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Chilean President Jose Antonio Kast received China’s ambassador to Santiago, Niu Qingbao, at the La Moneda Palace on Friday morning, in an encounter that lasted more than an hour and marked the first meeting between the two men since the right-wing leader took office in March. According to the presidency, Kast, Foreign Minister Francisco Perez Mackenna and Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Patricio T...
Beijing hit back at the White House decision to add 43 Chinese companies to a blacklist that is meant to block imports allegedly made in Xinjiang using forced labour, describing them as a “classic act of economic coercion”. Friday’s sanctions were the third time this week that Washington announced measures aimed at China. Enforcing the Uygur Forced Labour Prevention Act (UFLPA), the Department of ...
The White House on Friday added 43 Chinese companies to a blacklist that is meant to block imports made with alleged forced labour in Xinjiang, marking the third time this week Washington has announced measures aimed at China. Enforcing the Uygur Forced Labour Prevention Act (UFLPA), the Department of Homeland Security increased its entity list by 30 per cent to include companies in sectors rangin...
The US Marine Corps says the pilot of an F-35B stealth fighter ejected before the jet crashed in California, and was taken to a medical facility. The jet went down on Friday afternoon near the Miramar airbase in San Diego. A Marines statement called it a “Class A mishap”. That is the most severe mishap category, used when the damage totals more than US$2 million, an aircraft is destroyed or a serv...
The US Marine Corps says the pilot of an F-35B stealth fighter ejected before the jet crashed in California, and was taken to a medical facility. The jet went down on Friday afternoon near the Miramar airbase in San Diego. A Marines statement called it a “Class A mishap”. That is the most severe mishap category, used when the damage totals more than US$2 million, an aircraft is destroyed or a serv...
President Donald Trump said on Friday that the United States has not agreed to Ukraine building Patriot missiles but that talks are ongoing, adding that the US must be “very careful about letting somebody build them”. Trump said during a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Turkey this month that he was going to give Ukraine a licence to manufacture Patriot missile interceptors...
Italy said on Friday it was suspending the EU’s border-free Schengen arrangements with Spain in response to a mass influx of migrants into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta from neighbouring Morocco. Italy does not share a land border with Spain but the measure – which looks certain to anger Madrid – will affect people travelling by plane or boat between the two countries, meaning they will need to...
A Sri Lanka court sentenced former police chief Pujith Jayasundara to death on Friday for failing to prevent the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings, which killed 279 people including 45 foreigners. In a majority decision, a three-judge bench ruled that the former inspector general had failed in his duties to stop the deadly attacks, blamed on a home-grown Islamist extremist group. Jayasundara, 66, can ap...
The US-China tech rivalry has escalated into a deeper battle over undersea fibre-optic cables powering the global AI boom. As demand for cross-border data to power and train advanced systems intensifies, so does the high-stakes battle to control critical network ecosystems – mainly submarine cables that send nearly 99 per cent of intercontinental data traffic at immense speed. Beijing on Tuesday a...
Hungary’s only nuclear power plant will shut down for the first time in its history due to record-low water levels on the Danube River, Prime Minister Péter Magyar said on Friday, adding that the plant may not come back online for several weeks as the river is expected to continue receding. The Paks nuclear plant, located around 90 km (50 miles) south of the capital Budapest, is operating at less ...
Central Europe was sweltering under the latest heatwave in an already record-breaking summer on Friday, with several countries taking steps to reduce the risk of fires and ease pressure on water and energy networks. Europe’s wildfire threat is expanding, as high winds and heat force evacuations from Greece to the UK, even as blazes were brought under control in France and Spain. In Hungary, Prime ...
A group of 87 mainland Chinese families who came to Hong Kong under talent visa schemes has lost a legal bid to challenge the government’s policy changes that affected their children’s access to publicly funded university places as dependants. High Court Judge Russell Coleman on Friday ruled that there was no irrationality in the Education Bureau’s requirement that children of parents who arrived ...
Chinese tech investors are hearing warning bells after volatility in US tech stocks forced a fast-rising Wall Street hedge fund to clear its stock portfolio at a steep discount within a few days. “Don’t use leverage! Don’t use leverage! Don’t use leverage!” Shanghai-based public-markets analyst Harry Shen repeated to the South China Morning Post in an interview on Friday. Another warning came from...
US President Donald Trump on Friday hailed a “great breakthrough” in the Middle East, saying that the Board of Peace – the body he created to oversee Gaza’s governance, security and reconstruction – will lead the process of disarming Hamas. Speaking at an open-to-press cabinet meeting at Camp David, the presidential retreat that has hosted numerous world leaders, Trump credited the Board of Peace ...
Hamas said on Friday that it reached an agreement to disarm, a significant move that could help end the war in Gaza, but one that will face many hurdles and could take a long time to achieve, if at all. The group agreed to a road map as long as Israel also makes concessions, including ending hostilities and withdrawing its troops from the Palestinian territory, a Hamas official and a regional offi...
