This morning's briefing covers 29 stories selected from issue 23 of Biguan (毕观天下), weighted towards Asia. China's Communist Party opened its Fifth Plenum in Beijing, Hong Kong set a Dec 21 start for full MPF portability, Fukushima Governor Masao Uchibori won a fourth term, and independent MP Helen Haines lost both legs after being hit by a car as Australia's Parliament returns. Elsewhere, Serbia's Vučić conceded defeat to the student movement, Brazil extended voting in its presidential runoff, María Corina Machado returned to Venezuela, Bulgaria heads to a presidential runoff, and Netanyahu posted an AI image of a nuclear blast before Israel's election.
The Fifth Plenary Session of the Chinese Communist Party's 20th Central Committee is being held in Beijing from Oct 26 to 29, attended by about 300 Central Committee members. Its agenda is reported to centre on party building, discipline and anti-corruption, ahead of the 21st Party Congress in autumn 2027. Before the meeting, six provinces saw leadership changes, including new party secretaries in two provinces and six new governors, and some analysts speculate the meeting could discuss creating a post of party chairman.
Helen Haines, the independent federal MP for Indi, was hit by a car outside her electorate office in Wangaratta last week, and police are treating it as a deliberate attack. The 65-year-old mother of three suffered severe lower-body injuries, had both legs amputated and is in a serious but stable condition. As federal Parliament returns this week, the Prime Minister will move to suspend normal business so MPs can express support for her, security in public areas of Parliament House has been increased, and police warned that inflammatory political rhetoric is directly linked to threats against politicians.
Hong Kong's Mandatory Provident Fund Schemes Authority announced on Sunday, Oct 25, that 'full portability' will start on Dec 21, allowing about 1 million employees to transfer both employer and employee contributions to a scheme of their choice once each calendar year. MPFA chairman Ayesha Macpherson Lau said in a blog post that it will be rolled out in two phases to ensure a smooth transition. Under current rules, employees can only freely transfer their own contributions, while employer contributions stay in the scheme chosen by the employer.
Hong Kong Chief Secretary Eric Chan inspected the Shenzhen Bay and Huanggang ports on Sunday, Oct 25, and pledged to open more clearance counters and vehicle lanes at the newly rebuilt Huanggang Port before peak periods, after Halloween crowds and concert-goers caused severe cross-border congestion. Chan said he had told the Security Bureau to strengthen advance assessment and passenger flow forecasts, and asked the Transport and Logistics Bureau to work with bus and rail operators to keep enough vehicles and staff ready.
In the Fukushima prefectural governor election on Sunday, Oct 25, 62-year-old independent incumbent Masao Uchibori won a fourth term with about 586,000 votes, defeating six candidates including a 33-year-old Japanese Communist Party newcomer, who received about 37,000. Turnout was 44.05%, up from 42.58% last time, and the seven candidates were the most in any post-war Fukushima governor race. Uchibori said he will push for removing decontamination soil from the prefecture for final disposal by 2045 and for finishing the decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant by 2051.
Hong Kong Customs seized a batch of suspected cocaine with an estimated market value of about HK$1.3 million at the airport on Sunday, Oct 25. Officers found the drugs in the hand luggage of a 39-year-old mainland Chinese man who had arrived from Penang that day and arrested him. He has been charged with one count of trafficking in a dangerous drug and was due to appear at West Kowloon Magistrates' Courts on Oct 26.
Indonesian authorities intercepted the Mongolian-flagged tanker MT Global 168 in the Strait of Malacca carrying 1.16 tonnes of ketamine worth about US$14 million. The director of the Narcotics Criminal Investigation Department at Malaysia's Bukit Aman police headquarters said both directors of the company that owns the tanker are Malaysian and its office is in Johor Bahru. He said the tanker had applied to register under the Malaysian flag but had not been approved, and was sailing under the Mongolian flag.
Japan's GMO Internet Group disclosed unauthorised access to servers for its automated foreign exchange margin trading service and asked the government to take active cyber defence measures. A Teikoku Databank survey of 1,328 companies nationwide this month found that about 30% of large companies and more than 10% of small and medium-sized firms had experienced actual or suspected information leaks, caused both by human error such as misdirected emails and by cyberattacks. The Liberal Democratic Party called for a response system led by the prime minister.
Ami Bera, ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on East Asia and the Pacific, said in an interview in Tokyo on Oct 24 that he had confirmed with Secretary of State Marco Rubio that US policy of not using Taiwan or arms sales to Taiwan as bargaining chips with China has not changed. He criticised Trump's tariffs and the Middle East war as not coordinated with Congress, saying they had pushed up prices of petrol, food and housing, and said he was confident Democrats would win a House majority in the Nov 3 midterms, in which case he would lead the subcommittee.
