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The trial of eight people who were allegedly involved in three bomb plots in early 2020 has begun, with seven of them facing the same charge that saw a man sentenced to almost 24 years in prison days ago. The defendants – Ho Cheuk-wai, Lee Ka-pan, Ng Tsz-lok, Cheung Ka-chun, Yeung Yi-sze, Cheung Cheuk-ki, Ho […]

Taiwan President Lai Ching-te will visit three Pacific island nation allies from the end of this month in his first overseas trip since taking office, the presidential office said Friday. Presidential spokeswoman Karen Kuo said Lai will visit the Marshall Islands, Palau and Tuvalu — the only Pacific island nations among Taiwan’s 12 remaining allies […]

Almost seven out of 10 Hong Kong companies experienced cyberattacks in the past year, the city’s privacy watchdog has found after a survey revealed that firms’ cybersecurity readiness still stood at “basic” levels. The index, which evaluates companies’ policy and risk assessment, technology control, process control, and human awareness building, increased by 5.8 points from […]

China on Thursday blamed Washington’s support for Taiwan for the failure of the two countries’ defence ministers to meet this week, after US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin called Beijing’s no-show “unfortunate”. Multiple US media reported this week that Austin had hoped to meet his Chinese counterpart Dong Jun at a regional summit in Laos as […]

A woman has been arrested on suspicion of throwing a bottle of red paint at the Hong Kong government headquarters. A 46-year-old woman was arrested on Thursday for alleged criminal damage in connection with red paint found splashed on a flower bed and pedestrian path at the Central Government Offices (CGO) in Tamar, Admiralty. According […]

Almost one in five calls to Hong Kong’s 999 emergency number were diverted to a recorded message last year, a greater percentage than five years previously, according to police data obtained by HKFP. In 2023, 610,945 emergency calls out of 3,139,814 received – or 19.5 per cent – were re-routed to a bilingual recorded announcement, […]

Detained media mogul Jimmy Lai wanted to “explain” the thinking behind protesters’ storming of the legislature in 2019 through his newspaper Apple Daily to ensure the movement’s survival, the tycoon’s national security trial has heard. Lai, whose defence questioning expected to take 15 days, took the stand for the second day on Thursday. Under defence […]

Hong Kong police have arrested 65 people including several Japanese sex workers and porn stars in an joint operation with authorities in Singapore, Japan, and Macau against a cross-border vice syndicate. The force said on Thursday that five men and 60 women, aged 17 to 64, had been arrested in a three-day operation targeting a […]

Hong Kong will allow non-locally trained dentists to work in the city from January 1 next year to meet rising demand, the government has announced. Starting on New Year’s Eve, qualified overseas dentists may receive limited registration or a specialist license to practise in Hong Kong under the amended Dentists Registration Ordinance approved by the legislature […]

A Hong Kong court has ordered the retrial of two men cleared three years ago of offences relating to the 2019 protests, after the government successfully appealed against their acquittals. In a ruling delivered on Wednesday, the High Court said the lower magistrates’ court had erred in finding Sam Yip and Chan Kai-kiu not guilty […]

China unveiled new measures on Thursday to boost foreign trade, as Beijing battles to turn around a slowing economy threatened further by the potentially hostile policies of incoming US president Donald Trump. The world’s second-largest economy has struggled to revive growth since the Covid pandemic and remains beset by a debt crisis in the crucial […]

In 2021, 47 prominent Hong Kong democrats were arrested and charged under the 2020 security law with “conspiracy to commit subversion,” after they organised primaries in a bid to win the 2020 legislative election. They were convicted over planning to use legislative powers to indiscriminately veto bills, ultimately forcing the chief executive’s resignation and a government shutdown. Most were detained for almost […]

Taiwan’s foreign minister Lin Chia-lung met with European Parliament members this week in an unannounced stop in Brussels as part of his first visit to Europe to firm up ties. Taiwan has worked to strengthen ties with European countries as it faces an increasingly assertive China, which claims the self-ruled democratic island as part of its […]

The Hong Kong government has condemned what it described as untruthful smearing and unscrupulous attacks by foreign governments and organisations on the jailing of 45 democracy campaigners in the city’s largest national security case. The verdicts and prison terms imposed by the High Court were supported by “irrefutable evidence,” a government spokesperson said in a […]

Hong Kong prosecutors have challenged the acquittal of the Democratic Party chairman in a 2019 unlawful assembly case, saying the politician had “encouraged” protesters despite knowing they were resisting police. Justices of Appeal Derek Pang, Maggie Poon and Anthea Pang on Wednesday heard a case against Lo Kin-hei, who was in November 2022 cleared of […]

Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai took the stand for the first time in his national security trial on Wednesday, testifying that he had never tried to influence overseas governments’ foreign policy on Hong Kong or China. The 76-year-old founder of the shuttered Apple Daily newspaper stands accused of two counts of taking part in a “conspiracy […]

A 71-year-old Chinese man was sentenced to 20 months in prison on Tuesday for taking part in a plot targeting the Falun Gong spiritual movement in the United States. John Chen, of Los Angeles, was convicted of acting as an unregistered agent of the Chinese government and bribing a tax authority agent. Chen and another […]

Elsa Wu, the mother of jailed pro-democracy figure Hendrick Lui, was arrested after holding a banner outside a Hong Kong court after her son and 44 other democrats were sentenced on Tuesday. Police on Wednesday said that officers found a 60-year-old woman holding a banner and disturbing the public order on Tuesday while on duty […]

China on Wednesday urged “calm” and “restraint” after Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a nuclear threat and Ukraine fired longer-range US missiles at its territory for the first time. Moscow has reacted furiously to a decision by US President Joe Biden to change policy on Ukraine and allow Kyiv to use US-supplied long-range missiles to […]

Democrats’ plan to veto the budget was constitutionally allowed under Hong Kong’s Basic Law, a legal scholar has said, a day after 45 pro-democracy figures were jailed for conspiring to commit subversion over the scheme. The remarks came after the city’s largest national security case came to a close on Tuesday, with 45 democrats given […]

A Hong Kong student charged with insulting China’s national anthem during  a 2026 World Cup Asian qualifier in Hong Kong in June has been granted bail. Lau Pun-hei, 19, appeared at the Eastern Magistrates’ Courts on Tuesday. He was charged last week with insulting the national anthem during a match between the city’s football team […]

The US has said it is taking steps to impose new visa restrictions on Hong Kong officials after 45 of the city’s most prominent pro-democracy advocates were sentenced to prison on Tuesday. US Department of State spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement on Tuesday that the US “strongly condemns” the sentences meted out in […]

Detained pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai is set to take the stand for the first time on Wednesday in his high-profile national security trial. The 76-year-old founder of the shuttered Apple Daily newspaper stands accused of two counts of taking part in a “conspiracy to collude with foreign forces” under Beijing’s security law, and one count of […]

The Hong Kong government will consider whether to appeal for longer sentences of certain democrats jailed on Tuesday in the city’s largest national security case. Convicted of conspiring to commit subversion, 45 former legislators, ex-district councillors, and activists received jail sentences ranging from four years and two months to 10 years, with prominent legal scholar […]