Hong Kong has long thrived as one of the freest economies in the world, thanks in part to an absence of taxes and duties on goods. 

North American leaders have weighed in after anti-government protesters called for international support at a mass rally in Hong Kong on August 16, 2019.

Hongkongers burned offerings for the dead during the Hungry Ghost Festival, from August 14-15, 2019. Meanwhile, anti-government protests continued on the city’s streets, with massive rallies on August 17 and August 18, 2019.

Tens of thousands of people braved the rain to join a rally outside Hong Kong government headquarters. Called, ‘No violence, save Hong Kong’, the rally aimed to demonstrate support for the police and call for an end to the protests. Organisers say the event attracted 476,000 people. Police estimate 108,000 at its peak.

Skateboarding is still being looked down upon in China’s mega city, Shanghai, despite the sport rolling up to its Olympic debut in the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics. Now Shanghai skateboarders want more space for their growing sport. 

US carmaker Tesla spearheaded its entry into the world’s largest electric car market, with its first overseas assembly facility in Shanghai, China, amid the ongoing US-China trade war. The main structure is near completion and the wholly-owned plant is set to begin production of the Model 3 by the end of 2019, less than a year after construction began in January.

The United Nations Human Rights Office has raised concerns over the escalating violence of the ongoing extradition bill protests in Hong Kong. In an unprecedented intervention on August 13, 2019, the UN urged an open dialogue and independent investigation into the extradition bill movement.

Millions of Muslim pilgrims gathered in Mecca in Saudi Arabia to take part in the annual haj. The ‘stoning of the devil’ ceremony in the Mina neighbourhood on Sunday, August 11, 2019, was the final major ritual of the pilgrimage.

China decided to halt US agricultural imports on Tuesday, August 6, 2019, after US President Donald Trump threatened to impose additional tariffs on Chinese goods. 

Hong Kong officials attended a high-level meeting with the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office (HKMAO), in Shenzhen on August 7, 2019, to discuss the ongoing extradition bill crisis.

Three young supporters of the Hong Kong anti-extradition bill movement held a press conference on Tuesday, August 6, 2019, following an announcement by the city’s chief executive that police would hold daily briefings about ongoing unrest.

After a chaotic night in Hong Kong, the city is cleaning up on August 6, 2019, following violent clashes in multiple districts the previous day. Protesters, police and other groups clashed during a citywide strike on August 5.

Chaos continues as a general strike in Hong Kong evolves across the city on August 5, 2019. The usual bustling commercial areas and streets are mostly empty. Eight MTR lines have been fully or partially suspended. Protesters have been seen blocking roads and preventing MTR train doors from closing, stopping trains from departing. 

Hong Kong woke up to what could prove to be the largest citywide strike in decades on Monday, August 5, 2019. 

People from Hong Kong’s financial sector took to the streets for a flash mob protest against how the government has handled its now-shelved extradition bill.

Most visitors to Hong Kong arrive from the city’s international airport via the Tsing Ma Bridge, one of the world’s longest suspension spans connecting the islands of Tsing Yi and Ma Wan. But few notice the ghostly ruins of Ma Wan Village just northwest of the structure. The once-thriving fishing and farming community first settled over 200 years ago, was earmarked for redevelopment in 1997. A dispute over the property halted development and has left the village frozen in a state of decay for decades.

The recent violence at a shopping centre in Yuen Long has focused attention on the bustling district in Hong Kong’s New Territories, where less than a century ago visitors found little more than a cluster of agricultural villages. 

Violent attacks took place at Hong Kong’s Yuen Long MTR station overnight on Sunday, July 21-22, 2019. 

A group of elderly Hong Kong citizens march from the city’s Central district to government headquarters in Admiralty on Wednesday, July 17, 2019, to show support for younger people who have been at the forefront in the anti-extradition bill movement. 

Okinawa, Bolivia is a community in the centre of South America that is home to families of Japanese migrants who first started arriving more than a century ago. 

Shanghai is the first Chinese city to implement an ambitious nationwide trash sorting and recycling programme, but residents have been struggling to shift over to the new system since it started on July 1, 2019. 

Violent clashes in Hong Kong’s northern town of Sha Tin have sent at least 22 people to hospital. The fights on July 14-15, 2019, involving anti-extradition law protesters and riot police, followed a largely peaceful rally by tens of thousands of demonstrators who marched through the centre of the town.

Hong Kong singer-activist Denise Ho Wan-sze took her anti-extradition protest to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on July 8, 2019. The famous canto-pop star urged the UN to safeguard Hong Kong’s autonomy.  

A popular form of entertainment for more than 2,000 years, Chinese shadow puppetry is now an endangered craft. For the past few decades, traditional shadow theatres have been struggling to attract audiences and the master puppeteers of the old generation are worried the art form will die with them.

Police killed a three-year-old girl on June 29, 2019, during a drug raid in Rizal province, east of the Philippine capital Manila. Myca Ulpina is the youngest person to be killed in the government’s three-year-long crackdown on illegal drugs. A senator who oversaw the most violent period in the country’s so-called drug war has dismissed the toddler’s death as collateral damage.

The Jimingsansheng Bridge, meaning “cock crow heard in three provinces”, completed its main arch on July 7, 2019, marking a milestone in three years of construction. The bridge connects three provinces in southwest China and is scheduled to open at the end of 2019.

A powerful tornado, along with strong showers and hail, hit the city of Kaiyuan in northeast China’s Liaoning province on July 3, 2019, killing at least six people and injuring more than 190.

Annual monsoon rains have crippled India’s financial capital Mumbai since the beginning of July. The worst flooding in a decade brought waist-deep water and chaos to the city, leaving at least 20 people dead.

The Gupo dog meat market in Busan, South Korea - one of the country’s largest - was shut down on July 1, 2019. Animal charities rescued more than 80 dogs, as meat vendors closed after authorities paid them out under a market-renovation project.

A selfie video has captured pickpockets in the act of snatching a purse from the handbag of a Thai tourist as she walked with a friend through London’s West End.