On the evening of Friday, Oct 23, people opposed to a government plan to build a large multipurpose hydropower project gathered in Arunachal Pradesh, in north-east India near the China-India border, confronted police and destroyed large amounts of supplies. AFP, citing a briefing by the Arunachal Pradesh government the next day, reported that nearly 40 police officers were injured and police used tear gas to disperse the crowd.
On HK Express flight UO676 from Hong Kong to Jeju, South Korea, on Sunday, Oct 25, a power bank in a bag under a seat overheated and gave off smoke as the plane approached Jeju International Airport, and a female passenger suffered a minor burn to her thumb. The flight carried 236 passengers and 7 crew and landed safely. The airline said crew followed standard procedures, putting the power bank in a heat-resistant fire containment bag and submerging it in water, and apologised to passengers. HK Express is the low-cost carrier of Cathay Pacific.
Hong Kong's Council on Human Reproductive Technology told the South China Morning Post in a written reply on Sunday, Oct 25, that it had referred a case to law enforcement. Local media reported that a mainland influencer known on Instagram as 'berlinsun' set up a company in Hong Kong and advertised commercial surrogacy services for same-sex couples, arranging for non-local surrogate mothers to give birth in Hong Kong and handling the children's identity documents. The influencer and a foreign husband have two children through surrogacy, and last Thursday the pair were fined NT$200,000 in Kaohsiung for providing assisted reproduction services in breach of medical law and then deported.
Spoon, the company that runs mobile gift voucher platform Giftil, said it confirmed unauthorised outside access on Oct 22 that leaked personal data of 18,359 users, including names, mobile numbers, email addresses and refund bank account numbers. Spoon is a subsidiary of an advertising agency of the Lotte Group, and Giftil issues and sells mobile vouchers for brands including Lotte. The company said it blocked the attacking IP on Oct 22, reported the leak to regulators and police after confirming it on Oct 23, and that no financial losses such as misused vouchers have been found.
Oct 26 marks the 47th anniversary of the assassination of South Korean President Park Chung-hee. The Hankyoreh reported that a court will rule in less than two months in the retrial of former Korean Central Intelligence Agency director Kim Jae-gyu, who killed Park and was convicted of murder for the purpose of insurrection. Since the retrial formally began in July last year, the key question has been whether his act can be deemed a riot aimed at insurrection; prosecutors asked for the retrial claim to be dismissed at closing arguments on Sept 30, while the defence argued he had no such aim.
China's Ministry of Commerce and Ministry of Science and Technology on Oct 16 issued a joint notice seeking comment on revising the catalogue of technologies prohibited or restricted from export, proposing to add 23 AI technologies, including large-model training methods, agent systems and computing clusters, with the rules applying to AI models containing restricted technologies deployed overseas. The CCTV-affiliated account Yuyuan Tantian said on Oct 22 that DeepSeek and MiniMax had completed registration for open-sourcing and overseas licensing. A brokerage analyst quoted by the STAR Market Daily said this clarifies the path abroad for general-purpose open-source models.
Researchers in Singapore have developed CIRRHOClear, a blood test that uses microRNA biomarkers to detect the risk of liver cirrhosis before symptoms appear. Clinical studies show it identified 89% of cirrhosis cases and ruled out the condition with 95% accuracy. Doctors said early detection can help prevent liver failure and liver cancer and ease bottlenecks in current testing; cirrhosis is a major cause of liver failure and a common form of liver cancer.
A director-general at Taiwan's Ministry of Digital Affairs said on Oct 25 that the ministry has been meeting Meta, Google, LINE and experts this year, seeking prominent labels for AI-generated images. The planned system has three layers: creators tick a disclosure box when uploading; platforms add labels automatically when they detect AI-generated features that were not disclosed; and channels for government notices, user reports and appeals handle anything missed. He noted that YouTube currently places its label under 'more' in the description, which is not prominent enough.
The Weeknd played the first of four Hong Kong concerts at the Kai Tak Main Stadium on the night of Saturday, Oct 24, performing for the first time a new Hong Kong-inspired song called 'Hong Kong' before tens of thousands of fans. The song samples a 1993 classic by Faye Wong, stirring nostalgia among local fans. The Weeknd, whose real name is Abel Tesfaye, is a singer, songwriter, record producer and actor.
Serbia held an early parliamentary election on Sunday, Oct 25, and that evening President Aleksandar Vučić, in power for 12 years, conceded at his Serbian Progressive Party headquarters in Belgrade that his camp had 'lost', predicting that the list fielded by the student movement would win a parliamentary majority, with minority parties taking about 5 seats. Data from election monitor CeSID showed turnout of 67.6% by 7pm, the highest since 1992. The election followed more than a year of protests after the collapse of a station canopy in Novi Sad in 2024 killed 16 people, with students and the opposition accusing the government of corruption.
