IKEA’s Tsim Sha Tsui outlet has halted sales of a frozen dessert item after a food safety test found that its level of coliform bacteria exceeded the standard limit.

The Food and Environmental Hygiene Department said in a statement on Tuesday night that the Centre for Food Safety (CFS) conducted tests on a frozen confection sample from a “licensed frozen confection factory in Tsim Sha Tsui” as part of routine checks.

Tests found that the sample contained 240 coliform bacteria per gram, more than twice the legal limit of 100 coliform bacteria per gram.

The frozen dessert was sold at the food section of Swedish furniture giant IKEA’s Tsim Sha Tsui store, located in K11 Art Mall.

“The CFS has informed the frozen confection factory concerned of the irregularity and instructed it to stop selling and to dispose [of] all the affected frozen confection immediately,” the statement read.

A group of bacteria found in digestive tracts and soil, coliforms in food can suggest contamination. They are usually present in small numbers in items such as raw milk, meat, poultry or other raw foods.

While mostly harmless, high levels of coliforms indicate unsanitary conditions or poor hygiene practices during food production, according to the CFS.

The CFS added that while the coliform count shows hygiene conditions were “unsatisfactory,” it did not mean consumption would cause food poisoning.

HKFP has reached out to IKEA for comment.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio was due Wednesday in Beijing with President Donald Trump despite being under sanctions from China, whose new approach to him has included changing how his name is written.

As a US senator, Rubio fiercely championed human rights in China, which retaliated by imposing sanctions on him twice — adopting a tactic more often used by the United States against adversaries.

China said Tuesday it would not block Rubio, now 54 and visiting China for the first time, from entering on Air Force One with Trump, the first US president to visit the Asian power in nearly a decade.

“The sanctions target Mr. Rubio’s words and deeds when he served as a US senator concerning China,” Chinese embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu said.

China had already appeared to find a diplomatic workaround after Trump named Rubio his secretary of state and national security advisor.

Shortly before he took office in January 2025, the Chinese government and official media began transliterating the first syllable of his surname with a different Chinese character for “lu.”

Two diplomats said they believed the change was an immediate way for China to avoid implementing its sanctions, as Rubio was banned from entering under the old spelling of his name.

A State Department official confirmed only that Rubio was traveling with Trump.

Rubio’s presence on Air Force One quickly drew online attention for another reason after the White House released a photo of him lounging in a Nike track suit of the sort worn by Venezuela’s ousted president Nicolas Maduro when US forces snatched him in January.

Rubio, a Cuban-American who vociferously opposes communism, was the key author of congressional legislation that imposed wide sanctions on China over the alleged use of forced labor by the mostly Muslim Uyghur minority, charges denied by Beijing.

He has also spoken out against Beijing’s clampdown in Hong Kong.

At his confirmation hearing as secretary of state, Rubio focused heavily on China, which he described as an unprecedented adversary.

But since taking office, Rubio has supported Trump who describes counterpart Xi Jinping as a friend and has focused on building a trade relationship while downplaying human rights.

Last year, however, Rubio brought relief to Taiwan when he said that the Trump administration would not negotiate over the self-governing democracy’s future to secure a trade deal with China.

A US fundraising platform and a coffee association are switching Taiwan’s designation to “Chinese Taipei,” in line with Beijing’s preferred naming convention for the self-ruled island it claims as its own.

GlobalGiving offers fundraising tools in over 175 countries, including China. It has over 20 nonprofit partners in Taiwan.

A spokesperson for the platform did not respond to HKFP’s enquiries as to whether they faced pressure or when the update would take effect. But they said on Wednesday: “We work with thousands of vetted non-profit partners across more than 175 countries, including China, and comply with local laws and regulations in every country where we operate. Following local requirements allows us to build trust and connection between donors and trusted and relevant organizations. “

JustGiving partner Forward Alliance – a Taiwanese national security and civil defence think tank – said on Facebook on Thursday that it had been informed by the fundraising site of the upcoming update. “The change to designate Taiwan as ‘Chinese Taipei’ is unacceptable. It is part of an ongoing campaign to diminish Taiwan internationally,” it said.

Forward Alliance added that it was liaising with other local NGOs and actively engaging with the funding platform to seek a solution.

On April 28, the Specialty Coffee Association’s World Coffee Championships (WCC) also changed the designation of Taiwan’s competitors to Chinese Taipei.

In a statement, the WCC said that the update was “in alignment with the naming conventions used by international sporting bodies,” adding that it did not affect qualification pathways, competitor eligibility or the competition experience.

