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One day late last summer, Dr. Barry Grimm called a fellow obstetrician at Vanderbilt University Medical Center to consult about a patient who was 10 weeks pregnant. Her embryo had become implanted in scar tissue from a recent cesarean section, and she was in serious danger. At any moment, the pregnancy could rupture…
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On March 8, 2023, Indonesian police burned down an 11-hectare cannabis plantation in Aceh, North Sumatra, which was discovered by local authorities in February. The Southeast Asian country has some of the strictest drug laws in the world.
Forty young Afghan women are attending a trainee midwife programme run by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and a local charity Watan Social and Technical Services Association. They are trained to save the lives of mothers and babies in remote parts of the country where medical help is scarce. Afghanistan has the highes…
As Hong Kong's international music and arts festival, Clockenflap 2023, returns after four years, several local bands have been eagerly awaiting their debut on the Clockenflap stage. Among the dozens of home-grown acts on the bill is jazz-metal-fusion quintet Code, praised by one Post critic as “one of the most intr…
China’s top legislature, the National People’s Congress (NPC), opened its annual meeting on March 5, 2023. Outgoing premier Li Keqiang delivered his final government work report, saying China aims to boost its gross domestic product by “around 5 per cent” in 2023. The world’s second-largest economy grew by only 3 pe…
Four and a half years since Hong Kong’s last Clockenflap festival, the city’s largest outdoor music and arts festival is back, the first one to be held since the Covid pandemic. The 2023 edition, happening from March 3–5, features over 100 musical acts performing over the three days of festivities, and takes place s…
‘Cobra Gold’, the largest multinational military exercise in Southeast Asia kicked off on February 28, 2023, in Thailand after a two-year break during the pandemic. Over 7,000 soldiers from 30 countries are taking part, including the most US troops attending in a decade. Analysts say it is a sign of Washington’s des…
Security has been stepped up in the Chinese capital Beijing ahead of the latest session of China’s parliament, which gets under way on March 5, 2023. The annual meeting is expected to result in the biggest Chinese government reshuffle in a decade. It will also announce a series of fiscal budgets of central and local…
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China normally holds its most important annual political meetings in March, when the top political advisory body and national legislature gather. The meetings were postponed to May in 2020, the first year of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Licca-chan doll, often described as Japan’s version of the popular US toy Barbie, has exploded in popularity among adults across the nation. Grown-up fan Ryoko Baba says that many Japanese adults turned to Licca-chan when they were stuck at home during the pandemic and picked up new hobbies. Baba is among the gr…
Hong Kong face-mask manufacturers and retailers were quick to respond when the Covid-19 pandemic broke out in 2020. But with the near three-year-long citywide mask mandate finally ending on March 1, 2023, the industry has been looking to adapt to a mask-less future.
As Hong Kong lifts its long-standing mask mandate taking a further step back from restrictions imposed during the Covid-19 pandemic, we look back at another dangerous outbreak the city faced about 20 years ago. The severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) gripped the city for three intense months from February 21, 2…
Retired farmworker Wang Fengqin has been avoiding hospital treatment for diabetes to save money, despite persistent pain in her abdomen. She is still working because her pension is not enough to support her children and grandchildren. China’s population is shrinking and ageing. Young people are flocking south for jo…
Dancers paraded through the streets of the Philippine city of Baguio over the weekend of February 25, 2023, during the first Panagbenga flower festival in three years. The annual event was cancelled during the Covid-19 pandemic. Members of Philippine tribes dressed up to celebrate the arrival of spring. Folk artists…
A wearable beanbag was becoming a hit on Japanese social media in February 2023. The manufacturer of the multifunctional furniture says its main goal is to foster relaxation. But the company said the wearable beanbag concept was not sparked by the needs of Japanese people forced to spend more time at home during the…
Hong Kong will end its indoor and outdoor mask requirements from March 1, 2023, according to the city’s leader. Chief Executive John Lee announced the move on February 28, the day after neighbouring city Macau dropped its general rule on mask-wearing in outdoor areas. Lee said the move was because Hong Kong’s epidem…
We’re investigating the cause of viruses spilling over from animals to humans — and what can be done to stop it. Read more in the series →
Largely closed to visitors during the Covid-19 pandemic, Macau dropped its quarantine requirements for inbound travellers on January 8, 2023, to once again welcome global visitors to the casino hub. The Post’s Lisa Cam travelled to Macau, where she visited resorts, restaurants and attractions that opened during the …
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Think tank founder and former Executive Councillor Franklin Lam Fan-keung said that the new Hong Kong government budget, unveiled on February 22, 2023, “drew on all the tools and invented more in the toolbox” to explore new growth engines for the city’s Covid-battered economy. But Vera Yuen Wing-han, a University of…
China’s in-person job fairs have made a comeback after operating online for three years due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Hundreds of similar job fairs reportedly took place across China in February 2023, the latest sign of China’s slow economic recovery. However, modest wages and less abundant offerings cast a shadow o…
A group of six government officials from Shanghai arrived in Taipei on February 18, 2023, to attend the Taiwan Lantern Festival in the first such trip in three years since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. The resumption of local government exchanges went ahead despite heightened tensions across the Taiwan Strait.…
Hundreds of retirees protested in the central Chinese city of Wuhan on February 15, 2023, after their individual healthcare insurance was cut by nearly two-thirds. It was the second protest of its kind in a week. The government says the cuts in the monthly payout will be channelled to a communal pool, as part of ref…