After Storm Austen hit south-west England on Friday, Oct 23, Storm Boelo, the second named storm in two days, battered Scotland, Northern Ireland and northern England from the evening of Oct 24. Police said a 60-year-old man was killed by a falling tree; more than 82,000 properties across the UK lost power, and about 53,000 homes in Scotland were still without electricity at 5pm on Oct 25. Under a Met Office amber warning from 9pm Saturday, winds reached 60 to 70mph widely, with 82mph recorded on Tiree, 84mph in Argyll and Bute and 83mph in Snowdonia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a television interview on Sunday, Oct 25, that Kyiv, Washington and Moscow will hold three-way talks in November to restart stalled peace negotiations, saying territorial issues should be handled at leaders' level and other matters by technical groups. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Oct 23 that the talks were planned for November in the Gulf region. US envoy Steve Witkoff met Zelensky and European leaders in Oslo on Oct 20 and Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg on Oct 21, after which both Kyiv and Moscow said they were willing to resume direct talks with US mediation.
No candidate won outright in Bulgaria's presidential election on Sunday, Oct 25, and a runoff will be held on Nov 1, election officials said; observers attributed the record low turnout to widespread distrust of politicians. Pro-Western reformist opposition candidate Andrei Gyurov performed unexpectedly strongly and will face incumbent left-wing President Iliana Yotova, with the two holding clearly different views on foreign relations. The AP reported that the vote took place amid worsening economic hardship and drone attacks on Black Sea shipping, and was the first major test for the Moscow-friendly Progressive Bulgaria party since it took power.
Tens of thousands of people joined a rally in Prague on Oct 25 organised by the Million Moments for Democracy initiative, calling for media freedom and opposing the public broadcasting reform pushed by Prime Minister Andrej Babiš's right-wing populist government, after smaller protests in Prague, Brno and other cities in previous days. The plan would scrap licence fees and fund public television and radio from the state budget, cutting their funding by more than 15%. The bill passed its first reading in a rare overnight session of the lower house, and President Petr Pavel criticised the government for rushing the legislation.
After thousands marched through Lisbon's main streets against housing costs and set up a tent camp in Rossio Square, dozens of Portuguese police officers, some with dogs, moved in shortly after 2am on Sunday, Oct 25, removing more than 100 tents from Rossio Square and about 50 from Praça Dom João I in Porto; 31 people were arrested for offences including disobeying orders. The protesters, inspired by similar camps in a neighbouring country, say house prices far exceed average incomes. Police said the operation was proportionate and that protesters had been asked to leave beforehand.
Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado returned to Venezuela on Sunday, Oct 25, writing on X: 'I am here, with you.' She then attended Mass at a shrine in Barquisimeto, Lara state, about 354 km from Caracas. Machado, 59, left by speedboat last December to collect her prize in Oslo and stayed abroad for more than 10 months; in January US forces captured Maduro and Rodríguez became interim president. Trump said he hoped she would be safe.
Brazil held the second round of its presidential election on Sunday, Oct 25, with about 160 million voters choosing between President Lula and right-wing candidate Flávio Bolsonaro. A Supreme Court justice granted the Lula campaign's request to extend voting by 2 hours to 7pm Brasília time, and the Superior Electoral Court then suspended release of some partial results. Flávio, 45, led in the first round; his father, former president Jair Bolsonaro, is serving a 27-year sentence. Lula turns 81 on Tuesday, and final results had not yet been announced.
Israel's military said on Sunday, Oct 25, it will close all land crossings in the West Bank during the Oct 27 parliamentary election and bar Palestinian workers from settlements from that day, after two Israeli soldiers were killed in an attack at a checkpoint. On the eve of the vote, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted an AI image of a nuclear bomb exploding over Tel Aviv, warning of a 'second Holocaust' if he is not elected, while billionaire Trump donor Bill Ackman said far-right ministers Ben-Gvir and Smotrich should not be in the next government. Al Jazeera reported that two Israeli air strikes on students and guards at the Islamic University in Gaza City killed 3 people and injured at least 7.
Police spokesperson Mshelizah said the death toll from an attack by gunmen on Binnari village in Taraba State, north-east Nigeria, has risen to at least 48, while Amnesty International said it had confirmed 52 deaths. The gunmen reportedly rode into the village on motorbikes in an attack lasting up to 4 hours, and some villagers drowned while fleeing. Police had earlier given a figure of at least 10 dead.
Uganda declared its own Ebola outbreak over in July and says it has no active cases, but recent cases elsewhere have raised questions about travellers passing through the country. Uganda's health minister announced at a news conference in Kampala on Sunday, Oct 25, that Ugandan citizens who have travelled to the Democratic Republic of Congo must quarantine for 21 days at their own expense on return. Authorities have stepped up checks at Entebbe International Airport and land border crossings and require all arriving travellers to provide contact details.