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As power cuts cascade through one of Gaza’s largest functioning hospitals and patients wait for treatment in sweltering wards, doctors warn that shortages of engine oil and spare parts are causing generators to seize up, putting lives at risk. The crisis is spreading beyond hospitals, where soaring costs for oil and diesel are making electricity from neighbourhood generators increasingly unafforda...
Huawei Technologies has unveiled a high-speed optical module designed to eliminate bottlenecks in artificial intelligence infrastructure, staking an early claim in the race to set standards for next-generation data centre connections. The Shenzhen-based tech giant showcased what it called the industry’s first 7.2-terabit-per-second (Tbps) near-packaged optics (NPO) product at the China Internation...
Six orangutans including two nursing infants have been rescued from fires raging on Borneo island in the past week, Indonesian authorities and rescuers said on Thursday, bringing the total to 15 in a month. The apes were saved from plantations in deep rural West Kalimantan province, on the Indonesian part of the island, where they got stuck after fires cut off access to their forest home, accordin...
Taiwan’s representative office is among a list of entities US President Donald Trump has threatened to sue as part of his crusade against a progressive American think tank, triggering debate about the island’s US policy ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Washington later this month. Trump named the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (Tecro) in a social media post on M...
Hong Kong’s policy address next week will continue with measures to help local news outlets expand overseas and build global networks, the South China Morning Post has learned. A source said on Thursday that Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu’s “go global” initiative would assist local media, which report in Chinese and English, in reaching readers beyond the city. The industry could offer media ser...
A former Malaysian minister overseeing religious affairs will be charged with corruption next week, the country’s anti-corruption agency has said, as authorities close in on once-powerful figures believed to have stolen from the nation’s haj pilgrim fund. The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) confirmed on Thursday that Jamil Khir Baharom – who served as religious affairs minister under d...
Sun Hung Kai Properties (SHKP), Hong Kong’s biggest developer by market capitalisation, reported its underlying profit for the year ending June rose 4.6 per cent to HK$22.85 billion (US$2.91 billion), excluding investment property revaluations. Meanwhile, its reported profit increased to HK$21.43 billion, backed by a HK$1.38 billion net revaluation gain versus a HK$742 million loss last year, acco...
Hong Kong police have identified a tour guide suspected of helping members of a travel group evade fares at an MTR station last month, the city’s rail operator has said, warning that anyone found in breach of the rules could face prosecution. The MTR Corporation said on Thursday that police had identified the guide involved in the incident at Tsim Sha Tsui station, and that it was working closely ...
The publisher of the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) has been found guilty of violating Hong Kong’s labour laws by illegally preventing a former reporter from running for the chairmanship of a local press union. However, Eastern Court on Thursday cleared Dow Jones Publishing Co (Asia) of unlawful termination of Selina Cheng Kar-yue’s contract, finding her dismissal could have been the result of a broade...
Hong Kong can become an educational hub for artificial intelligence literacy and help build trustworthy AI by leveraging the city’s strength in professional services, industry leaders have said. Speaking at the Belt and Road Summit on Thursday, Ellen Lau Sin-tung, executive director of technology training company Preface AI, highlighted a significant gap between corporate leadership and frontline ...
Hong Kong can become an educational hub for artificial intelligence literacy and help build trustworthy AI by leveraging the city’s strength in professional services, industry leaders have said. Speaking at the Belt and Road Summit on Thursday, Ellen Lau Sin-tung, executive director of technology training company Preface AI, highlighted a significant gap between corporate leadership and frontline ...
Chinese financial authorities have pledged further steps to expand the yuan’s global use amid a broader de-dollarisation trend, while vowing to make listing on mainland stock exchanges the “primary” choice for top-tier domestic companies. “The internationalisation of the yuan is a continuous and steady process, and an irreversible trend,” said Lu Lei, deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China ...
French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday called on Europe to develop its own crewed space flight capability within a decade as part of a broader push to strengthen the continent’s space sector. Macron made the call during an international space summit held in Paris this week, which was shown the cold shoulder by several US companies including SpaceX and Blue Origin. “We want Europe to assert i...
Hong Kong authorities are coordinating a state funeral for the city’s first chief executive, the late Tung Chee-hwa, the South China Morning Post has learned, honoring his legacy as a deputy national-level leader and his contributions to the “one country, two systems” framework. A source familiar with the matter said “preparations were under way” and were being coordinated by the city government a...
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s daughter and apparent successor is believed to have a younger sibling, South Korea’s spy agency has said, offering a more detailed view of the ruling family’s line of succession. Seoul’s spy agency previously said Kim was thought to have three children, but some uncertainty remained on the number of offspring as well as the order of their birth. The Kim dynasty is...
