Hantavirus-hit cruise ship nears Canary Islands for WHO-led evacuation
Business

Hantavirus-hit cruise ship nears Canary Islands for WHO-led evacuation

About 150 people will be flown home once the MV Hondius docks at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Spain A cruise ship hit with a deadly hantavirus outbreak is headed for Spain’s Canary Islands, where most of the nearly 150 people on board will be evacuated and flown home after weeks at sea. The Dutch-flagged MV Hondius is expected to reach waters off Tenerife at dawn on Sunday, where WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is due to help coordinate the ship’s evacuation. Three passengers from the ship – a Dutch husband and wife and a German woman – have died, while others have fallen sick with the rare disease, which usually spreads among rodents. The only hantavirus type that can transmit from person to person – the Andes virus – has been confirmed among those who have tested positive, fuelling international concern. “We classify everybody on board as what we call a high-risk contact,” WHO’s epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention director Maria Van Kerkhove said on Saturday. But the risk to the general public and the people of the Canaries remained low, she added.

May 10, 2026
Is Hong Kong’s cultural hub of West Kowloon emerging as ‘Central 2.0’?
Business

Is Hong Kong’s cultural hub of West Kowloon emerging as ‘Central 2.0’?

SHKP to benefit as tenants including UBS, JPMorgan Chase and Banco Santander set to move into new office space near high-speed rail station However, there was expected to be limited demand from newcomers or via corporate expansion, with leasing activity dominated by relocations and higher vacancy rates in some of the city’s other business districts. UBS plans to begin moving into the building from the fourth quarter, bringing together staff currently spread across five offices, including Two IFC and One Peking Road. “West Kowloon is Hong Kong’s future-focused international business district,” said Lo King-wai, executive director at Sun Hung Kai Real Estate Agency. “It is rapidly emerging as ‘Central 2.0’ and a dynamic hub for commerce, arts, culture, sustainability and retail.”

May 10, 2026
Rise of China complicates ‘authoritarian’ vs ‘democratic’ binary
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Rise of China complicates ‘authoritarian’ vs ‘democratic’ binary

As China’s trajectory exposes the limitations of labels inherited from another era, understanding how governance systems work is more important There is growing unease in how we describe political systems today. Words that once seemed clear no longer illuminate as they should. “Free”, “democratic”, “liberal” and “authoritarian” are among the most commonly used terms in political discourse, yet their meanings have become increasingly blurred and contested. This is not simply a matter of semantics. It reflects a deeper mismatch between the language we use and the realities we are trying to describe. The problem is not new. In George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, published in 1949, he warned of a world where political language is stripped of precision and repurposed to shape perception rather than convey truth. While today’s discourse is far more open, that concern is increasingly loud in the way political labels are deployed – less as analytical tools and more as signals of approval or disapproval. Within that framework, “authoritarianism” became its opposite: a system assumed to be rigid, repressive and ultimately inefficient.

May 10, 2026
China TV variety show exposes scam linking ‘peace’ sign selfies to privacy risks
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China TV variety show exposes scam linking ‘peace’ sign selfies to privacy risks

Experts warn that seemingly innocent photographs exposing fingerprints can be harvested and copied by criminals intent on fraud A casual peace sign in a selfie has become China’s latest online privacy concern after experts warned that the popular pose could expose users’ fingerprints. In a mainland workplace reality show aired in April, financial expert Li Chang used a celebrity selfie to show how clearly visible fingers in a photograph could put personal biometric data at risk. Li said fingerprints could potentially be extracted from selfies taken within 1.5 metres if the fingers faced the camera directly. Even at a distance of 1.5 to 3 metres, around half of the hand details could still be recovered. The programme showed fingerprint ridges becoming visible after the image was enhanced with photo-editing software and artificial intelligence (AI) tools. According to China Newsweek, Jing Jiwu, a cryptography professor at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, said portrait photos taken with high-quality cameras could make it possible to reconstruct hand details from a “scissor hand” pose. He noted that fingerprint recovery was usually difficult due to factors such as lighting, focus and image clarity.

