Hong Kong Mother’s Day dining shifts from traditional banquets to casual meals
Business

Hong Kong Mother’s Day dining shifts from traditional banquets to casual meals

Banquet restaurants, popular in past years for big celebrations, report weaker Mother’s Day trade as families opt for lunch, afternoon tea or hotpot Mother’s Day business at many traditional Chinese banquet restaurants in Hong Kong has been weaker than last year, with diners increasingly opting for lunch and afternoon tea celebrations or non-traditional meals such as hotpot, industry representatives have said. Busy areas such as Causeway Bay were bustling with families on Sunday, as residents flocked to restaurants and shopping malls to celebrate, some carrying flowers and cards. “I did not want to do a very big dinner this year because everywhere is crowded on Mother’s Day,” said a 56-year-old housewife, who only gave her surname Wong. She said she was having lunch with her daughter at a dim sum restaurant on Leighton Hill Road. “We just came out for a simpler meal in the afternoon instead. My daughter booked it a few days ago because she was worried walk-in would take too long.” Kelvin Cheung, 29, who works in the IT industry, said his family had moved away from the traditional Chinese restaurant celebrations they used to have when he was younger.

Pakistani Taliban splinter group claims suicide attack, 14 police dead
Business

Pakistani Taliban splinter group claims suicide attack, 14 police dead

A suicide bomber and several gunmen detonated an explosives-laden vehicle near a police station in Bannu, a district bordering Afghanistan. The death toll from a suicide attack on a security post in northwest Pakistan rose to 14 police officers, authorities said early on Sunday. A self-proclaimed breakaway group of the Pakistani Taliban has claimed the attack. A suicide bomber and several gunmen detonated an explosives-laden vehicle near the post in Bannu, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, late on Saturday, senior police official Sajjad Khan said. The attack triggered an intense shoot-out, and some officers were killed in the exchange, while others died later after the building collapsed. Rescuers conducted an hours-long search operation using heavy machinery to retrieve bodies from under the rubble, Khan said, adding that three police officers were wounded in the attack. Meanwhile, hundreds gathered on Sunday at the police headquarters in Bannu to attend the funerals of the slain officers. Uniformed colleagues stood in silence as coffins draped in the national flag were carried past grieving families.

Alibaba brings chat-style shopping to Taobao and Qwen amid AI gateway push: source
Business

Alibaba brings chat-style shopping to Taobao and Qwen amid AI gateway push: source

E-commerce giant is integrating Qwen with Taobao and Tmall, enabling shoppers to use natural-language commands instead of keyword searches Users of the company’s flagship AI assistant Qwen – one of the most popular in China – would soon be able to use natural language to “talk” with the chatbot app to find and buy items listed on Alibaba’s Taobao and Tmall shopping platforms, according to one person familiar with the plan. The move follows an update earlier this year, when Alibaba unveiled plans to embed Qwen more deeply across its sprawling ecosystem built over decades – spanning e-commerce, food delivery, travel booking and movie ticket purchases. The integration enables users to complete tasks through simple text or voice commands, reducing the need to navigate multiple apps and repeated clicks, and marks the latest push by the tech giant to turn its AI model into a gateway for daily services. Analysts said the Qwen and Taobao integration signalled a shift from keyword-based e-commerce searches to “conversational shopping”, where consumers described needs in plain language while AI did the browsing.

Spanish, Brazilian flotilla activists released after detention in Israel
Business

Spanish, Brazilian flotilla activists released after detention in Israel

Israel deported two activists it detained near Greece for leading an aid flotilla attempting to break the naval blockade on Gaza Israel deported two activists on Sunday after being detained near Greece for slightly over a week for leading an aid flotilla attempting to break the Israeli naval blockade of the Gaza Strip. The two, Spanish-Swedish citizen of Palestinian origin Saif Abukeshek and Brazilian citizen Thiago Ávila, were among dozens of activists intercepted by the Israeli navy off the coast of Crete. Both are members of the Global Sumud Flotilla’s steering committee, whose mission is to break Israel’s naval blockade and bring humanitarian aid to the Palestinian territory. The Israeli Foreign Ministry called the two activists “professional provocateurs” in a post on social media on Sunday, saying “Israel will not allow any breach of the lawful naval blockade on Gaza.” At the time of the arrest, Israeli authorities said the two had been detained for questioning, and that Abukeshek was “suspected of affiliation with a terrorist organisation” and Ávila was “suspected of illegal activity,” without providing evidence. No formal charges against them have been publicised.

