Hi, this is Allen Wan in Shanghai, otherwise known as the world’s most compelling coffee city. I’m enjoying an Americano at a pretty empty Starbucks in my neighborhood as I write this and wondering what the future holds for this iconic American coffee chain in China. Despite getting this tea-drinking nation hooked on lattes and…
First Bakhmut, then Avdiivka, now Pokrovsk. In each of the last three years, Russia’s generals have identified a midsize Ukrainian town as their invasion’s next critical target, expending vast amounts of manpower and hardware to take it. The question is not whether Pokrovsk will fall, but what that will mean for the war. Pokrovsk’s capture…
President Donald Trump’s new plan to end the Gaza war is, in essence, an ultimatum to Hamas to release hostages, give up arms and surrender — or face the full force of the Israeli military with the US’s explicit blessing. Trump said Israel would have his “full backing to finish the job” if Hamas rejects…
An ongoing development is the project announced in August 2025, where China took a significant step toward a paradigm shift in its urban and technological development by presenting a detailed strategic plan to transform its cities by 2035 into “cities for the people.” This ambitious project seeks to substantially improve quality of life through the…
The Boring Co.’s lead architect has left the tunneling company founded by Elon Musk to join an autonomous transportation startup backed by investors including OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman. Stephen Skilbred, who since 2021 has worked at Boring, recently joined Glydways Inc., a representative for the South San Francisco-based developer of self-driving transit vehicles told Bloomberg…
Hong Kong is in talks with several Chinese electric-vehicle makers to establish local EV manufacturing, according to people familiar with the matter, as the financial hub looks to advanced industries to diversify its ailing economy. The city’s officials aim to develop an EV assembly base — a relatively complex process requiring advanced skills, the people…
Chinese President Xi Jinping secured an agreement from partner countries to set up a new development bank, realizing a longtime ambition in a display of Beijing’s growing influence. Members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization agreed to establish the institution, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Monday at the end of the two-day SCO summit that…
Liquidity conditions in Hong Kong resumed tightening this week with a key money-market rate climbing above a level that some analysts say may stifle a nascent economic recovery. The benchmark one-month Hong Kong Interbank Offered Rate — or Hibor — jumped above the closely watched threshold of 3% Wednesday, reaching the highest since May. If…
The cityscape of Hong Kong, which grew over the course of two centuries from a fishing village to a colonial port to a gleaming metropolis and international financial center, has long proven hard to visualize. In his classic 1997 study Hong Kong: Culture and the Politics of Disappearance, published just months before the region’s handover…
According to Zelenskyy, Russia has failed to conquer the Donetsk region of Eastern Ukraine, which Moscow has pushed to control since 2014. Russian President Vladimir Putin “has been unable to take it for 12 years, and the constitution of Ukraine makes it impossible … to give up territory or trade land,” Zelenskyy said. The New…