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T3 signal expected between 1pm and 3pm on Saturday, classes to be suspended

Observatory says stronger winds and squally showers expected later in the day, as Typhoon Noul moves across northeastern part of South China Sea Hong Kong’s weather forecaster will issue the No 3 typhoon signal between 1pm and 3pm on Saturday and afternoon classes will be suspended in some schools. The Hong Kong Observatory said local winds were expected to strengthen gradually with squally showers developing later in the day, as Typhoon Noul moved steadily across the northeastern part of the South China Sea. At 10am, Noul was estimated to be about 400 kilometres (248.5 miles) east-southeast of Hong Kong. It was forecast to move west-northwest at about 20km/h (12.4mph) across the northeastern part of the South China Sea, in the general direction of the Guangdong coast. “Members of the public are advised to stay away from the shoreline and not to engage in water sports,” the Observatory said. Education authorities also announced that classes at kindergartens and schools for children with disabilities would be suspended after noon. But schools were advised to keep their premises open and implement contingency measures to look after students who arrived.

July 25, 2026

Business

Investment with Chinese characteristics: how Beijing’s money is reshaping tech ventures

On the surface, China’s cutting-edge tech sector – from the algorithmic breakthroughs of DeepSeek and Zhipu AI to the hardware of Unitree Robotics and ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) – mirrors Silicon Valley’s venture capital-backed ecosystem. But a closer look at their financing histories reveals a common investor: the Chinese state. Beijing’s strong presence underscores a more profound structural shift in how China’s frontier technology is being funded. As Western venture capital and...

July 25, 2026

Business

Long before the Silk Road, silkworm cocoons already existed in Uzbekistan

Some 4,000 years ago, ancient people brought the production technique for the precious luxury from China to Central Asia via India In 138BC, Chinese diplomat and explorer Zhang Qian was sent as an envoy to the western regions. The land route started from Changan, present-day Xian, and passed through Gansu province and the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, reaching Central and West Asia, and connecting various countries along the Mediterranean. Among the goods traded along this long route, Chinese silk was the most representative, which was how the Silk Road got its name. Traditional historical scholarship holds that sericulture and silk-reeling technology originated in China 8,500 to 5,000 years ago and spread outward along the Silk Road in the 2nd century BC. However, a recent archaeological discovery by Chinese scientists in Uzbekistan has revealed that silkworm cocoons and mulberry trees already appeared in the region more than 2,000 years before the Silk Road opened.

July 25, 2026

Business

Why Japan’s scenic Tohoku region is still a tourist outlier

Tohoku is just a couple of hours north of Tokyo by bullet train, yet only 6 per cent of overseas visitors visited last year Tohoku, the northern region of Japan’s main island of Honshu, comprises Aomori, Iwate, Miyagi, Akita, Yamagata and Fukushima prefectures – an area known for mountains, hot springs, skiing, festivals and a slower rural pace. Of the record 42.7 million foreign visitors to Japan in 2025, just 2.57 million – roughyl 6 per cent – spent a night in the six prefectures that make up Tohoku, according to statistics provided by the Tohoku Tourism Promotion Organisation. More than a decade after the 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis that hit the region, industry experts say the bigger problem for Tohoku is no longer fear but a lack of familiarity. They point to too few world-famous sights across the six prefectures, transport can be challenging for non-Japanese speakers and there is a shortage of tourist information. But those drawbacks make the region an ideal destination for travellers who want to visit Japan while avoiding the crowding that has put pressure on Tokyo, Kyoto and other must-see destinations.

July 25, 2026

Business

Chinese weight-loss trend of mixing tea with enemas sends many to hospital

Extreme slimming method is claimed to help people shed weight in just two days, but doctor says it can seriously harm the digestive system An unconventional weight-loss remedy of drinking a mixture of an external-use constipation medication with tea has trended on Chinese social media, sparking doctors to warn the public not to try it after receiving some emergency cases. The extreme slimming method has captivated social media in recent weeks because of claims that it has the remarkable effect of helping people shed 4kg of weight within just two days, Shangyou News reported. In some viral videos, influencers squeeze a glycerin enema into a sugar-free tea product, shake the bottle and drink the mixture. They achieved an impressive weight-loss result by going to the toilet frequently, the report said. Many internet users followed suit, but some people’s health received negative effects. A woman, surnamed Ma, told the media that she had tried the mixture, finding that it tasted slightly sweet, but she felt severe discomfort half an hour later. She tried to relieve her pain by drinking warm water. Hours later, she started suffering from repeated diarrhoea and vomiting.

July 25, 2026

Business

Family office of Henderson Land boss to fast-track Central Asia green energy plans

Managing partner of Peter Lee’s family office says firm is pressing ahead with investment projects such as sustainable aviation fuel Henderson Land Development co-chairman and managing director Peter Lee Ka-kit’s family office has fast-tracked its plans in Central Asia, where rich agricultural and natural resources could trigger more than US$1 billion in investments in green energy. Alan Chan Ying-lung, managing partner of family office Full Vision Capital, told the South China Morning Post that the firm was pressing ahead with investment projects such as sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and smart energy storage and solutions in Kazakhstan’s capital, Astana. He said trial runs using agricultural waste as feedstock for biofuel were under way, pending the finalisation of agreements that would ultimately involve investments of more than US$1 billion. “We just started the negotiation not long ago, but the progress has gone so fast that it surprised me,” Chan said on the sidelines of the inaugural Nusa Dua Forum, organised by the SCMP and Indonesian sovereign fund Danantara, on Friday last week.

