Ace Aguirre was just two bites into his oatmeal on the morning of November 4 when he noticed something strange: mud had seeped onto the living room floor of his bungalow in Cotcot, a village in the Philippines’ Cebu province. The moments that followed will be forever seared into Aguirre’s memory. His living room furniture…
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr lauded domestic helper Rhodora Alcaraz as a hero for her role in saving her employer’s baby during Hong Kong’s deadliest fire in decades. Romulo Victor M Israel Jnr, the country’s top diplomat in Hong Kong, also told the Post that Alcaraz, a survivor of last month’s inferno at Wang Fuk…
Senior US officials on Monday pushed back against suggestions of American retreat from the Indo-Pacific, declaring that Washington is recalibrating its foreign assistance to more effectively outcompete China in the strategically vital region while maintaining support for allies through targeted aid and security cooperation. The focus, they said, is shifting away from broad assistance towards…
Two non-governmental organisations serving Hong Kong’s large community of about 400,000 domestic helpers, mostly women from the Philippines and Indonesia, have joined forces to train some of them as community leaders to support their peers. Many NGOs may lack the resources and capacity to help individual workers, who work long hours far away from home…
A domestic helper who died in Hong Kong’s devastating Tai Po fire last month planned to return home permanently to the Philippines to be with her 10-year-old son and was due to leave on Saturday, the Post has learned. Maryan Pascual Esteban, 39, died with her ward, five-year-old Hannah, in the inferno at the Wang…
An inherent “asymmetry” of power poses a challenge to resolving South China Sea disputes via the quiet diplomacy traditionally favoured by Southeast Asian nations, a leading Malaysian security expert has said. Chinese analysts said Beijing supported the “Asean way” too, so long as sovereignty claims were resolved bilaterally. They also warned against external interference and…
Hong Kong-based Chow Tai Fook Enterprises (CTFE), the private investment holding company of the Cheng family and the parent firm of debt-ridden New World Development (NWD), has no plans to sell its prized Rosewood brand, according to sources familiar with the matter. “Rosewood has delivered exceptional results in recent years and is one of the…
The remains of nine Indonesian nationals who died in the devastating Tai Po inferno could soon be returned to their home country, as most burial orders have now been issued, the Post has learned. The Indonesian consulate in Hong Kong told the Post on Thursday morning that a visit by a delegation from the country’s…
An Indonesian foreign ministry delegation in Hong Kong is hoping to expedite the repatriation of the bodies of nine helpers who died in the devastating Tai Po fire two weeks ago, with the country’s consulate also praising its nationals’ resilience in the face of tragedy. The Indonesian team joined the Philippines’ top diplomat in Hong…
The Philippines has released footage showing a patrol aircraft flying past a militarized Chinese artificial island on Saturday while conducting surveillance in the contested Spratly Islands, and claims the Chinese side fired flares toward the plane. Why It Matters China asserts sovereignty over more than 80 percent of the South China Sea, a crucial global…