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Calls from newly-activated prepaid SIM cards will come with a voice alert from Tuesday, Hong Kong’s communications watchdog has announced in a move aimed to notify the public of suspicious calls. Under the new measure, a voice alert message will play, stating, “This call is made from a new pre-paid SIM card,” before the call […]

China on Monday expressed “deep condolences” following the death of former US president Jimmy Carter, who died aged 100. Washington forged diplomatic links with the People’s Republic of China in January 1979 — midway through Carter’s term in office — breaking with the Nationalist government in Taiwan that was a staunch US ally throughout the […]

A leading epidemiologist has said that levels of human metapneumovirus (HMPV) remained low in Hong Kong amid an outbreak of the respiratory virus in mainland China. David Hui, a professor of respiratory medicine at the Faculty of Medicine at Chinese University of Hong Kong, told TVB on Sunday that while HMPV infections had risen in […]

Legislating Hong Kong’s homegrown national security law was the biggest challenge of his career, the city’s security chief has said. In a Facebook video shared on Sunday, Secretary for Security Chris Tang recapped a year he described as being “filled with challenges and opportunities.” Tang said he and the team “poured countless effort and time” […]

Hong Kong’s Labour Department has launched a probe into a fatal industrial accident involving a construction worker who died after being crushed by a falling glass panel. The Labour Department said on Sunday that it was saddened by the death of a 53-year-old male worker, who was killed on Monday after a glass panel of […]

A Jeju Air plane flying from Bangkok to South Korea with 181 people on board crashed on landing Sunday, leaving all but two people plucked from the wreckage feared dead. Here’s what we know so far. What happened? A Boeing 737-800 aircraft belonging to low-cost carrier Jeju Air, flying from Bangkok to Muan airport, was […]

Olympic table tennis star Fan Zhendong said Sunday he had never been “officially informed” he would be fined for not competing on the world tour despite officials saying the rules were “consistent, not new”. Fan, who took the men’s singles title in Paris this year, announced on Friday he was quitting the WTT World Tour, […]

Quentin Lau knows his job as a taxi driver makes him an object of derision. When he comes across online news articles on the taxi industry, like those about new ride-hailing apps entering the market or yet another altercation between a driver and a passenger, he rarely reads the comments. “Sometimes, the comments are quite […]

China’s commerce ministry on Friday launched an investigation into imported beef at the request of representatives from its struggling domestic industry, it said. The local price of beef in China has trended downwards in recent years, with analysts blaming oversupply and a lack of demand as the world’s second largest economy has slowed. At the […]

The top diplomats of China and Iran agreed Saturday that the Middle East is “not a battleground for the big powers” and should not be an arena of geopolitical competition between countries outside the region. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi agreed that “the international community should respect the sovereignty, security, […]

Hong Kong’s national security police on Tuesday issued a fresh round of arrest warrants for six people living overseas, with bounties worth HK$1 million offered for information leading to their arrests. The six stand accused of committing national security offences including inciting secession and collusion with foreign forces. Including them, there are now 19 people […]

More than 20 Hong Kong police officers have been deployed to a neighbourhood where a week-long independent book fair was underway. Some attendees had their IDs and bags checked by the police, a book store staffer told HKFP’s journalist on the scene. Uniform and plainclothes police officers were on patrol around Tai Ping Shan Streetin […]

Hong Kong residents were more dissatisfied about the city’s development in 2024 than satisfied, a survey conducted by the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute (PORI) has found. Residents largely expected next year’s situation to be worse, it also found. On Friday, PORI released the results of a year-end survey about residents’ views on Hong […]

The future operation of the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute (PORI) “will not be affected” by a police bounty on its former deputy chief over national security allegations, its CEO has said. Robert Chung, CEO of PORI, said on Friday that his independent polling institute was not approached by the authorities about the issuance […]

Taiwan’s Presidential Office staged on Thursday its first tabletop simulation of China’s military actions in the region to boost the island’s readiness against “authoritarian expansion”, a security official said. Tabletop exercises are a tool strategists use to game out how real-world scenarios may unfold, testing how organisations will react and coordinate against a simulated threat. […]

Taiwan prosecutors on Thursday indicted an ex-mayor of Taipei and former presidential candidate on charges of corruption and misusing political donations and said they were seeking 28 years’ jail for him. Ko Wen-je, leader of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), ran as a third-party candidate in January’s presidential election and won about a quarter of […]

The Hong Kong government has condemned Washington for extending sanctions imposed on local officials through to November 2019. US President Joe Biden signed the US$895 billion (HK$6.94 trillion) National Defense Authorization Act on Monday – an annual piece of legislation that funds US defence and directs foreign policy. The massive package extended section seven of […]

Founding member of the Democratic Party Martin Lee has been stripped of his title as Justice of the Peace. Lee’s appointment was revoked by Chief Executive John Lee, according to a gazette notice issued on Friday afternoon. The notice did not provide a reason for the revocation. Under Hong Kong law, justices of the peace […]

The Hong Kong government has condemned “slanderous remarks” by the US, UK, Canada, the European Union (EU) and “anti-China organisations,” after they criticised a new round of national security arrest warrants, bounties and the cancellation of passports as “transnational repression.” Hong Kong authorities on Wednesday defended its move to cancel the passports of seven “fugitive” […]

Did you notice the odd thing about the two latest appointments to the upper ranks of the government? Both of the women appointed to secretarial posts were career civil servants, who were recruited to the administrative officer ranks in (coincidentally) 1989. This is not quite the way these things were supposed to work. Before 2002 […]

A leading US government agency that tracks foreign disinformation has terminated its operations, the State Department said Tuesday, after Congress failed to extend its funding following years of Republican criticism. The Global Engagement Center, a State Department unit established in 2016, shuttered on Monday at a time when officials and experts tracking propaganda have been […]

2024 in Hong Kong saw tens of thousands of Lionel Messi fans disappointed by the footballer’s no-show, a historic medal haul at the Paris Olympics, and homegrown movies that topped box office receipts. From local headlines to global current affairs, here’s what Hongkongers Googled most this year according to the search engine’s end-of-year trends report. […]

More than 160 Chinese workers have been saved from “slave-like conditions” in Brazil, where they had been building an electric car factory for Chinese giant BYD, officials said Tuesday. BYD’s Brazilian subsidiary said in a statement late Monday it has “broken with immediate effect” its contract with the company responsible for the work on the […]

Cars, trucks and buses are banned from some of Hong Kong’s outlying islands including Lamma, a haven for those seeking peace and quiet. Instead, island logistics rely on a fleet of dozens of mini tip-trucks. Owning one of these toy-like vehicles, however, can cost a million Hong Kong dollars – more than a top-trim status […]