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The recent opening of a new road bridge between North Korea and Russia may look like a modest infrastructure project. In reality, the 1km stretch across the Tumen River carries implications far beyond the movement of vehicles between two border towns. For China, it is a reminder that its influence over North Korea is no longer as secure as it once appeared and that Russia may be increasingly capab...
Hong Kong firms will benefit from expanded non-discriminatory treatment and investment guarantees in 10 Asean states after a protocol amending an investment agreement with the bloc was signed on Sunday. The protocol was signed in Manila – where Asean economic ministers are meeting – ahead of dedicated trade consultations between Hong Kong and the bloc. Undersecretary for Commerce and Economic Deve...
US President Donald Trump has unveiled a new “AI Force” just days ahead of a state visit by Chinese leader Xi Jinping, in a potential escalation of the high-stakes technology race between the rival powers. Experts said the proposed AI Force – whose exact structure remains unclear – could give Beijing a clear counterpart for AI safety talks, but warned it risked becoming an instrument of further te...
When President Xi Jinping travels to Washington later this month, he is likely to hop over the Pacific on a Boeing 747 jumbo jet. He will also hold the fate of the American planemaker’s much-touted China deal in his hands. Beijing agreed to purchase 200 Boeing aircraft during US President Donald Trump’s visit to China in May. But the deal has yet to materialise – and the negotiations could depend ...
Hong Kong customs has seized about 13kg of suspected ketamine, worth an estimated HK$4.7 million (US$599,067), at the city’s airport and arrested a passenger arriving from Germany over alleged drug trafficking. According to the Customs and Excise Department, officers found the suspected ketamine in the checked luggage of a 22-year-old Japanese man who arrived in Hong Kong from Frankfurt on Sunday....
North Korea launched two missiles off its eastern coast on Sunday, its second set of tests in roughly a week, days after Pyongyang accused the US of driving tensions on the Korean peninsula through a series of military drills. Just three hours after launching a short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) towards the East Sea, or Sea of Japan, on Sunday afternoon, North Korea fired another short-range...
North Korea launched two missiles off its eastern coast on Sunday, its second set of tests in roughly a week, days after Pyongyang accused the US of driving tensions on the Korean peninsula through a series of military drills. Just three hours after launching a short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) towards the East Sea, or Sea of Japan, on Sunday afternoon, North Korea fired another short-range...
China can learn from US immigration strategies to attract foreign talent and stay competitive in the intensifying global tech race, a Chinese public policy analyst has said. Li Mingbo, deputy dean of the Guangzhou Institute of the Greater Bay Area (GIG), said China must be more efficient in promoting its new K visas for young science and technology specialists from overseas, noting that the countr...
In the first instalment of a four-part Health Matters series on traditional Chinese medicine, Lisa Cam and Ashlyn Chak explore how a new generation of health-conscious youth is discovering century-old leung cha and helping neighbourhood tea shop owners safeguard a dying trade. Long before modern chain pharmacies and over-the-counter painkillers were readily available in Hong Kong, there were leung...
Hong Kong’s education authorities have urged a local secondary school to review its arrangements for events after a post alleging the school banned Cantonese in graduation videos sparked outrage online. In a response to the South China Morning Post on Sunday, the government said the school had activated its crisis management team to follow up on the issue and sent an email to all teachers and stud...
Hong Kong’s education authorities have urged a local secondary school to review its rules and guidelines for events after a post alleging the school banned Cantonese in graduation videos sparked outrage online. In a response to the South China Morning Post on Sunday, the government said the school has activated its crisis management team to follow up on the issue and sent an email to all teachers ...
Hong Kong’s education authorities have urged a local secondary school to review its rules and guidelines for events after a post alleging the school banned Cantonese in graduation videos sparked outrage online. In a response to the South China Morning Post on Sunday, the government said the school has activated its crisis management team to follow up on the issue and sent an email to all teachers ...
Online community in China is heart-wrenched over a driver’s goodwill in pulling a rope across a road as a warning sign, which ultimately took the life of a passer-by. The case emerged after the driver, surnamed Xie, was arrested for manslaughter in central China’s Henan province on September 11. While driving along a dirt road in a village, the concrete mixer truck driver noticed potholes that cau...
Huang Qiaoyuan has just a year to go before she completes her undergraduate medical training in southern China, but she is thinking of quitting the field and going into consulting. Huang, a fifth-year clinical medical student in Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, said she was initially drawn to the idea of being a doctor during the Covid-19 pandemic, when the contributions of health workers came to...
The media’s treatment of Prince Harry and his wife Meghan is on a par with that faced by his mother Diana, the late princess’s brother said in an interview published on Sunday, warning that lessons needed to be learned from that period. Diana died aged 36 in a 1997 Paris car crash as photographers pursued her on motorbikes, sparking an outpouring of grief and a reckoning over whether the media...