May 10, 2026
Bar Association proposes ‘double-track’ approach to criminalising bid-rigging
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Bar Association proposes ‘double-track’ approach to criminalising bid-rigging

Chairman Jose-Antonio Maurellet says implementing ‘criminal track’ alongside ‘civil track’ to encourage whistle-blowing will increase deterrence The Hong Kong Bar Association has proposed criminalising bid-rigging by introducing a “double-track” approach to the Competition Ordinance, describing it as a quick fix to increase deterrence and encourage more whistle-blowers to expose industry malpractice following the city’s deadliest fire in decades. Under the current civil regime established in 2015, the ordinance only punishes individuals involved in serious anticompetitive acts, such as bid-rigging, with fines. But the new proposal calls for creating a separate “criminal track” to tackle such acts and suggested a maximum penalty of seven years in prison, association chairman Jose-Antonio Maurellet told the South China Morning Post. An association task force reviewed the local legislation and studied practices in other jurisdictions, following last November’s Tai Po fire, which claimed 168 lives and displaced nearly 5,000 residents.

May 10, 2026
China’s AI drive seen widening wealth gap, testing ‘common prosperity’ push
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China’s AI drive seen widening wealth gap, testing ‘common prosperity’ push

With Beijing’s ‘AI-plus’ plan looking to grow the nation’s digital economy, experts warn that hubs could further outpace rural regions, fuelling inequality China wants artificial intelligence to become a new engine of growth, powering everything from factory upgrades to scientific discovery. But outside the country’s technology hubs, the economic benefits promised by AI may be harder to realise. Recent studies suggest that AI will widen regional divides. Big cities with deep pools of talent, capital and innovative firms are best placed to adopt the technology, while smaller cities and rural areas may struggle to keep up. “Inevitably, we will see that the gains are not equal,” said Lynn Song, chief economist for Greater China at ING. “Those who are most directly connected to the core parts of China’s AI supply chain will benefit more.” The capital, Shanghai and Shenzhen are expected to be clear beneficiaries. These cities already possess large technology clusters, strong universities and local governments with the resources to back new industries, according to Liam Sides, an associate director at Oxford Economics. China’s leaders have made clear that they want AI to become a new economic driver across the economy.

May 10, 2026
Gold vs water: Argentina opens glaciers to mining but at what cost to world food supplies?
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Gold vs water: Argentina opens glaciers to mining but at what cost to world food supplies?

Scientists warn that allowing access to deposits near vital ice reserves threatens food production sustaining 400 million people Beneath the shining white glaciers of the Andean mountains lie valuable deposits of gold, copper and molybdenum which, until recently, were off-limits to the mining companies that have set their eyes on these untapped minerals. That could be about to change, after legislators in Argentina agreed to amend the Glacier Law that has prohibited all mining and exploration activities in the country’s glacier regions since 2010. The legislation defined the country’s 16,000 glaciers – covering an area of 8,484 sq km (5,270 square miles) – as public goods, because of their importance as freshwater reserves, their role in biodiversity, their scientific value and their appeal as tourist attractions. The amendment to the glacier protection law passed last month by the Argentine National Congress will make it easier to mine in the glacier regions, despite the role of these areas as vital water sources.

May 9, 2026
With the US, China must choose constructive power over destruction
Business

With the US, China must choose constructive power over destruction

China needs the global system to succeed. So it must not get entangled with Iran nor jeopardise US relations over Taiwan Foreign affairs are not a series of disconnected episodes. They are a test of whether nations learn from history and act with foresight. The United States has often failed that test. It forgets that unchecked aggression leads to wider wars and that removing governments without building new authority invites chaos. That system requires stability, and stability requires accommodation with the US, however pushy Washington may seem.