The European Union’s foreign affairs chief, Kaja Kallas, is expected to travel to China in the autumn for her first face-to-face meeting with Foreign Minister Wang Yi since a bruising encounter in Brussels last summer, according to multiple people familiar with the planning. It would mark Kallas’ first trip to Beijing since taking on her role in 2024. The trip – with a date yet to be confirmed – w...
Police will not charge a prominent Hong Kong basketball coach filmed slapping a student two years ago, citing insufficient evidence. In a reply to the South China Morning Post on Friday, the force said it would not prosecute Yung Kam-wah, who was arrested in June this year on suspicion of common assault for physically punishing a secondary student at Hon Wah College in Siu Sai Wan. “Following an i...
Vin Lors used to earn about US$20 a day working on construction sites in Bangkok, nearly twice what he now makes in Cambodia. After the border conflict between Thailand and Cambodia broke out last July, the 37-year-old and his wife decided to return home to Siem Reap province, worried about their safety and concerned about workplace discrimination. When he heard the government was helping returnin...
Hong Kong’s air safety watchdog has classified a tail strike involving a Cathay Pacific Airways passenger jet during an aborted landing at the city’s airport this month as “abnormal runway contact”, according to a preliminary report. The Air Accident Investigation Authority published its report on Friday on the July 3 incident involving flight CX509, carrying 203 passengers and 12 crew, from Tokyo...
Under new regulations, the Chinese government will soon be able to ban citizens from leaving the country if they violate export controls or rules on technology transfers. The measures were announced by the State Council, China’s cabinet, on Friday and are set to take effect on September 15. The Ministry of Commerce and other departments can enforce exit bans on citizens if their breaches “endanger...
Thousands flocked to the opening day of the annual Hong Kong Cat Expo despite Friday’s reel of rainstorm warnings, splashing out on products ranging from pet companion robots to ginseng supplements. The three-day event, which has been held annually since 2023, is being held at the Convention and Exhibition Centre in Wan Chai and features more than 185 exhibitors and 400 booths, helping to introduc...
Aeons before Hong Kong and Shenzhen became bustling metropolises separated by borders and checkpoints, the lands that would become these two cities were part of the same volcanic area in southeastern China. Fast forward to today, and that shared ancient history has become the architectural inspiration for the revamped Huanggang Port. Nestling amid towering skyscrapers, the 60-by-200-metre rounded,...
In June 1958, as China’s Great Leap Forward campaign gained traction, state media began reporting astronomical agricultural yields, including claims from central Henan province of over 3,000 jin per mu – more than 22 tonnes per hectare. That month, scientist Qian Xuesen, father of China’s rocket programme, published theoretical calculations on maximum solar energy conversion during crop photosynth...
In America today, many low-income workers and households can’t get adequate healthcare or pay for food. Depending on who you ask, medical costs are the number one cause or at least among the top causes of bankruptcy for families. This is despite the United States spending more on healthcare per capita than any developed economy within the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and ...
Hong Kong octogenarian Chan Yiu-kuen is ready to let death take its course when the time comes. The 89-year-old said she would sign an advance medical directive to clearly indicate which life-sustaining treatments she would not want if she became terminally ill. “It is OK to depart the world at my old age. Better not to rescue me further, as it could be hard for me,” said Chan, who is mentally cap...
China has given a rare acknowledgement that it has built more nuclear missile silos in recent years, with state television airing a documentary on the construction programme. In an interview with state broadcaster CCTV, Cui Daohu, an officer with a PLA Rocket Force engineering unit, described his contribution to building the missile positions that he called China’s “strategic trump cards”, saying ...
Pakistan and Bangladesh are entering the latest phase of the US-Iran conflict with thinner cushions than many Asian economies, raising the risk that another oil shock could quickly spill into higher food, transport and electricity costs for millions of people, analysts have said. Both economies rely heavily on imported fuel, leaving them particularly vulnerable to any prolonged spike in oil and di...
British singer Boy George has pulled out of a West End production of the musical Jesus Christ Superstar after facing a backlash for releasing a pro-Israel song, We Will Dance Again. The 65-year-old musician “will no longer be appearing in Jesus Christ Superstar at the London Palladium”, his manager Paul Kemsley said on social media. The singer, whose real name is George Alan O’Dowd, rose to fame i...
In a bid to defend its market share against rapidly advancing, lower-cost Chinese rivals, US artificial intelligence firm OpenAI has launched an aggressive price war, slashing prices for its latest GPT-5.6 model line-up by up to 80 per cent. In a post on social media platform X on Thursday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced an 80 per cent drop in developer pricing for its lightweight GPT-5.6 Luna mo...
British publication The Economist has come under fire across social media for calling China an “eco-authoritarian” state over its Yangtze River fishing ban, with some users calling out the outlet for its use of the “but at what cost” trope. In a piece published on July 27, the publication outlined China’s efforts to restore Asia’s longest waterway, which has experienced decades of environmental de...
