When was the last time you actually paid close attention to the music you're playing?

The setting may have been casual but the choice was not when the Communist Party boss of a northeastern Chinese province sat down with digital content creators at a coffee shop on Wednesday. Jilin province party secretary Huang Qiang invited the influencers to the relaxed setting of the Songyuan Coffee Shop in Changchun to encourage them to “actively promote mainstream values and spread positive energy”. According to a local government statement, Huang and the participants also exchanged views...

Malaysia is facing renewed pressure to clamp down on its companies over their alleged links to forest fires abroad, as recurring haze from Indonesia continues to disrupt schools and daily life despite years of regional efforts to tackle the problem. On Thursday, Malaysia ordered schools to close across several states, including Johor, Malacca, Negeri Sembilan, Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya and the Rompin district in Pahang, while sporting events scheduled for the weekend were cancelled. The latest...

A craft beer producer in central Japan is hoping that its U-shaped “wobbly” glass will encourage people to drink water along with their beer, in a bid to prevent excessive alcohol consumption and dehydration. The “Wobbly Beer Glass by Yona Yona Ale”, produced by Yoho Brewing based in Nagano prefecture, has been on sale since August amid growing awareness of the need for responsible drinking. The idea is that the glass, divided into two sections, will tilt if a balance between beer and water is...

Last month, President Xi Jinping travelled to New Delhi to attend the Brics summit – his first visit in seven years. On the summit’s sidelines, Xi and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had an in-depth conversation that explored topics of shared interest between them, such as leveraging open-weight artificial intelligence (AI) for mutual benefit. Even so, such sanguine signals were soon drowned out by a spate of downbeat headlines. One recent story warned of the “asymmetric” relationship...

Police detained more than 2,000 protesters and the founder of the “cockroach” youth movement in Delhi on Saturday as security forces locked down parts of the capital to thwart a demonstration demanding the resignation of India’s election chief. Thousands of police and paramilitary personnel were deployed across the city, mobile internet services were suspended in the central business district, and dozens of metro stations and markets were shut as authorities moved to stop a rally organised by...

Prolonged financial paralysis is never a harmless administrative technicality

Environmentalists and academics have voiced concerns over the omission of a systemic heat-health action plan in Hong Kong’s first five-year plan and latest policy address, warning that relying on “common sense” is failing to protect vulnerable residents from rising temperatures. Their comments came as new research from the University of Hong Kong (HKU) found that extreme heat might have contributed to as many as 3,238 excess deaths in the city over 10-year study period. In response to the South...