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Chinese AI firm MiniMax has launched H3, its newest multimodal video generation model, pledging to break closed-source “dominance” through open weights and competitive pricing – as rival ByteDance rolls out its latest Seedance 2.5 model. H3 was currently the world’s most powerful AI model in video editing, according to benchmark platform Artificial Analysis. However, it trailed Google’s Gemini Omn...
Elon Musk has dismissed a media report claiming electric vehicle (EV) company Tesla is considering selling its China business, even as the speculation threatens to renew scrutiny over the American carmaker’s dependence on its main manufacturing hub in Shanghai. “This has never even come up in a discussion ever,” Musk, who is CEO of both Tesla and commercial aerospace giant SpaceX, posted on his X ...
Japanese F-35A stealth fighters are flying training missions over Australia for the first time in Exercise Pitch Black – part of a broader defence pivot that experts say could bolster US and allied resilience against Beijing in a Taiwan contingency. The multinational exercise, held every two years and featuring around 100 aircraft, runs from July 20 to August 7. It comes just days after Japanese, ...
A young survivor of a catastrophic train collision 15 years ago has grown up to become a volunteer who gives hope to many inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients like her. Mengjun, 28, was diagnosed with IBD when she was graduating from senior secondary school. She said she was the “one unlucky person in 30,000” in China. She also has a more breathtaking identity: a survivor of the devastating 2...
Singaporean Jo Teoh has spent over three decades waking up to birdsong, the rustle of leaves as macaques jump through trees, and the lingering smell of damp earth. Much of her time living in the western estate of Sunset Way revolves around the adjacent forest, where she and her family watch hornbills glide over the canopy. “The neighbourhood lives with the forest,” said the media producer, 68. “It...
Last Thursday, the European Union added 14 Chinese companies to its latest round of sanctions, accusing them of providing support for Russia’s war against Ukraine – but few of the names were recognisable to anyone outside narrow trading and compliance circles. Officials were taken aback less than 24 hours later, when Beijing – which had been notified of the ragtag group of traders and freight forw...
China’s factory activity unexpectedly slipped into contraction for the first time in five months, and construction activity fell to its lowest since the pandemic, underscoring a divide in the nation’s economy that complicates efforts to revive growth. The official manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) dropped to 49.2 in July, missing the 50.1 median estimate in a Bloomberg poll of economi...
Hong Kong’s economy expanded by 4.3 per cent in the second quarter of 2026, with the government expecting “solid growth” to continue for the remainder of the year. A government spokesman on Friday attributed the robust momentum to buoyant external trade and resilient domestic demand. “Looking ahead, the Hong Kong economy should continue to post solid growth in the second half of 2026,” he said. “V...
Singapore announced on Friday it took possession of 38 Oxley Road, the former home of Singapore’s founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, and would study how it could be developed into a public space, ending years of public debate over what to do with the property amid a family feud among the late leader’s children. In the interim, necessary maintenance works would be carried out as required, and th...
HSBC Holdings has agreed to sell its US$25 billion Australian home loan portfolio to a unit of Blackstone, which is expected to result in an immaterial pre-tax loss of less than US$100 million for the group by the first half of 2027, according to a stock exchange filing on Friday. The sale price was based on the portfolio’s value of A$36 billion (US$25 billion) as at the end of January, plus a pre...
Not a day passes without someone in Europe or the United States complaining about China’s “overproduction” and “China shock 2.0”. The narrative is of a deliberate, subversive Chinese strategy, underpinned by subsidies, to undermine the manufacturing economies of the West and exert economic hegemony worldwide. Inaccurate as the narrative may be, it is widely accepted and used to justify demands for...
Students sitting Hong Kong’s university entrance exam in mainland China next year will pay a registration fee of HK$8,000 (US$1,020), a 220 per cent increase from the current HK$2,500 after a pilot scheme ends. The Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority (HKEAA) announced the fee adjustments for various exams on Friday, adding that local students would face a 4 per cent increase to sit eac...
Students sitting Hong Kong’s university entrance exam in mainland China next year will pay a registration fee of HK$8,000 (US$1,020), a 220 per cent increase from the current HK$2,500 after a pilot scheme ends. Announcing the fee increase for various exams on Friday, the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority (HKEAA) also said local students would face a 4 per cent increase to sit each su...
Chinese President Xi Jinping held discussions with the leaders of Slovakia and Namibia in Beijing during July, as well as meeting the heads of Cambodia, Thailand and Kazakhstan in Shanghai on the sidelines of the World AI Conference. Xi also hosted North Korean Premier Pak Thae‑song in Beijing following his state visit and meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in June. So far this year, Xi ...
A powerful earthquake that struck southern Japan this week has exposed the vulnerability of the country’s manufacturing supply chains, a decade after a devastating quake in the same region triggered widespread industry disruption. Tuesday’s 7.1-magnitude quake claimed at least 34 lives, ruptured roads and cut off utilities to thousands of households. It also brought factories to a halt in an area ...
