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The head of a civil service union federation has warned that tighter disciplinary action risks becoming excessive as the government seeks to revise the penalty system to handle underperforming senior civil servants this year.
Leung Chau-ting, chairman of the Federation of Civil Service Unions, was responding to the Civil Service Bureau’s reply to a lawmaker’s inquiry this week about revising the...
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Asian digital entrepreneurs that once saw Dubai as a safe, well-connected base for global expansion are now reassessing that view after the US-Israel war on Iran exposed vulnerabilities in the city’s appeal as a financial and technology hub.
For many investors and founders from India, China and Southeast Asia, the strain is not just about physical security but also about what disruption around...
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South Korean President Lee Jae Myung on Saturday accused Israel of failing to “reflect” on allegations of rights abuses by its forces, after Israel decried him for amplifying social media “disinformation”.
Lee irked Israel’s foreign ministry this week with his comments on a social media video with a caption purporting it showed Israeli soldiers torturing and pushing a “Palestinian kid” off a...
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A coffee shop in eastern China has gone viral for its entry rules banning a range of bizarre misbehaviour, from discarding black stockings to stealing tiny turtles from its pond.
The café, Yi Nan Ping, is in Qingzhou Ancient City, a popular tourist site in Weifang, Shandong province, and is known for its signature pineapple Americano and picturesque courtyard.
Visitors recently spotted an...
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The gap between rich and poor nations is growing even wider as actions agreed to by many countries last year, including overhauling the major global financial institutions, remain unfulfilled promises, a UN report has concluded.
The report assessing the blueprint adopted in Seville, Spain, last June to narrow the gap and achieve UN development goals for 2030 was issued ahead of next week’s...
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Malaysian immigration officers have raided two massage parlours suspected of offering sexual services to clients, detaining 21 foreign workers and a local man believed to be the manager of the premises.
The raids in Johor, which began at around 3pm on Thursday, targeted outlets that publicly advertised standard massage services from 80 ringgit (US$20) an hour.
“The businesses were believed to be...
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On Tuesday, Vietnam’s National Assembly elected a new prime minister. For once, the appointment looks less like a factional compromise than a deliberate bet on competence. Le Minh Hung, born in 1970, is the country’s youngest prime minister since 1955. In a system that often prizes seniority, that alone is striking.
More striking still is Hung’s profile: he is not a provincial baron or a deal...
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As the Strait of Hormuz reopened and closed again this week, manufacturers across China are navigating a roller coaster of concerns rooted in supply and pricing volatilities.
Soaring oil prices have already filtered through to processed fuel and petroleum-based raw materials that help power China’s manufacturing sector – the world’s largest – and a fragile two-week ceasefire between Iran and the...
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The developer of Hong Kong’s Discovery Bay has proposed allowing unrestricted taxi access and adding four new ranks in the resort-style seaside community on Lantau Island, submitting a paper to the District Council despite recent resident backlash.
In the paper submitted to the Islands District Council, Hong Kong Resort Company said the current lack of point-to-point public transport “severely...
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Days before Pakistan had helped to secure a ceasefire in the Iran war this week, the United Arab Emirates was seeking repayment of a US$3.5 billion deposit from Islamabad’s central bank.
The withdrawal, brushed off as a “routine financial transaction” by Pakistan’s foreign ministry, equated to roughly 21 per cent of the country’s foreign exchange reserves. It was accompanied by a wave of...