Seventeen-year-old Muhammed Enes Yeninar was freed, along with his older brother, after spending 198 hours underneath the rubble of a building in Turkey’s Kahramanmaras province on February 14, 2023. Both were sent to hospital, where their conditions were unclear. The devastating February 6 earthquake so far has lef…
Cannabis shops in Thailand are putting out menus and signs in Mandarin to attract tourists from China. The country expects at least 30 million foreign visitors in 2023, with about a quarter of them coming from China. Thailand was the first Southeast Asian country to legalise cannabis for medical use in 2018. The cou…
China’s three years of strict pandemic controls have seriously hurt businesses across the country, leaving thousands of migrant workers unemployed or stuck at home. China began dropping its pandemic-control measures in early December 2022, but the economic recovery has been slow since the country’s reopening, and th…
With gifts and ceremonial performances, Cambodia greeted arriving Chinese tourists on February 7, 2023, its first official travel group from China since the Covid-19 pandemic began. One of the 20 countries selected by Beijing for outbound group tours, Cambodia expects to welcome up to 1 million tourists from China i…
A second deadly earthquake hit Turkey just hours after an initial 7.8 magnitude earthquake on February 6, 2023. Seismologists say it was unusually strong, measured at magnitude 7.5. It was just one in a series of aftershocks that continue to plague parts of Turkey and Syria. At least 3,800 people have been confirmed…
A spectacle of superhuman strength, stunts and other competitions has returned to rural India after a four-year break because of the pandemic and legal issues. The three-day Kila Raipur games opened on February 3, 3023, in the northern state of Punjab with men and women performing stunts such as lifting weights with…
Little Cherry’s grandmother succumbed to cancer seven months after the toddler’s tragic fall to her death from an eighth-floor window after she was forgotten in the lift by her nanny. The deceased elderly woman, who had stomach cancer, could not recover from the grief, as she blamed herself for being the reason the …
Former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf has died at the age of 79. Pakistan media reports said he died in hospital in Dubai on February 5, 2023, after a long illness and years of self-imposed exile. Musharraf ruled Pakistan for nearly a decade after taking over in a bloodless coup in 1999. He fled the country in…
China’s tourism industry has bounced back after three years of zero-Covid, but the economic recovery comes too late for some business owners. Domestic tourism, which suffered during the pandemic, has also rebounded, with tourists spending billions over the Lunar New Year holiday. Nevertheless, economic activity stil…
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Hong Kong has launched a HK$2 billion-plus (US$255 million) campaign to boost tourism, business and investment. The scheme, unveiled on February 2, 2023, by Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu, will include a giveaway of at least 500,000 airline tickets to visitors and Hong Kong residents. “Hello Hong Kong” aims to inc…
A group of scientists says it has developed amoeba-like miniature, magnetic robots designed to fulfil a host of biomedical tasks, such as administering drugs and assisting in surgery. In a new study published in December 2022, the team of scientists, from the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Carnegie Mellon Unive…
Shan Weijian, executive chairman of PAG Asia Capital, led the team that scored the first and only takeover of a Chinese bank by a foreign fund in 2005. San Francisco-based Newbridge Capital turned Shenzhen Development Bank from virtual insolvency into one of the country’s best-run and most innovative banks, ultimate…
Shan Weijian, executive chairman of PAG Asia Capital, led the team that scored the first and only takeover of a Chinese bank by a foreign fund in 2005. San Francisco-based Newbridge Capital turned Shenzhen Development Bank from virtual insolvency into one of the country’s best-run and most innovative banks, ultimate…
Ali Saga still vividly recalls the day four decades ago when people in a clinic in Jakarta ran away from him after a doctor shouted, “This person is a leper!” Motivated by his years being treated as an outcast after he was diagnosed with leprosy in the 1970s, the 57-year-old has found a way to help others. On Januar…
An urgent search is under way for a radioactive capsule that went missing in Western Australia. Australian health officials said the silver capsule contains the radioactive substance caesium 137, which could cause radiation burns or illness if touched. The 8mm (0.31in) by 6mm (0.24in) unit is believed to have fallen…
In a major loosening of Covid rules, South Korea has eased its mask mandate for indoor premises for the first time in three years, as the country saw a downward trend in Covid infections. Residents can opt out of wearing masks in some indoor facilities including bars, gyms and restaurants, while masks on public tran…
A bus carrying around 48 people fell into a ravine and caught fire after it crashed into a bridge in the southern Pakistani province of Balochistan on January 29, 2023. At least 41 people were killed and three who were injured were sent to a local hospital. On the same day, another transport accident claimed the liv…
Hong Kong's isolation facilities have fallen eerily quiet, as the city prepares to lift the last of its Covid-19 restrictions. The city rushed to build the sprawling facilities at the start of the pandemic, in an effort to prevent community transmission of the coronavirus. Starting January 30, 2023, residents who ha…
Two men were rushed to hospital and 77 other residents were evacuated after a major fire broke out in village squatter huts in Hong Kong on January 27, 2023. Authorities were alerted at around 4am and deployed 150 firefighters and ambulance personnel to Wang Lung Tsuen in Tsuen Wan, with the blaze upgraded to a No 3…
The North Korean capital Pyongyang has been ordered to undergo a five-day lockdown due to an unspecified respiratory illness, according to a report by Seoul-based NK News. There was no mention of the Covid-19 virus, but according to a government notice, residents must stay home and register their temperatures throug…
Atomic scientists set the "Doomsday Clock" closer to midnight than ever before on January 24, 2023, citing threats of nuclear war, disease and climate volatility. Russia's invasion of Ukraine was said to be one of the largest contributing factors of putting humanity at risk. The symbolic timepiece, created in 1947 b…