Why Trump’s war on Iran may be ‘accelerating end of US hegemony’ and damaging Stargate
Business

Why Trump’s war on Iran may be ‘accelerating end of US hegemony’ and damaging Stargate

Washington is fighting the ‘wrong war’ and Tehran is able to undermine the US president’s key AI strategy, an event in Beijing told But Li Wei, associate dean of the school of international relations at Renmin University, said the war had struck at the heart of the policy after Iran attacked data centres in the UAE. “Trump’s first priority upon taking office was the Stargate project,” Li told the China Macroeconomy Forum in Beijing on Saturday. “Last May, he visited the Middle East specifically to ground this project in the region. Currently, Iran’s attacks on computing centres in the UAE have cast uncertainty over Stargate’s Middle Eastern expansion.”

Could Spain’s ‘compliment sandwich’ approach to China work for the EU?
Industry

Could Spain’s ‘compliment sandwich’ approach to China work for the EU?

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s recent visit to Beijing illustrates ‘delicate equilibrium’, analyst says as others voice scepticism Sanchez pushed for closer ties with Beijing while raising concerns over a persistent bilateral trade deficit and the Ukraine war, an approach that analysts said could serve as a diplomatic template for Brussels amid its fraying relationship with Washington. According to Wang Hanyi, a research fellow at the Shanghai International Studies University, the Spanish leader “achieved a delicate equilibrium between high-level strategic rhetoric and pragmatic cooperation”. “The equilibrium provides a viable blueprint for European countries navigating their ties with China,” Wang said. However, some analysts have voiced scepticism, arguing that Spain’s “compliment sandwich” approach of pairing praise with pointed criticism was a tried-and-tested failed model that would do little to change Beijing’s behaviour on important issues.

Can China engineer a price recovery that doesn’t make people feel poorer?
Industry

Can China engineer a price recovery that doesn’t make people feel poorer?

The producer price uptick offers a policy window: if reinforced by household demand and expectations, it could kick off a broader recovery China may finally have a chance to loosen the grip of deflation. Yet, the more important question is whether it can do so without making households feel poorer first. But last month’s purchasing managers’ index (PMI) suggests a rockier path than some might expect – and why the policy window should not be wasted. Manufacturing remained in expansion with the official April PMI at 50.3, but non-manufacturing activity returned to contraction at 49.4, with services at 49.6 and construction at 48.0. While the index for raw material purchase prices remained elevated at 63.7, the factory-gate price index stood at 55.1. This means price pressure is returning ahead of demand, profits and household confidence. This is why this moment matters. If the producer price uptick can be reinforced by stronger household demand and firmer expectations, this could mark the start of a broader recovery. Otherwise, China risks a more fragile outcome, where rising cost pressure is not matched by consumption strength, with a price rebound that weakens confidence rather than restoring it.

Shadow APIs: how Chinese developers bypass restrictions to access Claude and Gemini
Innovation

Shadow APIs: how Chinese developers bypass restrictions to access Claude and Gemini

One high-volume seller on Xianyu advertises ‘low-latency, no-VPN’ access to the full Claude 3.5 suite In China, a grey market of API relay platforms is thriving, allowing local developers to bypass restrictions to access top-tier overseas AI models such as Anthropic’s Claude and Google’s Gemini, which are not officially supported in China, despite an escalating crackdown by the foreign providers. Such relay stations, which route access to overseas AI models through proxy servers hosted outside mainland China, are becoming a go-to place for developers wanting to use US AI models for tasks such as coding, debugging and image generation. On Chinese online marketplaces Taobao and Xianyu, relay providers are advertising native Claude Opus access, unlimited Claude Code subscriptions and 1:1 official models without capability reduction. Most sellers promote support for one-million-token context windows, domestic network access without VPNs, and compatibility with tools such as Cursor, VSCode and OpenClaw. One high-volume seller on Xianyu, who has fulfilled more than 2,200 orders, advertised “low-latency, no-VPN” access to the full Claude 3.5 suite.

