Hong Kong’s finance chief has confirmed an early operating account surplus driven by strong financial market performance and stock trading stamp duty revenue, as he addressed calls for more elderly welfare measures at the first public forum for the coming budget. Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po vowed on Saturday to make “utmost” efforts to address…
Air travellers making the descent into Islamabad, Nairobi or São Paulo may be struck by the sight of solar panels scattered liberally over the rooftops. Regular visitors to Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital city, will probably have detected a marked improvement in air quality and traffic noise of late, owing to the shift from combustion engines towards…
The Indian Navy announced major progress in next-gen defence tech, emphasising that it will not fall behind the global technology curve. Over ₹450 crore has already been disbursed for innovation projects, with ₹1,500 crore allotted across 16 contracts. Vice Chief of Naval Staff Vice Admiral Sanjay Vatsyayan responded to concerns over China supplying submarines to…
The Nexperia factory in Dongguan, in the heart of southern China’s Pearl River Delta, has long been a poster child for successful globalisation. Since its launch in 2000, the plant, which covers an area the size of 10 football fields, has operated 24 hours a day, seven days a week, non-stop. Following its most recent…
The Middle East is no longer asking whether it should develop domestic space capabilities; it’s deciding with whom it will develop them. If the United States wants to be the country of choice ahead of China, it must create a joint space partnership agreement framework to align American and partner nations’ industry, government and financial…
China appears to be winning the international tech race, and it isn’t particularly close. (Credit: Pla2na on Shutterstock) In A Nutshell China led remote sensing papers in 2021–2023 with ~47%; the U.S. had ~9%. Chinese funders were acknowledged in about 54% of papers in 2021–2023; U.S. funders in about 5%. Chinese entities held a dominant…
The tenuous trade truce between Washington and Beijing has collapsed. What lies ahead is less a conventional trade war and more of a sustained struggle in which both powers codify coercion into their economic statecraft and increasingly weaponize interdependence as a source of leverage. In this new, emerging phase, confrontation will no longer be perceived…
Another year, another failed attempt. U.S. President Donald Trump’s inability to secure this year’s Nobel Peace Prize was predictable. The odds that he will ever win the prize remain slim. Yet this latest knockback is only likely to redouble Trump’s desire to win in future years, putting renewed energy behind one of the most important…
On Sept. 25, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order that he says will allow TikTok to continue operating in the country while complying with national security concerns. After a phone call with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Sept. 19, Trump said he had reached an agreement for a U.S. investor group led by…
Hong Kong is accelerating reforms of its financial market by making the sector’s ecosystem more resilient and comprehensive, a minister has said, as the city grapples with geopolitics and a rapidly changing technology-led global landscape. Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po also said on Sunday that Hong Kong would take a two-pronged approach by strengthening its…