The prospect of United States, Chinese and Russian leaders meeting at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit in Shenzhen this November has revived the Yalta analogy. Talk of a Trump-Xi-Putin summit – echoing the 1945 meeting that reshaped the world – surfaced during the first Trump term, and speculation returned last year with the 80th anniversary of the second world war. No such meet...
Hong Kong police suspect a dog attack killed a 27-year-old woman who was found beside a bicycle in Yuen Long. The woman was discovered unconscious on Pok Wai South Road in Yuen Long at 12.42am on Sunday, according to the force. She was taken to Pok Oi Hospital and pronounced dead at 2.09am. Security camera footage showed her leaving Yuen Long MTR station at 11.40pm on Saturday and riding a shared ...
Hong Kong police suspect a dog attack may have caused the death of a woman who was taken to hospital in the early hours of Sunday, the South China Morning Post has learned. A force spokesman said the woman was found unconscious beside a bicycle on Pok Wai South Road at 12.42am. She was taken to Pok Oi Hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 2.09am. A source said that a preliminary review of sur...
Hong Kong prosecutors are set to open the murder trial of three former relatives of slain socialite Abby Choi Tin-fung later this week, three years after her killing shocked the city and drew international attention. The High Court will hold the first trial hearing on Monday for parties to sort out preliminary issues. Jury selection is expected to take place later in the week before the prosecutio...
Hong Kong authorities should shoulder a larger share of the cost of facilities jointly used by institutions at the Northern Metropolis university towns, a varsity president has said, while calling for dedicated research funding to encourage collaboration among campuses. Professor Stephen Cheung Yan-leung, president of the private Saint Francis University, said that while individual institutions co...
Hong Kong’s first post-colonial leader, Tung Chee-hwa, has been lauded as a pioneer of “one country, two systems”, a staunch patriot and a close friend of the Chinese Communist Party who also contributed to US-China relations, according to a eulogy delivered by a senior Beijing official. In his remarks at Tung’s state funeral on Sunday, seen by the South China Morning Post, Shi Taifeng – a Politbu...
Ukraine launched what Moscow’s mayor called the biggest ever drone attack on the Russian capital on Sunday, in what he said was an unsuccessful attempt to disrupt the final day of a parliamentary election that President Vladimir Putin has cast as a test of support for Russia’s war in Ukraine. Two people were killed in the surrounding Moscow region and the capital’s oil refinery, which has been hi...
The United States Congress has reportedly launched a probe after a shipment of sensitive F-35 fighter jet parts was said to have been unexpectedly diverted to Hong Kong and went missing, with the city’s authorities declining to comment on the case. A spokesman for the Hong Kong government said over the weekend that it would not comment on individual cases, a day after US media outlet Politico publ...
Hong Kong’s first five-year plan will give businesses greater certainty to make long-term investment decisions amid a volatile external environment, the city’s finance chief has said. Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po said the plan’s targets and timelines would allow companies to see the city’s direction over the next five years and better align their plans with the government’s. “The significan...
Chinese firms have shown “very strong interest” in investing in Oman – across the Strait of Hormuz from Iran – as they aim to tap the lucrative Middle East market while minimising risks, an Omani official said. Banks, asset managers and law firms from China were getting in touch every day to ask about setting up in the International Financial Centre Oman, a free-standing legal zone in the country,...
Former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak said on Sunday that he would remain in Kajang Prison as he and his legal team study the conditions attached to his “conditional pardon”, including the payment of a 50 million ringgit (US$12.3 million) fine before he can be transferred to house arrest. In a statement issued on his behalf by Messrs Shafee & Co on Sunday, Najib said his transfer to house ar...
As heatwaves become more frequent and intense across Asia, the region faces a dangerous power paradox. Soaring demand for air conditioning threatens to push electricity grids closer to failure just as extreme heat puts the infrastructure under greater strain, raising the risk of cooling disappearing when people need it most. That risk has been visible across the region this summer. In South Korea,...
I grew up in Delhi. Not Lutyens’ Delhi, that quieter, greener stretch of tree-lined avenues and high-walled colonial bungalows where the VIPs live. But close enough to know that two cities share one name. One Delhi is generally messy. Rubbish piled into small mountains by the roadside. No footpaths to walk on. Narrow streets marked as one way, with every kind of traffic coming at you from every di...
Some Western politicians are seeking conflict between Nato and Russia after a “failed” strategy to defeat Moscow in its war with Ukraine, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said on Saturday. Long-time Slovak leader Fico, who has kept up warm relations with Russia and refuses military aid for Ukraine, said this week that Europe was closer than ever to a large-scale war erupting from the Ukraine ...
A man in eastern China filed a lawsuit against an AI company after he followed a chatbot’s recommendation for his mother’s burial date, which he later claimed was linked to a family misfortune. According to Jimu News, Shi, from Jiashan county in Zhejiang province, lost his mother to a sudden illness in April. As the youngest of five siblings, Shi sought an auspicious date for her burial. Such date...