A super typhoon named after Hong Kong’s Chinese white dolphins is set to bring very hot weather to the city in the latter part of next week, according to the Observatory. Super Typhoon Dolphin, currently over the western North Pacific, is expected to move towards the waters south of Japan in the next few days, although its subsequent trajectory remains uncertain, the forecaster’s senior scientific...
Hong Kong authorities have backtracked on plans to require hotels to provide fire escape hoods in guest rooms and other spaces after industry leaders expressed concerns, and have said they will only encourage the equipment’s usage at this stage. The Home Affairs Department said on Thursday evening that it would only encourage the supply of fire escape hoods in rooms for now, following a meeting wi...
A Malaysian pilot who tested positive for meth, MDMA, and cocaine after flying a passenger plane to Indonesia risked the death penalty for allegedly smuggling more than 70,000 Ecstasy tablets in his suitcase, officials said on Friday. The 39-year-old pilot, identified only by his initials, MSO, was arrested on Wednesday at Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta International Airport shortly after arriving from ...
This report was translated from Chinese into English using Alibaba’s Qwen3.7-Plus, then checked and tweaked for accuracy by a South China Morning Post journalist. It is for reference only, and is not the official English version of the original Chinese document. Alibaba owns the SCMP.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has called on the People’s Liberation Army to enhance its use of AI as part of a drive to develop an intelligent military. He told a Politburo group study session that the PLA should “strengthen the military application of unmanned intelligent technologies, deepen the development and application of network information systems, and gradually build an intelligent militar...
Singapore’s Senior Minister K. Shanmugam and Minister for Trade and Industry (Energy and Industry) Tan See Leng have each been awarded S$145,000 (US$113,000) in legal costs following their successful defamation suit against Bloomberg and its journalist. A court earlier this month ruled that a December 2024 Bloomberg article on Good Class Bungalow (GCB) transactions had defamed the ministers. Bloom...
An apparent communication breakdown between US and South Korean militaries resulted in South Korean troops training their weapons on an American drone launched during a joint exercise and an evacuation alert being triggered near the inter-Korean border. The incident underscored the need for a comprehensive review of the allies’ command-and-control coordination, operational procedures, air defence ...
Xiaomi, one of Tesla’s biggest challengers in mainland China over the past year, has priced its newest cars at a 23 per cent discount to the US carmaker’s Model Y L SUV amid intensified competition in the country’s premium electric vehicle (EV) segment. Beijing-based Xiaomi announced on Thursday that the five-seat N70 Max model under its new extended-range SkyNomad series would sell at 259,900 yua...
A man from southeastern China transformed his experience with paralysis into a source of inspiration, creating a mind-controlled wheelchair prototype in just 48 hours during a technology competition. Wang Ning, 33, and his wife from Shenzhen recently took part in a Shanghai-based Hackathon hosted by RedNote, where they earned first prize in the hardware category for their innovative design. Origin...
A Hong Kong law firm allegedly involved in a series of “crash-for-cash” scams has dropped a judicial challenge against the seizure of its confidential documents during a police raid earlier this year. The High Court on Friday dismissed an application for judicial review by Raymond Lam & Associates after the firm, which ceased operations in April, notified in writing that it would discontinue the l...
We have selected seven stories from this week’s news across Hong Kong, mainland China, the wider Asia region and beyond that resonated with our readers and shed light on topical issues. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. Chinese satellite imagery analysis challenges US-Iran war claims Chinese scientists have used detailed satellite imagery analysis to ...
The parents of a Hong Kong infant are applying for a legal order to review welfare authorities’ decision to remove the child from their care, as they expressed “fear and anger” about arrangements for their son, Danny, to receive “medical intervention” against their will. Danny’s father, Tsang Wai-bong, and mother, Kwan Pui-sin, said they had already requested that the child not be vaccinated, addi...
The parents of a Hong Kong infant are applying for a legal order to review welfare authorities’ decision to remove the child from their care, as they expressed “fear and anger” about arrangements for their son to receive “medical intervention” against their will. Danny’s father, Tsang Wai-bong, and mother, Kwan Pui-sin, said they had already requested that the child not be vaccinated, adding that ...
A Type 052D destroyer fired a YJ-20 hypersonic anti-ship missile into the air, Chinese media footage showed, displaying capabilities that pose defence challenges for the United States and its allies. A YJ-20 missile was launched from a vertical launch system (VLS) of the Type 052D destroyer, according to a video released on Wednesday by state broadcaster CCTV. It is not known when the video was ta...
The police and the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) have opened investigations after British trip-hop band Massive Attack expressed support for the Palestinians at their concert in Singapore on Wednesday. “Police confirm that reports were lodged and investigations are ongoing,” the police and IMDA said on Thursday. “IMDA is also investigating a possible breach of licence conditions.” Th...
