eChina.news

Business

China US$300 dating app ‘marriage-or-refund’ guarantee sparks intense online buzz

In China’s competitive dating market, a new matchmaking start-up is staking its revenue on a bold wager: find true love, or get every penny back. Launched in July, Liangpei AI charges an annual membership fee of 2,000 yuan (US$300), which is fully refundable if a user remains unmarried after three years. The offer is an audacious challenge to a conventional business model built on keeping singles hooked. China’s online dating market reached 22.6 billion yuan (US$3.4 billion) in 2024, serving...

November 8, 2026

Business

Hong Kong must show real remorse for the Tai Po fire tragedy

When Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu and seven principal officials bowed deeply before the cameras on October 29, Hong Kong witnessed something rare: a collective government apology. It came 11 months after the Wang Fuk Court fire claimed 168 lives and uprooted 1,984 households. A minister has resigned. Many reforms have been promised. Yet public reaction remains divided. That division reveals what people expect an apology to achieve, and how differently they understand political...

November 8, 2026

Business

Hong Kong firefighters get HK$8.4 million tracking upgrade after Tai Po fire

Some 2,000 Hong Kong firefighters have been issued upgraded tracking devices after an independent inquiry into last year’s deadly Tai Po fire exposed technical limitations in the previous system, the South China Morning Post has learned. The Fire Services Department spent HK$8.4 million (US$1.1 million) on the new Firefighter Tracking Devices (FTDs), which cost more than HK$4,000 each, to help find personnel in distress more effectively. The November 1 roll-out came about a year after the Wang...

November 8, 2026

Business

Japan rethinks its stalking laws after Pokemon store murder

Long before Moe Harukawa was killed, she lived in fear. The 21-year-old shop assistant had reported her ex-boyfriend to police and a court had ordered him to stay away from her. Yet weeks later, Taiki Hirokawa, 26, walked into Harukawa’s workplace – a packed Pokemon store in Tokyo’s Ikebukuro district – and stabbed her repeatedly in the neck and torso before turning the knife he was carrying on himself. Both later died in hospital. Harukawa’s gruesome murder in March at the hands of a man who...

November 8, 2026

Business

Grief in China as rare snow leopard cub Ling Xiaohan loses 26-day fight for life

Millions of Chinese internet users grieved after beloved snow leopard cub Ling Xiaohan died last Sunday, following 26 days of medical treatment after he was found weak, injured and unable to move in the Qinghai Lake reserve on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Despite intensive treatment efforts, the five-month-old cub died from complications arising from a severe brain injury, the cause of which is unknown, according to a statement by the Qinghai Wildlife Rescue and Breeding Centre. “The centre deeply...

November 8, 2026

Business

In Malaysia, a shadow trade in DIY weight-loss jabs takes hold

When her prescription for Mounjaro became too expensive, Bey* did what a growing number of Malaysians are doing: she found a cheaper vial online. The 34-year-old from Kuala Lumpur started on the weight-loss drug about a year ago and hasn’t looked back since. “I didn’t feel like eating, I didn’t feel hungry,” she said, recalling flying to Jakarta for a “food trip” recently during which she barely ate. Reviews on Threads and TikTok led her to online sellers offering “tirzepatide”, Mounjaro’s...

November 8, 2026

Business

Want to fly to the moon? Nasa is looking for new astronauts for the Artemis programme

Want to fly to the moon and help build a permanent lunar base? Nasa is accepting applications for a new astronaut class that will help grow the Artemis programme. Officials announced the news on Saturday during a Kennedy Space Centre air show promoting lunar exploration as well as advances in aviation and technology. Nasa’s last call for new astronauts was two years ago. More than 8,000 applied, with 10 making the final cut in September 2025. With only 32 active astronauts, the space agency...

November 7, 2026

Business

In China’s fierce race for success, mental health struggles are starting earlier

Moon Chen stared down at her textbook, struggling to make sense of the words on the page. The 15-year-old felt a suffocating weight press into her chest, while her heart fluttered erratically. Chen’s mother rushed her to a cardiologist – only to be told that she should see a psychiatrist instead. Chen, now in higher secondary school in the southwestern Chinese city of Chongqing, vividly recalls the period before she was diagnosed with depression and anxiety. At the time, she did not know that...

November 7, 2026

Business

Israel’s president taps Eisenkot to form government, in setback for Netanyahu

Israel’s president announced on Saturday he would task Gadi Eisenkot with forming the next government following last week’s election, in what Netanyahu’s rivals see as a first step to remove the country’s longest-serving prime minister. The opposition bloc led by Eisenkot, a former military chief and political newcomer who has tried to appeal to secular and liberal Israelis, has opened the door to a once improbable alliance with ultra-Orthodox Jews, which could give it the numbers to form a...

November 7, 2026

Business

Trump asks UFC chief Dana White to be his new press secretary: ‘please take the job’

Facing an incoming Democratic Congress, US President Donald Trump struck a combative tone on Saturday, offering friend and “violent fighter” Dana White the White House press secretary job and ordering the Justice Department to investigate his opponents. Democrats handed Trump’s Republicans a blowout defeat in midterm elections this week and will take control of both chambers of Congress in January. They are promising robust investigations of Trump and his administration. Trump, however, showed...

November 7, 2026

Business

Clashes in Paris after new French protests

Thousands of people protested across France on Saturday in a new show of anger against the government with clashes erupting between police and some protesters in Paris despite a lower turnout than in previous weeks. The protests marked the fourth consecutive weekend of demonstrations against the rising cost of living which have erupted as the country heads to presidential elections in five months’ time where the far-right sees its best chance yet to win power. A total of 146,000 people took part...

November 7, 2026

Business

Gunman ‘fascinated by far-right’ kills 6 in Krakow, Poland

Six people were killed and at least 15 wounded on Saturday when a gunman opened fire in the landmark historic centre of Poland’s second city of Krakow, in the country’s deadliest shooting in decades. Three bodies – of two women and a man – were later found at the suspect’s home, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said, adding there was “much to suggest that they are members of the [suspect’s] immediate family”. Tusk also announced Poland would hold two days of mourning over the shooting that he...

November 7, 2026