Dolores Huerta, the US labour leader and civil rights icon whose union work changed the lives of migrant workers, has died, her family said on Wednesday. She was 96. For nearly four decades Huerta was vice-president of United Farm Workers, the union she founded with Cesar Chavez, organising strikes and walkouts that won improvements in working conditions for the millions of men and women who labour in US fields. “We are deeply saddened to announce that our beloved mother, Dolores Huerta, has...

Australia has returned two stone sculptures to China after more than 30 years abroad. The statues, showing the heads of a military official and civil servant, had been given to the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra by a private collector and date back to the Northern Song dynasty (960–1127). China’s National Cultural Heritage Administration received the heads on Wednesday, according to the state broadcaster CCTV. They are thought to have been removed from two imperial mausoleums in Henan...

On a hillside in Anji, in Zhejiang province, a cluster of umbrella-like canopies steps gently down the slope, following the rows of tea bushes. There is no grand entrance, no plinth, no monumental block of stone. On October 22, at Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven, this project, Anji Hood by RoarcRenew Architects, was named Cultural Space of the Year at the Frame Awards 2026, chosen from more than 1,000 submissions by 100 jurors across 10 panels. I served on the Frame Awards 2026 grand jury for the...

Hong Kong International Airport has become one of the first two organisations certified under an international aviation industry group’s digital identity programme, as it seeks to expand its facial recognition system beyond the city. However, the wider adoption of facial recognition technology has been slower than expected, due to government regulations and privacy requirements, according to a senior aviation industry official. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) announced on...

The police ordinance does not empower officers to demand identity proof, a lawyer for Ronson Chan has argued as the former head of Hong Kong’s largest press union applied to challenge his conviction for obstructing police at the Court of Final Appeal. Ronson Chan on May 16, 2023. Photo: Lea Mok/HKFP. Ronson Chan, who helmed the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA) from 2021 to 2024, applied to the High Court on Wednesday for permission to take his challenge to the top court. He is seeking a Certificate to Court of Final Appeal, the first step in the convoluted top court appeal procedures in the city’s legal system. The veteran reporter was convicted in September 2023 of obstructing a police officer the previous year and sentenced to five days in jail. The case relates to an incident in September 2022, when the then-41-year-old was reporting on a homeowners’ committee meeting at MacPherson Stadium in Mong Kok. While on assignment, he was stopped by a plainclothes police officer who said he was acting “suspiciously” and asked to see his identification card. The High Court. File photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP. He was arrested after allegedly not complying with requests to present his identification despite multiple warnings. Police Force Ordinance Addressing the court on Wednesday, Chan’s barrister Steven Kwan said the officer ordered the journalist to produce his identification card on the basis that she had the right to under the Police Force Ordinance, according to local media. But he said the wording of the law suggested officers do not in fact have that power. Kwan said Section 54 of the ordinance describes empowering an officer to stop someone “for the purpose of demanding that he produce proof of his identity for inspection,” but does not explicitly state that officers have the power to stop them and demand identity proof. He said the ordinance section, titled “power to stop, detain and search,” clearly indicated officers’ rights to those three actions – but not for demanding identity proof. The power to demand proof is spelled out in two other ordinances, the Public Order Ordinance and the Immigration Ordinance, he said. Ronson Chan, chairperson of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, outside the Mong Kok Police Station on September 19, 2022. Photo: Peter Lee/HKFP. The Public Order Ordinance states that officers can order proof of identity if believed necessary for preventing or investigating an offence, he said. Therefore, the officer should not have been able to rely on the ordinance to demand Chan produce his identity card, Kwan said. In response, the Department of Justice representative accused Kwan of playing “word games” and attempting to rewrite the law. Deputy High Court Judge Lily Wong heard both sides’ arguments on Wednesday and adjourned her decision. Chan’s challenge comes after he lost his appeal in the High Court earlier this year. In May, a High Court judge upheld Chan’s conviction and sentence, agreeing with the trial judge’s view that the police officer’s demand to see Chan’s identification card was lawful and that Chan had obstructed the police by wilfully delaying the presentation of his ID.

The number of mega-wealthy people in China reached an all-time high this year, with tech tycoons including the founder of DeepSeek joining a closely watched rich list as the country expands its AI reach. The logo of China’s Deepseek AI application on a smartphone screen and the logo of he logo of China’s Kimi AI application on a laptop screen (top) in Frankfurt am Main, western Germany. Photo: Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP. The number of people worth more than 5 billion yuan ($750 million) rose to a record 1,529, according to the annual Hurun China Rich List released Tuesday, dwarfing the previous high of 1,460 in 2021. Liang Wenfeng, the founder of AI startup DeepSeek, made his debut at number seven with an estimated fortune of $41.7 billion — one of 263 newcomers largely from sectors including semiconductors, AI and robotics. His wealth was pumped up by DeepSeek’s industry-shaking R1 reasoning model released last year, triggering a sell-off in US tech stocks. This year’s roster reflected China’s “two-speed economy”, which has seen tech fortunes surge as traditional wealth declines, said Rupert Hoogewerf, chief researcher at the Hurun Research Institute, which publishes the list. Of the top 100, 60 percent made their fortunes in sectors targeted by China as part of a plan launched in 2015 to develop technological leadership within 10 years. “This was the year ‘Made in China 2025’ came home,” Hoogewerf said in a news release. ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming, China’s richest man in 2024, reclaimed the top spot with an estimated fortune of $99.7 billion — a record for the list. The TikTok app. Photo: Anton/Pexels. He overtook Nongfu Spring founder Zhong Shanshan, known as the “Bottled Water King”. ByteDance, which includes TikTok and Douyin, has faced growing regulatory pressure worldwide but its AI chatbot Doubao had nearly 420 million monthly active users — far ahead of domestic rivals. CATL founder Robin Zeng, Tencent’s Pony Ma, NetEase’s William Ding and Cambricon’s Chen Tianshi also made the top 10. DeepSeek is reportedly close to completing a new funding round worth 100 billion yuan — a record for China’s AI industry — which would value the company at around 500 billion yuan. Hurun’s list of China’s richest women, which was released on Wednesday, saw Zhou Qunfang, founder of touchscreen maker Lens Technology, retain her top position, with a $18.9 billion fortune.

The Villa Vie Odyssey suspended its voyage and is working with passengers on "temporary living arrangements".

Kyaw Moe Tun - Myanmar's representative to the UN - makes an emotional appeal after saying the international community had failed the country's people.

The Bucharest court has extended the pre-trial detention of Calin Georgescu by 30 days, appealing a lower court ruling.

UN experts have condemned police crackdowns, warning they deter demonstrators from exercising their rights.