HONG KONG: A new visa scheme offering millions of Hong Kongers a pathway to British citizenship will go live later on Sunday as the city’s former colonial master opens its doors to those wanting to escape China’s crackdown on dissent. From Sunday afternoon, anyone with a British National (Overseas) passport
NEW YORK: Progressive lawmakers this week formally launched an effort to hike the US minimum wage, introducing legislation to gradually raise it from $7.25 to $15 an hour. The proposed increase is much larger than those in the recent past, but supporters argue it is warranted because it has been
LONDON: Britain will apply to join a massive 11-nation free-trade bloc of Asia-Pacific countries, it announced Saturday, weeks after leaving the European single market with its departure from the EU. International Trade Secretary Liz Truss will formally request Monday for Britain to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific
WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion plan to revive the US economy has been met with howls from the Republican opposition in Washington, with conservative lawmakers saying it is full of money-wasting programmes at a time when the country doesn’t need any more debt. Yet it wasn’t so long
NEW YORK: YouTube Shorts — the video-sharing website’s quick clips meant to compete with TikTok — are racking up 3.5 billion views a day during beta testing in India, the platform’s head said Tuesday. Susan Wojcikci explained the feature in a note laying out her 2021 priorities. “So far, videos
SEOUL: Video footage of an adorable baby giant panda clinging desperately to her zookeeper’s leg in South Korea has garnered more than four million hits on YouTube. In the viral clip the zookeeper weighs little Fu Bao on a scale and then places the baby panda on the floor in
SYDNEY: Thousands of Australians defied coronavirus rules on Tuesday to protest the country’s national day, held on the anniversary of British colonisation of the vast continent that its Indigenous population marks as “Invasion Day”. Officially recognised as Australia Day, January 26 also sees annual rallies drawing attention to the injustices
SINGAPORE: The Singapore Zoo has welcomed a lion cub named Simba to its animal kingdom following artificial insemination that officials said Tuesday was a first for the city-state. It is rare for lions to be conceived through artificial insemination, with the procedure first carried out successfully in 2018 — resulting
JAKARTA: Indonesia’s Covid-19 cases topped the one million mark on Tuesday, as the archipelago launches one of the world’s biggest vaccine drives to clamp down on a soaring infection rate. The Southeast Asian nation of nearly 270 million has recorded 1,012,350 virus cases and almost 29,000 deaths, according to official
HONG KONG: Asian markets mostly rose Monday, rebounding from a sell-off at the end of last week as investors keep tabs on the progress of Joe Biden’s new US economic rescue package. However, while vaccinations and long-term optimism about the economic outlook are providing support, sentiment remains weighed by concerns