World News by Wild Rose

We have put together stories from our coverage last weekend to help you stay informed about news across Asia and beyond. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. Brics members find common ground on AI, trade and de-dollarisation push 2. China urges US to ‘stop all’ spying activities, slams ‘gangster logic’ 3. Police freeze HK$30 million in account of man who refused to share Mark Six prize 4. India-Pakistan water row deepens after Hague court ruling 5....

A lunch supplier will stop portioning meals in classrooms at a Hong Kong primary school following a suspected food poisoning outbreak that hit 39 pupils and staff members last week. Danny Catering Service said in a statement on Sunday to its school partners, parents and teachers that the incident was “isolated” and linked to the school’s portioning arrangement, and did not affect its services at other locations. “To ensure student food safety and avoid potential cross-contamination or...

Hong Kong police are investigating the deaths of a couple in their seventies after their bodies were discovered inside their home in Ma On Shan. Police said officers were alerted at around 8pm on Friday to a strange odour emanating from a flat in Heng Yat House at Heng On Estate. Firefighters forced entry to the flat, discovering a 72-year-old man and his 74-year-old wife lying in the living room, police said, adding the couple were pronounced dead at the scene. No suicide note was found, and...

Veteran Hong Kong actor and filmmaker Simon Loui Yu-yeung, better known to fans as the “King of Ghosts” for his prolific work in horror films, has died at the age of 62. Long-time friend and fellow actor Frankie Ng Chi-hung revealed the news to reporters on Friday. He said Loui’s wife, TV and radio personality Ma Li, had confirmed the filmmaker had died in a hospital in Guangzhou on Monday after losing his battle with gastric cancer. “The family hoped to stay low profile. There was no big...

This article was published on September 12, 2011. Veteran Ip wins best actress in Venice by Adrian Wan Veteran Hong Kong movie star Deanie Ip Tak-han was named best actress at the Venice Film Festival for her portrayal of an ageing domestic servant in Ann Hui On-wah’s film A Simple Life (Tao Jie). The award, a first for a Hongkonger, was a crowning achievement for the 63-year-old Ip, who returned to the big screen for the first time in a decade to take the film’s leading role. The movie also...

Tung Chee-hwa, Hong Kong’s first chief executive who oversaw the city’s 1997 return to Chinese rule, has died. According to a statement from his office issued in the early hours on Wednesday, he died on Tuesday at the age of 89, surrounded by his loved ones. It is understood that he died at the Hong Kong Sanatorium & Hospital. Tung was also a vice-chairman of China’s top political advisory body, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. In this live blog, the South China Morning...

The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Cambodian education authorities to expand a computational training programme to cover early childhood learning in the Southeast Asian nation. The MOU, which builds on an earlier agreement signed last year to roll out the club’s CoolThink@JC programme in the country’s primary schools, was signed at the PBC (Philanthropy for Better Cities) Forum 2026 on Tuesday. The programme was launched in 2016 and...

Hong Kong authorities have reserved the right to seek compensation from contractors over faulty lift installation work that has delayed operations at Queen Mary Hospital’s new block, the development minister has said. Secretary for Development Bernadette Linn Hon-ho said on Tuesday that the main contractor, a Paul Y-Able joint venture, and lift subcontractor Anlev Elex Elevator would be required to bear all costs of remedial work, ensuring public expenditure on the project would not...

Up to 200 Hong Kong-bound domestic helpers remain stranded in Indonesia despite the reopening of several affected airports, as the city’s employment agencies association braces for possible further closures due to volcanic ash. The Indonesian transport ministry said Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta International Airport resumed operations on Tuesday after being shut for several days, following the eruption of Mount Anak Krakatoa on Saturday, which affected thousands of travellers. Among those stranded...

Hong Kong’s tourism watchdog has revoked the licences of two travel agencies and a guide after finding they failed to protect members of mainland Chinese tour groups from being subjected to “coerced shopping”. The Travel Industry Authority said on Monday that the licences of Go Go Ming Travel Services, Grandee Travel Company and guide Sun Kwun-ying had been revoked with immediate effect. “The authority adopts a zero-tolerance approach towards coerced shopping and any conduct that damages the...

Hong Kong police have arrested a man in connection with a scam in which at least 14 people were hired to “sell flags” for an animal concern group after they were spotted carrying fake donation bags and mixing with registered volunteers to collect money from passers-by. The rare street scam came to light during the group’s flag day on Saturday, a Social Welfare Department-approved fundraising initiative under which about 800 registered volunteers from the Hong Kong Saving Cat and Dog Association...

English Premier League football club Chelsea’s lucrative new front-of-shirt sponsorship deal with a stablecoin issuer has left Hong Kong fans and retailers concerned about whether wearing or selling the top counts as illegal promotion under digital currency laws. Chelsea signed the deal with Circle to feature its USDC stablecoin brand on player jerseys for the 2026-27 season in late August, just three months after the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) warned Premier League clubs about...