Japan’s plan to develop tactical satellites equipped with artificial intelligence (AI) would boost its long-range offensive strike capabilities and pose a serious threat, Chinese state media has warned. The Japanese Nikkei newspaper reported last week that the planned AI-equipped satellites would be capable of analysing surveillance intelligence in space. The aim is to speed up targeting decisions...
The American delegation to the Xiangshan Forum, a major Chinese security conference in Beijing, will be led by Cynthia “Xanthi” Carras, the US principal deputy assistant secretary of defence for China, Taiwan and Mongolia, the South China Morning Post has learned. This year’s Xiangshan Forum, the 13th edition of the event, will be held in Beijing from next Tuesday to Thursday. Carras’ attendance m...
The American delegation to the Xiangshan Forum, a major Chinese security event in Beijing, will be led by the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for China, Taiwan and Mongolia, Cynthia “Xanthi” Carras, the South China Morning Post has learned. More to follow...
The American delegation to the Xiangshan Forum, a major Chinese security event in Beijing, will be led by the US Defence Department’s principal director for China policy, Cynthia ‘Xanthi’ Carras, the South China Morning Post has learned. More to follow...
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi militants have reached the Red Sea islands of Hanish after capturing the coastal city of Mocha, two Yemeni government sources have said, in a major strategic shift that could threaten the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, one of the world’s most important shipping routes. Fighting between the Houthis and Saudi-backed government forces has intensified in recent days, with the milit...
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis seized control of the historic port city of Mocha on Thursday, four Yemeni government military sources said, gaining further leverage over the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, one of the world’s most important shipping routes. The Houthis were launching attacks on the strategic Red Sea islands of Hanish, the government sources told Reuters. Government forces and their allies are...
A 98-year-old man in eastern China has garnered widespread praise for his remarkable philanthropy, which includes donations totalling 60 million yuan (US$9 million), while leading an exceptionally frugal life himself. Wang Chunwen, a resident of Ninghai county in Zhejiang province, has been honoured with the China Charity Award by the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the highest accolade in the country ...
China’s Ministry of Commerce (Mofcom) said on Thursday it had held talks with French companies operating in China and reiterated calls for France to stop using its “anti-fast fashion law” to undermine the rights and interests of Chinese enterprises. According to ministry spokesperson Huang Ling, public reports suggested some French companies had received subsidies from the European Union and its m...
Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) has directed the stock exchange to suspend trading of US-based biotech firm Cloudbreak Pharma pending an investigation into its US$78 million initial public offering (IPO) last year. “The SFC has serious concerns that Cloudbreak’s initial public offering may have been rigged to create an artificial impression of demand for Cloudbreak’s shares,” t...
Indonesia’s wildfires are creeping towards Nusantara, the country’s new capital under construction on Borneo island, challenging its promise of becoming an eco-friendly “smart forest city”. The Southeast Asian nation is battling what officials call its most intense wildfire season in 11 years. Nearly 202,000 hectares (499,000 acres) of forest and peatland have been razed nationwide from January to...
China has confirmed that President Xi Jinping will travel to New Delhi for the Brics summit this weekend, his first visit to India in close to seven years and the latest leg of the Chinese leader’s busiest run of summitry in years. Xi’s India visit follows closely on a packed diplomatic travel schedule that took him first to Kyrgyzstan for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, then t...
With its sweeping victory in a key state election, the far-right Alternative for Germany is putting pressure on the ruling federal coalition and could nudge Berlin towards a more pragmatic approach to China, analysts said. By securing 43.8 per cent of the vote in the September 6 election in Saxony-Anhalt – more than double its 2021 result – the AfD sent shock waves and piled further pressure on Ch...
Malaysia’s Umno has been drawn deeper into a royal row in Negeri Sembilan, after the president of the dominant Malay nationalist party denied attending a meeting reportedly linked to a bid to remove the state’s ruler. The controversy has put the new Umno-led state government under pressure barely six weeks after taking office, reviving the same royal crisis that helped bring down its predecessor a...
DeepSeek has released its V4.1 Flash model, claiming it outperforms its previous flagship while cutting inference costs and boosting speeds – the latest salvo in China’s aggressive price-and-performance war. The Chinese artificial intelligence developer said on Thursday that V4.1 Flash used a new “Causal-Encoder-Decoder” architecture. While built on a massive 552 billion-parameter framework, it re...
Twenty-five people were killed after a fire broke out on Thursday morning aboard a foreign-flagged cargo ship in the eastern Chinese port city of Qingdao. The vessel with 42 people on board was undergoing repairs at the state-owned Qingdao Beihai shipyard, according to state broadcaster CCTV. The blaze, which started at around 11.15am, was put out by 2.30pm, the report said. Twelve people were eva...
