Asia

As the back-to-school season approaches, families across the Kingdom are adjusting their spending habits, prioritising school-related expenses amid strong market competition and a slowdown in other retail sectors, according to traders and analysts

MPs are preparing to vote on amendments to the pension reform law that appear to weaken its original provisions with more exemptions, including for state officials; revised proposal sparked criticism and doubts on wether a real reform is still possible

Houselisting was launched by Department of Economic Planning and Statistics; lasting to 24 August, it will build a comprehensive database to support the Labour Force Survey 2025, scheduled for 3 to 30 November and crucial for policy makers

A maximum prison sentence of three years and higher fines will hit individuals who intentionally fail to submit tax filings for any taxes required or fail to reveal data, if the proposed amendment to the Tax Administration Act passes

Yemeni authorities have seized over 1,5 million Captagon pills in a major drug bust; the shipment, hidden on a refrigerated truck traveling from Houthi-controlled Sana’a to Saudi Arabia, reveals a shift in narcotics trafficking, from Syria to Yemen

Eviction has been ordered for 22 properties currently occupied by public benefit associations following the government plans to use state-owned land for public development projects

Negotiations are underway with potential suppliers, including China National Nuclear Corporation, for the construction of third nuclear power plant; Kazakh Atomic Energy Agency reports talks of development of high-power nuclear and small modular reactors

A team representing the United States won the championship of the World Cosplay Summit 2025 in Nagoya; they were clad in popular game characters

Tumen, a remote Chinese city, has restarted a cross-border bridge project to boost trade with North Korea, according to NK Pro analysis of satellite imagery and local Chinese media, over five years after the bridge was completed but abandoned

Construction companies involved in public projects for the reconstruction and repairs in Tainan, Yunlin and Chiayi, severely damaged by Typhoon Danas with flooding and landslides still a threat, can reassign migrant workers without Minitry permission

Police raided HYBE, the agency behind BTS, the globally famous K-pop group, as part of a probe into alleged unfair share trading by chairman Bang Si-hyuk; He’s accused of misleading investors before HYBE’s 2020 IPO, the initial public offering of stock

Imam of the Grand Mosque in Makkah urged Muslims to verify news and avoid spreading content from paid or fake social media accounts that produce false statements, warning that many deliberately spread misinformation to distort reputation and sow divisions

Nearly 20.000 Afghans have been crossing from Iran to Afghanistan every day, driven out by targeted crackdowns and xenophobia: 1,5 million since January, fled or deported, make one of the worst displacement crises of the past decade, UN data reports