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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 […]

President Xi Jinping said China will put in place “more proactive” macroeconomic policies next year, state media reported, as he addressed a top political advisory body on Tuesday. The country has struggled this year to climb out of a slump fuelled by a property market crisis, weak consumption and soaring government debt. Beijing has unveiled […]

Internationally, 2024 was known as the year of elections, with the United Nations estimating that half of the world’s population has headed to the ballot box over the past 12 months. Taiwan’s general elections on January 13 were among the first closely watched votes, and HKFP was on the ground to report as Lai Ching-te […]

Hong Kong’s cruise arrivals are expected to reach pre-Covid levels in 2026, the head of the city’s cruise terminal operator has said, as the government highlighted cruise tourism in a five-year sector development blueprint. Jeff Bent, the managing director of Worldwide Cruise Terminals, which operates Hong Kong’s Kai Tak Cruise Terminal, said on Tuesday that […]

Hong Kong has appointed a new customs chief to replace former department head Louise Ho, who went on pre-retirement leave on Tuesday. The government named Chan Tsz-tat as commissioner of customs and excise on Tuesday after the central government accepted Chief Executive John Lee’s recommendation that Chan lead the department he has worked with for […]

Chinese President Xi Jinping vowed to promote “world peace” in a New Year’s message to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, state media reported on Tuesday. “No matter how the international situation changes, China will remain steadfast in further comprehensively deepening reform… and promoting world peace and development,” Xi said, according to state broadcaster CCTV. Since […]

The government is seeking to overturn a legal challenge against a large-scale housing project on part of a golf club popular among Hong Kong’s elites, saying the ruling would make it “impossible” to conduct future development projects normally. The Environmental Protection Department (EPD) – which oversees the environmental impact assessment (EIA) for the Fanling golf […]

A man charged under a Hong Kong security law over allegedly publishing “seditious” posts online has had his case adjourned to await the verdict of a landmark appeal at the top court. Chow Kim-ho appeared at the West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts on Monday. The part-time handyman stands accused of publishing seditious posts on Facebook, Instagram […]

The US Treasury Department said Monday that a China state-sponsored actor was behind a cyber breach resulting in access to some of its workstations, according to a letter to Congress seen by AFP. The incident happened earlier this month, when the actor compromised a third-party cybersecurity service provider and was able to remotely access the […]

The Hong Kong government has unveiled a five-year development blueprint for the city’s tourism industry, with the goal of boosting its contribution to the gross domestic product (GDP) to around 5 cent by 2029. Hong Kong will implement 133 measures in the next five years to develop tourism products and projects with local and international […]

A social worker and activist who was jailed over an offence linked to the protests in 2019 has had his social work license suspended for five years, the longest revocation yet under new laws meant to protect national security. Lau Ka-tung said on Facebook and Instagram on Sunday that his social work license had been […]

A Chinese court sentenced a teenage boy to life in prison on Monday for murdering his classmate, capping a case that sparked a national debate over the treatment of juvenile offenders. Three suspects, all aged under 14 at the time of the murder, were accused in April of bullying a 13-year-old classmate surnamed Wang over a […]

Hong Kong will focus on “retaining talent” after multiple admission schemes brought around 175,000 people to the city over the past two years, including two top snooker players and a former NBA star, the labour chief has said. Secretary for Labour and Welfare Chris Sun also said on Monday that the government had no plans […]