Disputed status

The Republic of China (ROC) government has ruled Taiwan since 1945 after Japan was defeated in World War II, ending 50 years of occupation. The ROC authorities fully retreated to the island in 1949 after being defeated by the Chinese Communist Party in the Civil War. Beijing has since claimed democratic Taiwan as one of its provinces, threatening to unify it by force if necessary.

See also: Explainer – Is Taiwan a country? The self-ruled island’s disputed status

Taiwan remains a self-ruled democracy of 23 million people, with its own government, currency, borders and passports. However, only a shrinking handful of states recognise it diplomatically, as Beijing seeks to isolate the island on the world stage.

In 1981, the International Olympic Committee settled on using Chinese Taipei in order to allow Taiwan’s athletes to compete, following years of controversy. The teams compete under a generic Olympic flag.

A global cyberattack on online learning platform Canvas has compromised the personal information of more than 72,000 students and staff at Hong Kong schools and universities, according to the city’s privacy watchdog.

The data breaches are part of a global attack that hit almost 9,000 educational institutions worldwide, involving data from 275 million users, according to the platform’s developer, Instructure.

Seven local institutions, including three public universities, have reported the breaches to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data (PCPD).

They are: the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), City University of Hong Kong (CityU), the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, the Hong Kong Art School, the Hong Kong Institute of Construction (HKIC), and Hong Kong Education City Limited.

The ShinyHunters hacker group allegedly held Instructure to ransom, threatening to leak the information unless Instructure pays, according to international media.

Instructure said it had reached an agreement with the hacker group to prevent a public leak and gave assurances that no personal information had been compromised.

Student and staff information

The CityU breach involved 28,000 students, according to the university’s report to the PCPD, the privacy watchdog said in a statement on Monday. The leaked data may have included student names, email addresses, student IDs, and messages.

The breach also affected 42,000 students and staff at PolyU, with their names and email addresses potentially compromised, according to the PCPD.

The watchdog “has advised the relevant organisations to notify those affected as soon as possible and to provide assistance as appropriate in each case, in order to prevent the breach from escalating,” it said.

Some 2,500 students and staff at the HKIC and 71 students at the Hong Kong Art School were hit by the breach. The other three institutions have yet to confirm the number of people affected.

Cybersecurity officials have called on institutions to suspend use of the online learning platform and remain vigilant against potential follow-up phishing attacks.

The Hong Kong Productivity Council chief digital officer Edmond Lai said at a press conference on Monday that such attacks could lead to further data leaks or unauthorised transactions.

He also said that the Hong Kong Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Centre is using artificial intelligence tools to identify phishing websites potentially linked to the Canvas hack.

Meanwhile, Chief Superintendent Raymond Lam said at a press conference on Tuesday that two police reports had been made in relation to the Canvas hack.

One report was filed by a local institution, while the other involved people who used the incident as a pretence to deceive a resident.

10 people have sustained minor injuries after a truck collided with a double-decker KMB bus on a downhill stretch in Kwun Tong.

Police said they received a report of the crash on Po Lam Road, Sau Mau Ping, at about 6.20am on Tuesday. The collision involved a light goods vehicle and a Route 600 KMB bus, which travels between Kwun Tong and Central.

The truck overturned following the crash, while the KMB bus struck a lamppost before coming to a halt, police said.

Eight bus passengers and both drivers were reportedly mildly injured and were sent to United Christian Hospital for treatment.

Dashcam footage circulating online appeared to show the truck violating traffic signals by making a right turn towards Po Tat Shopping Centre on Po Lam Road, as the KMB bus was travelling downhill.

Images from the scene showed the truck lying on its side, while the windscreen of the KMB bus was shattered. Traffic in the area was disrupted following the incident, according to RTHK.

HKFP has reached out to KMB for comment.

A Lantau-bound Sun Ferry vessel ran aground near Hei Ling Chau in the early hours of Monday, prompting an evacuation of passengers and crew.

A spokesperson for the Fire Service Department (FSD) told HKFP on Monday that 34 people were on board, including 29 passengers and five crew members. No injuries were reported.

The incident happened at around 12.55am on Monday, when the First Ferry VI vessel, sailing the Central to Mui Wo route, crashed into the Hei Ling Chau typhoon shelter breakwater.

A total of four FSD boats, two ambulances and 60 firefighters and ambulatory medics were deployed, the spokesperson said by phone.

A passenger who gave his name as Adam told HKFP that “all of a sudden, the ship rammed violently into something.”

He added, “The sound during the collision [was] frightening, and the deceleration was so sudden and aggressive that it threw me off the seat.”