KFC, McDonald’s drive-throughs in China get EV charging, upgraded smart systems
Markets

KFC, McDonald’s drive-throughs in China get EV charging, upgraded smart systems

KFC now operates over 7,000 drive-through restaurants nationwide, including kerbside pickups, according to Yum China Global fast-food chain KFC is adding more electric vehicle (EV) charging stations and McDonald’s is upgrading digital services, as the fast-food sector turns to digital convenience to draw more customers to drive-through stores amid fierce competition, according to analysts. KFC now operates over 7,000 drive-through restaurants nationwide, including kerbside pickups, according to the first-quarter earnings report of Yum China, operator of KFC and Pizza Hut in mainland China and Hong Kong. The chain said it would further utilise tech innovation to boost efficiency for orders and pickups at drive-through outlets in China. “Drive-through is being folded into a broader convenience strategy, as consumers increasingly expect speed and instant fulfilment,” said Chloe He, director of Asia-Pacific corporate ratings at Fitch Ratings.

China scrambles to close AI security gap as Anthropic, OpenAI pull ahead with new models
Innovation

China scrambles to close AI security gap as Anthropic, OpenAI pull ahead with new models

IDC projects that China’s AI cybersecurity industry will be valued at US$8.7 billion by 2030, a more than 37-fold increase from 2025 While leading US artificial intelligence developers such as Anthropic and OpenAI unveil new models with enhanced cybersecurity capabilities, China is also aggressively scaling up its own AI-driven cyber defence market. “Our assessment is that China’s own Mythos will definitely emerge, though currently the overall capabilities of its cybersecurity models are far from those of Mythos,” said Austin Zhao, senior research manager at IDC China. “But the overall trend is inevitable because the capabilities of China’s models are also rapidly increasing.” IDC projected that China’s AI cybersecurity industry would be valued at 59.35 billion yuan (US$8.7 billion) by 2030, a more than 37-fold increase from 1.58 billion yuan in 2025. The growth would be driven by domestic cybersecurity vendors’ adoption of AI in their product offerings, which was already having a “significant impact” on the industry, Zhao said.

Turning the tables: how 3 Hong Kong mothers are spinning trauma into hope as DJs
Business

Turning the tables: how 3 Hong Kong mothers are spinning trauma into hope as DJs

Bonding over struggles of single parenthood, three DJs are hoping to turn their music into a business with help from a social enterprise After suffering an abusive marriage and the exhaustion of a decade of childcare, Lee will spend Mother’s Day on Sunday with renewed hope. The 28-year-old is set to perform for a private event at The Peninsula Hong Kong hotel and ultimately hopes to make a living from it. Such an opportunity was once unimaginable for the full-time mother, who said she had mostly spent her prime years caring for her children, now aged 10, eight and six. “At that time, I felt so trapped in the reality that I had three children, and that I had to bear the full responsibility for them and make them my priority no matter what,” said Lee, who is recovering from a long history of borderline personality disorder. Relying on a cocktail of medication to manage her emotions for 14 years until 2024, she recounted a dark episode during her first pregnancy – when she was 19 years old – that turned her life around and made her commit to caring for a life she brought into the world. “That was the first time I wanted to commit suicide. I already went up to the roof. But then, I felt the baby kicking in my womb,” she said.

Divorced from reality? Japan’s joint custody reform divides parents
Business

Divorced from reality? Japan’s joint custody reform divides parents

Critics call the legal change a ‘cosmetic’ fix for a system that still allows one parent to simply disappear Until last month, Japanese law required one parent to hold sole custody of children after a divorce, leaving the other party reliant on informal goodwill or court-encouraged visitation to maintain a relationship with their child. For Watanabe, 54, the result was a system seemingly designed to exclude him, where one parent could disappear from a child’s life entirely – not through any court ruling, but through the simple refusal to cooperate. That system has now changed, at least on paper. On April 1, Japan revised its Civil Code to allow parents to share custody after divorce: a change backed by a majority of the public and welcomed by parents who believe children benefit from the continued presence of their mothers and fathers in their lives. A poll published by the Mainichi newspaper on April 22 found just 10 per cent of respondents were opposed to the changes, with 53 per cent in favour. But Watanabe is not among them. “This legal reform provides absolutely no benefit to high-conflict couples and does not consider the best interests of the child at all,” he said.