Author R. Douglas White's New Book, 'Kiss the Magnolia Tree' is a Compelling Tale of a Man Starting Anew in the Wake of Loss

Flash floods during a Deepavali picnic in Malaysia have killed a man and left seven others missing, as authorities evacuated hundreds from flood-prone areas in Selangor and Perak states amid a strengthening monsoon season. The shifting monsoon winds also triggered a surge in thunderstorms across the country, helping clear out a months-long curtain of transboundary haze. Local officials said they found the body of the victim, identified as V. Vijayan, at around 1.30am on Tuesday at a bridge about...

Two mainland Chinese chip suppliers made sharply divergent trading debuts in Hong Kong on Tuesday after raising a combined HK$2.2 billion (US$280 million), underscoring investors’ selective appetite for semiconductor stocks despite a pickup in new listings. Suzhou Denglin Technology, the week’s largest listing, fell by as much as 8.6 per cent in morning trade after raising HK$1.4 billion in its initial public offering (IPO). The graphics processing unit maker priced its shares at HK$231 – the...

Vietnam’s To Lam is expected to use his visit to Japan this week to expand trade and investment options with Tokyo, especially in technology, amid continued uncertainty surrounding America’s future policy direction. After talks with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi in Tokyo on Monday, the two leaders pledged to speed up public-private cooperation on critical minerals, with a joint statement calling economic security a top priority in bilateral relations and promising deeper cooperation on...

A Chinese man was referred to prosecutors on Monday for allegedly disrupting a major mobile carrier’s services in Tokyo’s Ginza shopping district with a rogue cell tower device, with police investigating possible links to a phishing scheme using illegal radio signals. Yu Hai, 31, an unemployed resident of Tokyo’s Kita ward, was arrested on Saturday allegedly in the act of operating a base station without a licence, using the device from a car parked on a Ginza street to emit radio signals to...

Prices for Nvidia graphics processing units (GPUs) are falling in China’s largest electronics market, as traders shrug off the frenzy of market speculation over tightening export controls in the wake of the US midterm elections and the Jensen Huang affair. The US chip giant’s top-of-the-range GeForce RTX 5090 graphics card surged in price last month at Shenzhen’s Huaqiangbei market, but that was mostly driven by rumours that Nvidia was going to halt production to focus on high-end enterprise...

WuXi AppTec’s shares jumped on Tuesday after the Pentagon removed the company from a list of entities allegedly linked to the Chinese military, marking a win for the biotech service giant and raising hopes among other mainland firms challenging US blacklists. The US deputy secretary of defence decided to delist WuXi AppTec from its list of “Chinese military companies”, according to a notice published on the Federal Register on Tuesday. WuXi AppTec surged more than 6 per cent at the open in Hong...

China’s factories are finding eager buyers worldwide, but the export boom is raising concerns about its impact on trading partner nations.

A cruise ship left stranded in Southeast Asia after its US-based operator ran out of money has been arrested in Singapore, the Maritime and Port Authority (MPA) said on Monday. The Odyssey, meant to take passengers on a continuous voyage around the world, was arrested after arriving on Sunday from Cambodia, where around 200 guests were told to disembark. “The vessel has been placed under arrest pursuant to a court order,” MPA said in a statement, without giving further details. “The crew on...

For Sunny He, a 32-year-old Shanghai resident, this year’s Singles’ Day shopping season culminated in a single, high-value purchase: a 12,000-yuan (US$1,797) iPhone 18 Pro Max, sweetened by a 300-yuan voucher on Alibaba Group Holding’s Tmall marketplace. “For me, Double 11 definitely isn’t as lively as before because I have less spare cash than in previous years,” He said. “Even so, I’ll take advantage of this chance for products that I couldn’t bear to buy at full price, like a new...

While some tropes like zombies are universally scary, other sources of terror require specific cultural knowledge to inspire dread – something Wyn Panichpakdee realised while watching both Thai and international players test his studio’s latest video game. In Kumarn: The Wandering Spirit, players encounter phi nang rum, menacing dancing spirit dolls from Thai folklore. Wyn said Thai players instantly recognised the dolls and braced themselves for something horrifying, while foreign players...

An investigation into Megaspeed, a Singapore company that was buying advanced Nvidia A.I. chips, was transferred to the Justice Department after a top Nvidia executive reached out to Commerce Department officials.

Nasdaq is preparing to extend trading in US equities on its exchange to nearly 23 hours a day from next month, a landmark shift that will bring Wall Street into real-time competition with Asian markets. The expansion, slated for launch on December 6, introduces an overnight window running from 9pm to 4am Eastern Time. During US winter time, that corresponds to 10am to 5pm in Hong Kong and Beijing, directly overlapping with normal trading hours across China. The US Securities and Exchange...