He said that there was momentary panic among passengers, but things calmed down quickly as the crew came to check on them.

See also: Mui Wo-bound ferry caught in fishing net, stranded at sea for an hour

Passengers donned life jackets and were transported by rescue boat to Mui Wo, he said.

It is unclear if the ferry captain is under investigation or suspended from duties. HKFP has reached out to Sun Ferry for comment.

President Donald Trump said Monday he was ready to discuss US arms sales to Taiwan during his visit this week to Beijing, as he suggested his personal chemistry with counterpart Xi Jinping would prevent a Chinese invasion of the island.

The White House said Trump will bring along top US executives including his former nemesis Elon Musk and Apple’s Tim Cook for a trip expected to focus heavily on the US president’s hopes to ramp up trade.

China said it hoped to achieve greater stability between the world’s two largest economies during the visit lasting Wednesday through Friday, the first by a US president since Trump went in 2017.

Asked if the United States should keep selling weapons to Taiwan, a key irritant for Beijing, Trump did not answer directly but said: “I’m going to have that discussion with President Xi.”

“President Xi would like us not to, and I’ll have that discussion. That’s one of the many things I’ll be talking about,” he said, speaking to reporters in the Oval Office.

Trump, after referencing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, said of Taiwan, “I don’t think it’ll happen.”

“I think we’ll be fine. I have a very good relationship with President Xi. He knows I don’t want that to happen,” he said.

But Trump also noted that the United States was “very, very far away” compared with China.

When asked for a response to Trump’s remarks, Taiwan’s foreign ministry vowed to “continue to strengthen cooperation” with the United States, the island’s main security backer, and “build effective deterrence capabilities in order to jointly maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.”

Congress backs Taiwan

The United States recognizes only Beijing but under domestic law is required to provide weapons for the defense of Taiwan, a self-governing democracy which China considers its own.

Under the 1982 “Six Assurances,” a key foundation of US policy on Taiwan after the switch of recognition, the United States said it would not “consult” with Beijing about arms sales to the island.

Trump has long berated allies as not spending enough on their own defense. Days ahead of his trip to China, Taiwan’s parliament Friday approved a US$25 billion defense spending bill, although it fell short of the government’s proposal.

Pointing to the vote by parliament, a group of US senators led by Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that Trump should immediately green-light a US$14 billion arms package to Taiwan.

“We urge you and your team to make clear that America’s support for Taiwan is inviolable,” wrote the senators, mostly Democrats but including two centrists from Trump’s Republican Party.

While discussing economic concerns, Trump should also state that “American support for Taiwan is not up for negotiation,” they wrote.

New sanctions over Iran

Trump delayed the trip once due to the war he launched with Israel against Iran, which is still rebuffing his appeals for an agreement.

China is the main international customer for Iran’s oil, which Trump has tried to stop all countries from buying through unilateral US sanctions.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in an interview Sunday with CBS News’ “60 Minutes,” said he was unhappy that Beijing had shared missile technology with Iran.

Trump’s Treasury Department on Monday issued sanctions against 12 individuals and entities it said facilitated the sale and shipment of Iranian oil to China.

The sanctions came even as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent prepared to set up Trump’s visit during talks with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in Seoul on Wednesday.

Bessent and He have been the chief negotiators for the United States and China on all trade and economic issues.

In Beijing on Monday, foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said that top-level diplomacy was “irreplaceable” between the two countries.

“China is willing to work with the United States in the spirit of equality, respect, and mutual benefit, to expand cooperation, manage differences, and inject more stability and certainty into a volatile and intertwined world,” he told a briefing.

Asked about US pressure on Iran, Guo said only that China’s position on Iran was “consistent” and that Beijing would continue to play a “positive role” in promoting a ceasefire and peace talks.

Trump and Xi last met face-to-face in October on the sidelines of a regional summit in South Korea.

They agreed then to a one-year truce in a blistering trade war that saw tariffs on many goods exceed 100 percent.

Hong Kong authorities are considering issuing 10,000 ride-hailing permits under a new regulatory framework for on-demand transport services, according to local media.

The Hong Kong Economic Journal (HKEJ) reported on Monday, citing unnamed sources, that the government viewed a cap of 10,000 as a “reasonable starting point,” as the figure would not excessively affect taxi drivers’ income or exceed road capacity.

Authorities believe that Uber’s suggestion of 30,000 permits is too ambitious, while the taxi trade’s proposal of 3,600 would fail to meet public travel demands, the report said.

In a submission to the Legislative Council (LegCo) Panel on Transport on Monday, the government did not specify a final number of permits but noted public opinion favoured a range of 10,000 to 15,000 permits.

