Hong Kong fourth wave: food supplied to residents locked down for Covid-19 testing slammed as inadequate

District councillors have slammed the food arrangements for a heavily populated Hong Kong neighbourhood locked down for Covid-19 testing, saying the government had overlooked the special needs of elderly residents.About 10,000 residents in an estimated 200 buildings in the heart of Yau Tsim Mong district were sealed off at 4am on Saturday for at least...

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Hong Kong might have to ‘swallow bitter fruit’, ex-leader says as he pushes for choosing chief executive by consultation

Hong Kong’s former leader Leung Chun-ying has defended his call to choose the next chief executive through consultation rather than election, warning that the city might have to “swallow bitter fruit” as the political ground had changed in recent years.Leung, vice-chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference,...

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US-China tension: preventing war ‘relies on conversations between their militaries’

Military-to-military communication between China and the United States needs to improve under American President Joe Biden because both sides require a stable relationship to prevent security crises, analysts said.Confrontations between the world’s two giants on multiple fronts from trade to geopolitics will continue after the end of Donald Trump’s...

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Legendary US television host Larry King dies at 87

Larry King, who quizzed thousands of world leaders, politicians and entertainers for CNN and other news outlets in a career spanning more than six decades, has died at age 87, CNN reported on Saturday, citing a source close to the family.King had been hospitalised in Los Angeles with a Covid-19 infection, according to several media reports. He had endured...

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Chinese embassy in US denies asking for talks about Biden-Xi summit

The Chinese embassy in the United States has denied reports that it had sent a letter proposing a meeting between senior officials to discuss a summit between Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Beijing was pushing for a meeting between Yang Jiechi, China’s top diplomat, with Biden aides to...

1h

Taiwan reports large incursion by mainland Chinese air force

Eight mainland Chinese bomber planes and four fighter jets entered the southwestern corner of Taiwan’s air defence identification zone on Saturday, and Taiwan’s air force deployed missiles to “monitor” the incursion, the island’s defence ministry said.Beijing, which claims Taiwan as its own territory, has conducted almost daily flights over the waters...

2h

Coronavirus: Wuhan’s clubbers back in business a year after lockdown

Glow-in-the-dark rabbit ears, pulsating beats and a flexible attitude to masks: nightlife in Wuhan is back with a vengeance a year after a lockdown brought life to a standstill in the central China city of 11 million.As the rest of the world continues to grapple with lockdowns and soaring infections, young people in the city, once the epicentre of the...

2h

China gives coastguards power to fire on foreign ships in disputed waters

China has risked stoking tensions with its neighbours after it passed a law that for the first time explicitly allows its coastguards to fire on foreign vessels and demolish structures built in disputed waters.The coastguard law, passed on Friday by China’s top legislative body, the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, came two years after...

2h

Coronavirus: Japan death toll tops 5,000; Malaysia cases hit new daily high

The death toll from the novel coronavirus in Japan surpassed 5,000 on Saturday as the country struggles to curb a third wave of infections, according to a Kyodo News tally.The pace of deaths linked to the virus has accelerated recently, forcing Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga to declare a state of emergency in 11 of the country’s 47 prefectures, including...

2h

Author still dealing with backlash over Wuhan Diary on city’s fight against Covid-19

The coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan 12 months ago brought a new kind of fame to the Chinese author who goes by the pen name Fang Fang.She wrote what became known as Wuhan Diary , a book about life in the city of 11 million during a lockdown to contain the spread of Covid-19. Even though the book was never approved for publication in China, it became the...

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