July 25, 2026

Business

Trump cites ‘white, male, Christian’ audit in Smithsonian disclaimer push

An executive order demands warning signs outside the National Museum of American History to notify visitors of inaccurate exhibits US President Donald Trump has issued an executive order to install signage that warns visitors of inaccurate historical information inside the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington. The order issued on Friday calls on federal officials to “install temporary signage” on public walkways outside the building to “notify visitors that the Museum exhibits should be renovated” to reflect “accurate information regarding America’s history”. It comes days after Anthea Hartig, historian and director of the National Museum of American History, testified before a US House subcommittee and faced harsh criticism from Republican lawmakers. She highlighted how the museum’s displays include “the desk on which Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence ... Abraham Lincoln’s top hat from the night he was assassinated, the Greensboro lunch counter, the gowns of the first ladies” and more. In Tuesday’s hearing, Republican congressman Tim Burchett said he felt the Smithsonian has “become infected by a woke ideology” to highlight American oppression.

July 25, 2026

Business

Indonesia’s Bali financial hub ‘a matter of survival’: economic tsar

Luhut Pandjaitan wants investors to imagine kamikaze drones over Abu Dhabi, then picture themselves in Bali instead A friend recently sent him a photograph of kamikaze drones lighting up the skies over Abu Dhabi, accompanied by a plea: help us get out. “They said ‘We’d like to move our assets, we’d love very much to stay away from here and live in Bali, because it’s so peaceful in Bali’,” he recalled. “The Middle East conflict is not going to end next month or next year, I don’t believe that.” Speaking to This Week in Asia on the sidelines of the Nusa Dua Forum in Bali on July 17, the 78-year-old chairman of Indonesia’s National Economic Council was a study in moustachioed calm – a far cry from the crisis of confidence that has roiled Southeast Asia’s largest economy this year.

July 25, 2026

Business

Saudi strikes Houthi sites in Yemen as conflict flares

The Iran-backed militants have declared a maritime blockade of the kingdom and attacked its ships Saudi Arabia struck Houthi military targets in Hodeida on Friday with rebel media reporting two injured after the Iran-backed group announced a maritime blockade of the kingdom and hit its ships. Saudi Arabia and the Houthis traded fire recently for the first time in years, threatening a 2022 truce that has held despite expiring. The Saudi-led coalition said it hit Houthi sites and destroyed targets threatening commercial vessels in response to attacks on Red Sea shipping. A Yemeni security source said a naval base in Hodeida and a military camp on Kamaran island were among the targets. The flare-up followed an attack on a Saudi ship, as the rebels’ maritime blockade threatened the top oil exporter’s ability to supply the world following Iran’s parallel blockade of the Strait of Hormuz – Riyadh’s only other maritime route. “The terrorist Houthi military … targeted commercial ships in the Red Sea,” Turki al-Maliki, the Saudi-led coalition’s spokesman, said on social media.

July 24, 2026

Business

Amid Hormuz woes, China tests Central Asian land corridors to bypass maritime chokepoints

New Afghanistan link via Uzbekistan highlights diversification push, but critics ask if Taliban can ensure security for stable logistics A new link to Afghanistan via Uzbekistan offers a practical example of this long-term diversification push. However, observers caution that security concerns and capacity constraints could make a meaningful shift away from sea freight difficult. Officially launched in May with pilot shipments, the multi-modal freight corridor allows containers to be moved by rail from China through Kazakhstan into Uzbekistan, and then by road via Turkmenistan to Herat in western Afghanistan. According to media reports in Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, the 7,400km (4,600-mile) route cuts delivery times by up to two-thirds – taking 30 days instead of two to three months via traditional sea-and-land routes through Iran or Pakistan. China and Afghanistan share a border only at the Wakhan corridor, a narrow, high-altitude strip.

July 24, 2026

Business

Nvidia, Palantir, Meta warn against ‘premature restrictions’ of open-weight models

A group of American tech giants, including Nvidia, Palantir and Meta, signed a public letter on Friday calling for US leadership in open-weight AI models, an area that China currently dominates. The challenge comes amid growing speculation that the Trump administration might introduce restrictions on open AI models. These would aim to address national security risks of the fast-moving technology and combat the growing popularity of Chinese models, a move that critics say would instead hurt US...

July 24, 2026

Business

US small businesses sue Trump administration over new ‘forced labour’ tariffs

The lawsuit argues that the US president is trying to reimpose duties that were already ruled illegal by the Supreme Court Two US small businesses on Friday ⁠challenged President Donald ⁠Trump’s latest round of tariffs on goods ⁠from 60 trading partners, saying that the new policy, like most of Trump’s previous tariffs, went beyond the president’s authority to tax imports. The lawsuit, filed in the US trade court in New York, argues that the new tariffs require ‌more detailed country-specific findings about “forced labour” to be legally justified. The two small businesses, backed by a non-profit legal group that successfully sued over previous rounds of tariffs, argued that the president is trying to reimpose tariffs that were already ruled illegal by the US Supreme Court. The Trump administration on Friday imposed new tariffs of 10 per cent and 12.5 per cent on ⁠60 trading partners, including the European Union, over allegations that they were not doing enough to ‌stop the export of goods produced with forced labour. The new tariffs took effect just as a temporary 10 per cent global tariff expired. Trump has made tariffs ‌a central pillar of his foreign policy, using them as leverage to negotiate trade ⁠deals around the globe. ⁠

July 24, 2026