A government consultancy report conducted between November 2024 and January 2025 estimated that ride-hailing services facilitate about 114,000 trips in Hong Kong on an average day.

Meanwhile, the number of active ride-hailing drivers was believed to be fewer than 30,000, as many work part-time, the government said.

The government said public opinion remained divided. According to its submission document, some advocate a higher cap because ride-hailing vehicles far outnumber traditional taxis in some major cities around the world.

However, others believe that Hong Kong’s situation is “unique” and that the number of permits should not exceed the city’s current taxi fleet of about 18,000.

In a submission on Tuesday, Uber said it had more than 30,000 active ride-hailing drivers on its platform over the past year, arguing that the proposed 10,000 or 15,000 caps would not meet demands.

Uber estimated that, if the number of permits were capped at 15,000, four in 10 ride requests could go unfulfilled during rush hours, while waiting times might double, and fares could increase by 70 per cent.

The ride-hailing platform urged the government to issue enough permits to ensure a “flexible” service and to protect existing drivers’ livelihoods.

Authorities are expected to introduce the final cap by the end of June and begin enforcing the regulatory framework in the fourth quarter of this year.

In October, LegCo passed a bill to introduce a licensing regime as part of a regulatory framework for ride-hailing services in Hong Kong.

Under the framework, ride-hailing platform operators will be required to obtain a licence, while drivers will also need to acquire a permit for themselves and their vehicles to provide ride-hailing services.

A Hong Kong couple who took their children storm-chasing during Super Typhoon Ragasa last year have been acquitted of child neglect, with the court issuing them a good behaviour order for three years.

The couple, known only by their initials YKK and LRQ, appeared at the Eastern Magistrates’ Courts on Tuesday morning.

In March, they were charged with “ill-treatment or neglect by those in charge of child or young person” in relation to an incident on September 23 last year, when a No. 8 typhoon signal was in effect due to Super Typhoon Ragasa.

The couple went to watch the waves at a waterfront in Chai Wan with their two children. The mother and their five-year-old son were washed away by waves, and the father jumped in to save them.

The three were rescued by a boat operator and firefighters and were later taken to Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital. The mother and son were in a critical condition, local media reported at the time.

The couple’s nine-year-old daughter was not injured.

Magistrate Kestrel Lam ordered the two defendants to sign a bind-over order, an agreement between a court and a defendant to maintain good behaviour for a certain period. It is typically used for minor offences that are unlikely to be repeated, and the defendant is not left with a criminal record.

The bind-over order they signed was for a period of three years and in the sum of HK$2,000, meaning they will be fined HK$2,000 if they commit a similar offence during that time.

A woman who served as mayor of a California city has been charged with acting as an illegal agent of the Chinese government, the Department of Justice said Monday.

Eileen Wang, 58, the mayor of Arcadia, a city just north of Los Angeles with a population of about 50,000, has agreed to plead guilty to the felony charge, the department said in a statement.

Wang resigned from her post as mayor on Monday, according to the Arcadia City Council’s website.

Acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government carries a maximum term of 10 years in prison in the United States.

The Justice Department said Wang and an accomplice, Yaoning Sun, promoted pro-Chinese propaganda through a website they operated called US News Center serving the local Chinese American community.

“Wang and Sun received and executed directives from (Chinese) government officials to post (pro-Chinese) content on the website,” it said.

Sun pleaded guilty in 2025 to acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government and is serving a four-year prison sentence.

President Donald Trump is scheduled to visit Beijing this week and meet with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.

One of the changes I have noticed since our last (shall we say “popular?”) District Council was replaced by a more salubrious patriots-only gathering is that we now get decorations on Sha Tin lampposts.

This adds to public gaiety, no doubt, but has limited effectiveness as a communication medium because the banners have to be quite small and the lampposts are quite tall. So you can’t really get any words in.

Early attempts in this area avoided the legibility problem because they were put up in celebration of anniversaries. All you could really see was a big number, but as you were seeing the same number in all sorts of other places, it was quite obvious what we were supposed to be celebrating.

The latest effort did not involve a number. Looking up at it while waiting for the traffic lights to change, I could not make out anything at all. My research assistant deployed her mobile phone, took a picture with the telephoto feature working flat out and announced that we were celebrating China’s 15th five-year plan.

Happily, I was able to catch up with this important matter when I came across a much bigger offering on the same theme outside an MTR station. It seems we are urged to “Pro-actively align with the 15th five-year plan” and “Follow a holistic approach to development and security”.