May 9, 2026
Putin says he thinks Ukraine conflict is coming to an end
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Putin says he thinks Ukraine conflict is coming to an end

The Russian leader added that a meeting with Ukraine’s Zelensky was possible only once a lasting peace deal was reached Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday that he thought the Ukraine war was coming to an end, remarks that came just hours after he had vowed victory in Ukraine at Moscow’s most scaled-back Victory Day parade in years. “I think that the matter is coming to an end,” Putin told reporters of the Russia-Ukraine war, Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II. He also said he would be willing to negotiate new security arrangements for Europe ‌and that his preferred negotiating partner would be Germany’s former chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine triggered the most serious crisis in relations between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, when many people feared the world was on the brink of nuclear war. The Kremlin has said peace talks brokered by US President Donald Trump’s administration were on pause. Putin has repeatedly vowed to fight on until all of Russia’s various war aims are achieved in what Moscow calls the “special military operation”. Putin was speaking in the Kremlin after setting out his view of the causes of the war.

May 9, 2026 · 2 dk okuma
Ex-minister tells UK cabinet to boot Starmer or she’ll challenge him herself
Business

Ex-minister tells UK cabinet to boot Starmer or she’ll challenge him herself

Catherine West’s ultimatum comes amid calls for his resignation after Labour’s crushing defeat in local elections British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, reeling from a crushing local election defeat, faced a new setback to his leadership on Saturday when a former minister said she would challenge him for the top job if no one else stepped forward. Starmer’s Labour Party recorded the worst losses of a governing party in municipal polls since 1995, prompting a growing number of his ‌own lawmakers to call on him to quit. To try to shore up his position in the party earlier on Saturday, he named two influential Labour grandees as advisers, former prime minister Gordon Brown and former deputy Labour leader Harriet Harman. But just hours later, Labour lawmaker Catherine West, a former minister, told BBC Radio that she wanted the cabinet to work out a plan to replace Starmer by Monday, or she would challenge him for the position herself. “If … there are no leadership hopefuls who come forward tomorrow, then Monday morning I will put my name forward to stand for the ⁠leader of the Labour Party,” she said.

May 9, 2026
Hantavirus outbreak: UK to isolate cruise ship passengers in ex-Covid hospital
Business

Hantavirus outbreak: UK to isolate cruise ship passengers in ex-Covid hospital

There are around 24 British passengers and crew, as well as two people from Ireland, on board the MV Hondius UK health authorities are gearing up to receive about 24 people from a virus-hit cruise ship, who will be isolated in a hospital once used for Covid-19 patients, NHS officials said Saturday. They are currently on board the Dutch ship, the MV Hondius, due to anchor off Spain’s Canary Islands on Sunday. Most of the nearly 150 people on board will be evacuated and flown home to their home countries after weeks at sea, in a carefully prepared repatriation effort. Among them are about 24 British passengers and crew, as well as two people from Ireland. “In line with advice from the UK Health Security Agency, on arrival they will be taken to a managed setting for clinical assessment and testing,” NHS England North West and NHS Cheshire said.

May 9, 2026
Elderly woman tries to shove younger one out of priority seating on MTR train
Business

Elderly woman tries to shove younger one out of priority seating on MTR train

Older woman pushes younger one’s face, grabs her hair and shakes her head, according to viral video clip An elderly woman tried to fight a younger one over priority seating inside an MTR train carriage in Hong Kong, with a clip capturing the dispute going viral on Saturday. In the clip posted on the social media platform Threads, the elderly woman in one of two adjacent priority seats is seen forcefully trying to remove the younger woman beside her. The older woman pushes the younger one’s face, grabs her hair and shakes her head, while using her foot to push her leg. The younger woman does not hit back or verbally engage her, according to the clip. A fellow passenger seated next to them asks the elderly woman to let go of the younger one, but in vain. A photograph accompanying the same post showed the older passenger hiding her face and most of her torso behind the back of the younger one.

May 9, 2026