Households continued to shift money into mainland China’s US$12.7 trillion stock market last month, suggesting that a rally in equities has room to run, according to data published by the central bank.

Deposits at non-banking financial institutions rose by 1.17 trillion yuan (US$164.3 billion) in August, marking a second month of increases after July saw an inflow of 2.15 trillion yuan, data from the People’s Bank of China showed. The figure covers money parked at brokerages, mutual-fund...

US President Donald Trump said on Monday that he would call a national emergency and federalise the capital, Washington, after Mayor Muriel Bowser said its police would not cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

At issue is the provision of information on individuals living in, or entering, the United States illegally. Trump’s threat adds to a move critics have seen as federal overreach, with more than 2,000 troops patrolling the city.

The comments come after several thousand...

Nearly a quarter of a million people were left without electricity over the weekend in Malaysia’s Sabah state after torrential rain triggered landslides that killed at least one person and took out a transmission tower that cut power across a large area.

Footage shared widely on social media showed the tower leaning precariously after it was hit by a landslide in the district of Penampang on the state’s west coast on Saturday evening.

The incident cut power supply to six districts in Sabah’s...

Targeting its overwhelming coal power capacity – enough to run the entire United States – China is investigating plans to convert retiring coal-fired plants into nuclear power stations.

Driven by decarbonisation goals and land scarcity, this “Coal to Nuclear” (C2N) strategy would look to use retiring plants’ grid and water access for compact, meltdown-proof reactors, potentially offering a faster path to clean energy than building nuclear sites from scratch.

And China could be the only country...

A cafe in southwestern China’s Yunnan province has invented a unique coffee that incorporates a local speciality, penny bun mushrooms.

Every year between June and September, Yunnan enters its annual wild mushroom season and becomes one of the top destinations for Chinese foodies.

Of the wild mushrooms, the most tasty and expensive are termite mushrooms, penny bun mushrooms and matsutake mushrooms.

In August, a cafe in Yunnan released a new product that blends Yunnan’s two specialities, coffee...

Ukraine’s forces have advanced in the border districts of northern Sumy region, an area where Russian troops have tried for months to establish a foothold, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said.

Zelensky, speaking in his nightly video address on Sunday, also quoted Ukraine’s top commander as saying Moscow’s forces had suffered significant losses in the Donetsk and Kharkiv regions along the 1,000km (620-mile) frontline.

Zelensky was speaking after a week of Russian statements...

Australia and Papua New Guinea’s defence forces will be integrated under a new security pact that will be signed this week, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said.

Albanese said on Monday that he and his Papua New Guinean counterpart, James Marape, would sign the pact on Wednesday, a day after celebrating the South Pacific island nation’s 50th anniversary of independence from Australia.

US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau will also be in PNG capital, Port Moresby, for...

More than 90 per cent of clay masks tested in Hong Kong have been found to contain heavy metals, with two exceeding safety limits set by mainland China and the United States, according to the city’s consumer watchdog.

The Consumer Council on Monday called on manufacturers to improve formulations and increase transparency after tests of 30 products priced from HK$79 to HK$610 (US$10 to US$78) showed that heavy metals were commonly present in ingredient lists.

Twenty-eight, or 93.3 per cent,...

Zijin Gold International said it was the world’s fastest-growing gold producer, as the offshore unit of China’s largest miner is poised to launch by Friday an initial public offering (IPO) in Hong Kong that could be the city’s second-biggest sale this year.

Average annual gold output grew 21.4 per cent every year between 2022 and 2024, making it the world’s 11th biggest producer last year, the unit of Zijin Mining Group said in its IPO prospectus. The Hong Kong-based company produced 1.5 million...

Hong Kong parents should not buy private prepaid vaccination plans for their children without prior medical consultation, the consumer watchdog has said, after finding that most service providers do not offer full refunds even if a child is deemed unfit for a jab.

The Consumer Council also called on Monday for private medical facilities and other service providers to be more transparent about their pricing after discovering that 95 per cent of those surveyed required residents to prepay in...