints to the department. A spokesperson for the FEHD said on Thursday that two internal document files stored at the Kowloon City District Environmental Hygiene […]

China is “determined” to continue opening up its economy to the world in 2025, a top economic planning official said Friday, as Beijing steels itself for potential trade turmoil when US President-elect Donald Trump takes office. The world’s second-largest economy has struggled to revive growth following the Covid-19 pandemic and remains beset by a debt […]

China sanctioned 10 US defence firms on Thursday over arms sales to Taiwan, its second round of measures against American companies over the issue in less than a week. Subsidiaries of Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and Raytheon that had “participated in selling arms to Taiwan” were added to China’s “Unreliable Entities List”, the country’s Ministry […]

Hong Kong’s MTR Corporation (MTRC) has been exploring ways to cut costs and diversify income streams as it seeks to fulfil an investment commitment amounting to HK$165 billion over the next decade, local media have reported. Citing an MTRC source, multiple outlets reported on Friday that the railway giant was seeking new income sources beyond […]

David Bellis, a British national who spent over 30 years in Hong Kong and founded Gwulo, an archive of old Hong Kong photos, has been awarded a British Empire Medal. The UK government announced on Tuesday the 2025 New Year’s Honour list of the British Empire Medal, an honour established in 1922 for meritorious civil […]

Hong Kong’s underprivileged children have ranked a lack of public housing as their top concern that required government support for 15 years in a row, two NGOs have said. Hong Kong had around 215,000 children under the age of 18 living in poverty last year – meaning one in five children in the city – […]

Hong Kong’s housing chief has estimated that the city will have around 80,000 “acceptable basic housing units” after some existing subdivided flats were modified to meet proposed regulations. Around 30 per cent of the roughly 110,000 subdivided units in Hong Kong had poor living conditions and were “targeted for eradication,” Secretary for Housing Winnie Ho […]

China said Thursday it was “shocked” by the car-ramming attack in the southern US city of New Orleans that killed at least 15 people and wounded dozens. “We mourn the victims, and express our sympathy to their families and those injured,” foreign affairs spokeswoman Mao Ning told a regular press conference. American officials have identified […]

Hong Kong’s cash-strapped urban renewal body has secured a HK$13 billion bank loan to fund its redevelopment projects. The Urban Renewal Authority (URA) on Thursday said it had signed a loan agreement amounting to HK$13 billion with a consortium of 13 banks, “whose collective support underscores the robustness and credibility of the URA’s financial framework.” […]

By Jing Xuan Teng Last year was China’s warmest on record, its weather agency said, as the world experiences a surge in extreme weather fuelled by climate change. China is the leading emitter of the greenhouse gases scientists say are driving global warming, though Beijing has pledged that carbon dioxide emissions will peak by 2030 […]

A Hong Kong taxi driver has been arrested after his vehicle collided with another car in the early hours of New Year’s Day, leaving three dead and four others injured. Police said on Wednesday that the accident occurred on the West Kowloon Highway near the Olympic MTR station at 1.44 am on Wednesday after the […]

Beijing insisted on Tuesday that it had shared information on Covid-19 “without holding anything back”, after the World Health Organization implored China to offer more data and access to understand the disease’s origins. Covid-19, which first emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2020, went on to kill millions of people, shred […]