Hong Kong has always had a simple answer to what young people should do with their lives: study hard, get a job, work harder, buy a flat and eventually complain about the next generation. That formula is becoming harder to sell. A whole lexicon has grown up around Generation Z’s uneasy relationship with work. In mainland China, there are “full-time children”, young adults who stay home and receive an allowance from their parents in return for doing household chores and running errands....

Hundreds of Hong Kong residents and visitors braved the heat on Saturday morning to visit a popular Sai Kung trail overlooking hexagonal rock columns, as a trial reservation system requiring real-name registration came into force, with some calling for the restrictions to be eased. The Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department announced the arrangement last month, capping visitor numbers at 2,000 per designated day between 9am and 5pm for the Po Pin Chau section of the High Island Geo...

An overhead electronic display was left dangling in the air at Hong Kong airport’s newly reopened Terminal 2, prompting authorities to pledge a detailed investigation. A spokesman said the incident occurred at about 8.30am on Saturday, when a suspended screen “experienced a technical fault”, triggering its fall-arrest safety system. “The Airport Authority takes the incident very seriously and will conduct a detailed investigation into the cause, with a view to further enhancing the stability of...

Anita Lee Yan-kwan grew up around a traditional business that supplied fish balls to Hong Kong’s street food stalls and eateries. But for decades, Kau Kee Food Factory’s signature product was known only among industry operators until Lee, a second-generation owner, opened the company’s first retail store late last year. Kau Kee has operated as a silent giant in the food industry for 66 years, supplying its fish balls to nearly 1,000 eateries and snack stalls across the city. But it finally...

Five former employees of Hong Kong supermarket chain ParknShop and its contractors have pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to defraud by falsifying workers’ attendance records to cheat the retail giant of HK$3.2 million (US$408,000). The Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) on Friday said an investigation revealed that the former supermarket employees colluded with contractor staff over two years to deceive ParknShop by falsifying attendance records of 13 warehouse workers who...

City University of Hong Kong has disciplined students over an orientation event with a disco theme in which a half-naked man was seen carrying a woman wearing only a bra and shorts, two days after the institution said it had “zero tolerance” for improper conduct. The institution said on Friday that all students involved in the orientation camp incident on August 27 had admitted their mistakes, formally apologised to the university and accepted disciplinary action. “The University’s Student...

A Hong Kong Nepalese man is searching for his cousin who is missing after the catastrophic flood struck the Himalayan border between Nepal and Tibet. Y.B. Gurung, a 64-year-old retiree, told the South China Morning Post that he last spoke with his tour guide cousin Raju Gurung, 40, at 8am on August 26, shortly before a massive glacial collapse triggered the flash flood that washed away villages and left at least 1,225 people dead. “I cannot sleep every night. I am praying every day that he was...

Hong Kong authorities have arrested a man and woman from a clinic on suspicion of selling a laboratory reagent as a bogus vaccine against more than 20 types of cancer. The arrests followed a joint operation by the Department of Health and police, during which investigators raided 13 premises linked to the company, said Frank Chan Ling-fung, an assistant director of health who oversees drug matters. Chan said there had been no reports of illness among people who had received the “WT1 cancer...

Hong Kong police have arrested a man on suspicion of stealing nearly HK$6,000 (US$770) in foreign currency while flying to the city from Thailand, with a passenger allegedly capturing the incident on camera and reporting it to cabin crew. The force said the 57-year-old man was arrested for the alleged theft after the HK Express flight landed in the city shortly before midnight on Wednesday. While police estimated the currency was worth about HK$6,000, a source put the amount at 25,000 baht,...

Hong Kong education authorities have reminded a school to consider the needs of students when enforcing rules after many were forced to wait in a long line outside the campus in the rain to have their uniforms and hair checked on the first day of the new academic year. The Education Bureau also made a similar call to another school, where students deemed to have failed with hair grooming rules were told to remain on campus until they could contact their parents. Dozens of online posts showed a...

Hong Kong customs has arrested a man and seized HK$42 million (US$5.3 million) worth of the illegal narcotic “space oil” from a workshop fitted with a semi-automated production line capable of churning out as many as 160,000 cartridges in a short span. Senior Investigator Chan Kit-lun of the Customs and Excise Department’s drug investigation bureau said on Wednesday officers intercepted a suspicious man the previous day and escorted him to a property in Kam Tin, Yuen Long. Inside, they found...

Hong Kong customs officers have arrested a woman on suspicion of using aggressive tactics to sell skincare products at a local beauty chain formerly operating under the Opatra London brand, bringing the number of arrests in the case to three. The Customs and Excise Department said on Wednesday that the beauty consultant, 22, allegedly pressured a customer into making purchases at the now-closed Sha Tin New Town Plaza outlet, which was formerly operated by Sayles Retail. The local woman...

Fourteen people, including nine children, have been injured in a collision involving two school buses at a Hong Kong girls’ primary school. The Fire Services Department said on Wednesday that it dispatched 10 ambulances to handle the accident at 1.26pm at Good Hope Primary School cum Kindergarten, located at No 381 Jat’s Incline in Ngau Chi Wan. Eight of the 14 injured people were sent to United Christian Hospital in Kwun Tong for treatment, while another five were admitted to Kwong Wah Hospital...