I hesitate to criticise the work of other writers, but I cannot resist the thought that the author of this offering needs to give some thought to finding the sort of language which means something concrete and sensible to the man in the street, who is rarely told to proactively align with anything, or indeed to follow a holistic approach to it.

Most English people of my generation are not bowled over by the idea of five-year plans. This is partly because rigid adherence to erroneous five-year plans caused two of the 20th century’s most catastrophic famines: in Ukraine in 1932-33 and in China in 1958-62.

It is also no doubt partly because UK governments have rarely attempted economic planning of this kind and the rare experiment (in the early years of the 1964 Wilson government) was not a success. The Treasury (which is what they call the Finance Ministry in the UK) has never developed a wish to run plans itself, but certainly does not want anyone else doing it.

Besides the history, there is the philosophical objection, usually attributed to Friedrich Hayek, to government direction of the economy. This maintains that official intervention is an infringement of freedom and also obscures the useful information provided by prices set in the marketplace.

Whatever you think of five-year plans, though, one does have to wonder if they really call for the sort of mass public participation that the campaign on lampposts and MTR stations appears to be seeking. Even if we replaced proactive alignment and holistic approaches with something more democratic in tone, it is far from clear what the average Hong Kong person can do to further the doubtless laudable aims of the national plan.

Apparently, we are going to have our own five-year plan in due course, sometime later this year. No doubt this will be a very valuable indication of what Hong Kong should be doing to further national objectives. Perhaps it would make more sense to wait for it.

A separate question is whether the compulsive adornment of lampposts with announcements of public interest is a welcome innovation. Perhaps it is a dulce et decorum thing that citizens should be reminded of historic landmarks and invited to join in democratic festivals.

But there is a cost to hanging things on lampposts, and District Council members need to consider whether the message they are trying to get across really suits this particular mass medium. If the only thing you can get in at a legible size is two digits, then the merits of proactive alignment and holistic approaches should be advertised elsewhere. There is no point in hanging a message on a lamppost if people need a pair of binoculars to read it.

Meta has removed a series of scam ads impersonating the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) following HKFP’s enquiries.

The ads, targeting Hongkongers, appeared for weeks on Facebook. They urged users to get in touch with the global policing body if they wished to retrieve funds previously lost to scams – however, the ads were fraudulent.

The posts were published by a since-removed fake news outlet page called “Hong Kong Daily,” which falsely claimed to share an office address with HKFP.

INTERPOL told HKFP that such ads should be reported to the local police. “To confirm that INTERPOL never contacts members of the public directly, never demands money from people and never asks for bank details or any money transfer,” it said on Thursday. “Any such request or advert is fake. Members of the public should not engage and report any such emails or adverts to the local police.”

In response to HKFP on Friday, a spokesperson for the Hong Kong Police Force said they have been “actively engaging relevant authorities to verify and remove suspicious or fraudulent websites. In the process of removing such websites, cooperation with concerned parties, including various service providers, is essential. The Hong Kong Police Force is committed to safeguarding the interests of the public by working with these service providers to suppress fraudulent messages.”

The police force is part of the INTERPOL Member State of China.

Meta’s US$3.5 bn profits from scams – report

Last year, Meta banned over 3.7 million items of ad content in Hong Kong and 134 million instances globally. Also in 2025, the tech giant took down 10.9 million accounts associated with scam centres. The company owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

A spokesperson for Meta told HKFP on Friday that ads which impersonate organisations or seek to defraud people go against its policies.

“The flagged Facebook Page and associated ads have been removed for violating our policies,” the spokesperson said. “Fighting scams on our platforms is one of our top priorities and as scammers have grown in sophistication in recent years, so have our efforts. We use AI-powered detection technology to identify and remove scam ads at scale, and we also encourage anyone who encounters suspicious ads to report them through our in-app tools.”

Nevertheless, according to a report by Reuters news agency, Meta earns US$3.5 billion (HK$27.4 billion) from just a portion of scam ads every six months.

Citing internal Meta documents, Reuters said that the social media company projected that 10 per cent of its 2024 revenue would come from ads for scams and banned goods, amounting to US$16 billion (HK$124.8 billion).

Other fraudulent ads, appearing to target scam victims, remained online as of Monday, according to HKFP’s checks.

One ad targeting Hongkongers, published by a page called “Law Help,” urged those “affected by online fraud or an unregulated broker” to submit their details.

Scammers have been posing as law enforcement officers to defraud victims.

In March, Nikkei Asia reported that mock police stations and banks had been set up at scam centres, used to fool victims interacting via video call.