Caught bragging he suckered America

In Pictures: Fans pay tribute to Hong Kong independent bookshop Have a Nice Stay on final day following raid

Dozens of bookworms squeezed into Hong Kong independent bookstore Have a Nice Stay on Sunday for its final day in business, paying tribute to the…

China’s Xi and Iran’s Pezeshkian in Kyrgyzstan, Putin expected

China’s Xi Jinping and Iranian President Massoud Pezeshkian were in Kyrgyzstan for a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, with Russia’s Vladimir Putin expected later…

China penalises 10 people for misinformation over deadly mudslide near Nepal border

Chinese authorities penalised 10 people accused of spreading misinformation online about a deadly mudslide along the Nepal border, police said Monday, as rescuers scour for…

China’s visa-free boom is rewriting inbound tourism

On August 20, China’s National Immigration Administration expanded the 240-hour visa-free transit policy to two more countries — Kyrgyzstan and Vietnam — bringing the number…

US sanctions on Iran are right but wrongly sequenced

The US-Israeli war against Iran passed its six-month mark this week, and on August 24, the bill for two decades of hosting American power came…

Indonesia’s commodity exchange bid won’t work without global trust

Indonesia’s ambition to evolve into a global price-setter for commodities was formally unveiled by President Prabowo Subianto on August 4, 2026, during his State of…

Tai Po fire victim and petition organiser Jason Kong and wife charged with fraud and money laundering

A Wang Fuk Court resident who advocated for the rights of fellow fire victims has been charged with fraud and money laundering along with his…

Trump following a long US tradition of losing a pointless war

I was born on July 20, 1944, in the midst of World War II. My father had just returned from Burma where he had been…

China’s robot beat Bolt – then it hit the wall

Two major races were won and lost in Beijing on August 26. On one track, a humanoid robot ran 100 meters in 8.64 seconds, nearly…

Canada ends Hong Kong ‘lifeboat’ immigration scheme launched in the wake of national security law

Canada has ceased accepting applicants for a “lifeboat” immigration scheme introduced for Hongkongers in the wake of the national security law. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship…

China shows way in new pharma race: Own meds, don’t just make ’em

Pharmaceutical geopolitics is usually mapped through factories. China’s vast pharmaceutical supply chain, India’s strength in low-cost generics and the concentration of patented drug discovery in…

New Delhi in the context of India-China thaw, Russia, US, Canada

Two noteworthy events this past week spell out how India is now assessing the global context in which it operates. In Beijing, India’s National Security…

Minsk-Karachi railway shows Eurasia’s quiet geopolitical rewiring

The news that Pakistan, Russia, and Belarus are working on a test freight railway connecting Minsk, Moscow, and Karachi may seem like just another infrastructure…

Iran strikes back

Tai Po fire: To sell or not to sell? As gov’t deadline looms, some owners still hope their homes can rise from the ashes

Betty Ho is adamant that she will not sell her flat in Wang Fuk Court under a government buyout scheme that is due to expire…

America just started bombing again

Leaked doc shows how F*d up it really is

The Russian summer offensive is a failure so far

This is Weekend Update #200. When I wrote the first of these, in November 2022, I certainly did not expect to be producing these close…

Rescuers dig into tunnel as missing toll from Nepal, China flood tops 3,000

Rescuers in Nepal and China battled Sunday through leg-sucking mud and the threat of rising rivers and a newly formed lake to search for thousands…