A Hong Kong taxi driver has died and two passengers have been injured after a head-on collision with a bus on Hiram’s Highway in Sai Kung. The crash occurred at about 6.47pm on Saturday near Pak Sha Terrace, when the taxi veered across the centre line and struck the front of a KMB route 92 bus heading in the opposite direction towards Clear Water Bay, police said. Rescuers freed the driver, 64, who was unconscious and trapped in the taxi. He was taken to Tseung Kwan O Hospital and later...

As the United States marks the 250th anniversary of its founding, it confronts a new world order dominated by its relationship with China. In this wide-ranging series, we examine the pressure points and possibilities in those ties, from hard tech to soft power. Here, Lucy Quaggin looks at how Gen Z Chinese-Americans are navigating identity amid shifting US-China tensions. As a high school student on New York City’s Upper East Side, Chinese-American Hannah Liu would take the subway downtown on...

Japan has partnered with the UN Development Programme (UNDP) to support Kazakhstan’s efforts to address the decline in the Caspian Sea’s water level driven by climate change, pledging a 465 million yen (US$3 million) grant towards its sustainable use. Under the initiative for the world’s largest inland water body, Japan hopes to promote cooperation among littoral states on water resource management and enhance monitoring systems, according to the foreign ministry. The decline in the Caspian...

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun on Saturday urged the United States to stand by his country, after reaching a US-backed framework deal with Israel aiming to permanently end hostilities after the latest Israel-Hezbollah war. The deal reached in Washington calls for the disarmament of Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah, a gradual Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon and the deployment of the Lebanese army there, starting with two “pilot” areas. Hezbollah has rejected the deal, which does not...

Omar Yaghi, the winner of last year’s Nobel Prize for chemistry, has left the United States to lead a new AI-driven research centre at China’s Tsinghua University. The 61-year-old materials scientist will head a team working on ways artificial intelligence (AI) can transform the design and synthesis of new materials and shorten their development cycle “by orders of magnitude”, Tsinghua said on Friday. Speaking at his appointment ceremony, Yaghi said he hoped to develop materials to tackle major...

Beijing on Saturday rotated a new coastguard task force into waters east of Taiwan. The second such deployment in about a month came days after China’s top diplomat urged Washington to exercise “utmost prudence” on the self-governed island. The move also comes close on the heels of high-level talks with the Philippines, where Beijing pressed Manila to match words with deeds and stabilise bilateral relations amid persistent South China Sea tensions. The Chinese coastguard said on Saturday that...

Police have arrested a man on suspicion of dangerous driving and trafficking dangerous drugs after he fled a stop and led officers on a high-speed chase across Hong Kong Island, ending in a five-vehicle crash that left one person injured. The force said officers attempted to stop a suspicious car on Wah Fu Road near Waterfall Bay in Aberdeen at 4.57pm on Saturday, but the driver sped off, heading through the Aberdeen Tunnel towards Causeway Bay. At about 5.35pm, the driver collided with a taxi,...