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Beijing has reinforced its military firepower facing the Taiwan Strait by deploying more 155mm PLZ-05 self-propelled howitzers, according to state media reports. Replacing its older 122mm artillery, a heavy combined-arms brigade under the People’s Liberation Army’s 71st Group Army has been equipped with a batch of the 155mm self-propelled howitzers over the past two months and conducted its first ...
Hong Kong’s medical watchdog has said a target time frame for handling complaints will not be necessary as it presented its rebuttal against a government proposal that includes major reforms to its operations, disciplinary sentencing, internal supervision and membership make-up. The Medical Council on Tuesday presented its views on the government’s proposed amendments, which were first laid out in...
Malaysia’s ruling Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition has doubled down on its pledge to stamp out corruption, as all eyes turn to the country’s Pardons Board, which is reportedly set to discuss the possible release of disgraced former leader Najib Razak at a meeting this week. The Pardons Board, chaired by the country’s king, is expected to meet on Friday to discuss potentially granting Najib clemency ...
Chinese frontier artificial intelligence lab DeepSeek has hired underwriters including Citic Securities in preparation for a domestic initial public offering (IPO), according to two people familiar with the matter. Citic Securities was one of the four underwriters tapped by the Hangzhou-based firm, which aims to begin the IPO process this year to list on the Shanghai Stock Exchange’s Nasdaq-like S...
Tung Chee-hwa, Hong Kong’s first leader following its return to Chinese sovereignty, has been remembered as a “kind-hearted man” who mentored others and inspired some to take up public office. As tributes poured in for Tung, who died on Tuesday aged 89, people who worked closely with him shared touching anecdotes about the man they said cared deeply about Hong Kong even in the years after he stepp...
Tung Chee-hwa, Hong Kong’s first leader following its return to Chinese sovereignty, has been remembered as a “kind-hearted man” who mentored others and even inspired some to take up public office. As tributes poured in for Tung, who died on Tuesday at age 89, people who worked closely with him shared touching anecdotes about the man they said cared deeply about Hong Kong’s issues even in the year...
Norway observed a nationwide minute of silence on Wednesday at the funeral of King Harald V, a modern and unifying figure whose end of reign was tarnished by scandals. His son and heir King Haakon VIII, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, Britain’s Prince William and other foreign dignitaries stood in silence in the halls of Oslo’s Lutheran cathedral in memory of the late monarch, who died on Au...
When leaders of the Brics group of emerging economies meet in New Delhi on September 12-13, India will confront an awkward paradox: the grouping has never been bigger or harder to make coherent. What informally began as a four-member bloc comprising Brazil, Russia, India and China in 2006 has expanded into a grouping spanning Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. Its members include maj...
Tung Chee-hwa, Hong Kong’s first chief executive who died on Tuesday at 89, kept a low profile in the final years of his life, making only a few public appearances but continuing to help bridge the China-US divide. Wearing a face mask and accompanied by his wife Betty Tung Chiu Hung-ping, Tung visited the South China Morning Post’s headquarters in Causeway Bay on December 1, 2020, to deliver a key...
A family court has granted a man a personal protection order (PPO) against his wife, who had abused him emotionally or psychologically with text messages about him having sex with his sister. The court found that the sending of fake images and videos of the husband and his sister engaging in sexual acts, generated by artificial intelligence, amounted to family violence. The man had sought the PPO ...
Digital bank ZA Bank is taking 45,000 square feet (4,181 square metres) across four upper floors at Hysan Development’s Lee Garden Eight for its new headquarters, adding to a wave of financial and technology companies reshaping Causeway Bay’s commercial landscape. The move comes as landlords across the district grapple with a changing property market marked by excess office space. The bank is sche...
China has accused Philippine officials of “grandstanding and lying” after Manila’s defence secretary publicly read aloud a Chinese diplomat’s note on the South China Sea that the Philippine minister described as “coercion, bullying and aggression”. “We urge certain people in the Philippines to stop this grandstanding and lying, and to protect China-Philippine relations and the peace and stability ...
At 18, Martin Taborda began studying law at Argentina’s prestigious University of Buenos Aires, hoping to become the first in his family to graduate. Just two years later, that dream has slipped out of reach. Unemployed and US$1,300 in debt, he can no longer afford the bus fare from his suburb or the books he needs to keep studying – even at a tuition-free university that has helped generations of...
A Hong Kong court has found a 24-year-old man not guilty of committing a spate of sexual offences against his younger sister a decade ago, ruling that prosecutors failed to prove the defendant knew what he did as a teenager was seriously wrong. A High Court jury of five men and two women acquitted the defendant on Thursday of four counts of incest and three of indecent conduct towards a child unde...
Hong Kong’s first astronaut Lai Ka-ying has conducted a live lesson for students of her alma mater from the Tiangong space station, showing them how chicken wings are cooked in zero gravity and how she locates the city’s lights from the darkness of space. In a livecast to teachers and students of Tsuen Wan Public Ho Chuen Yiu Memorial College on Wednesday that was also streamed at other campuses a...
Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s flagship free nutritious meals programme is facing renewed scrutiny after yet another wave of mass food poisoning that affected more than 2,000 students, raising questions about why safeguards on paper fail to translate to food safety on the ground. A series of illnesses were reported in Java, Sumatra, and Sulawesi in the past week. The latest was on Tuesday...
China and Russia’s negotiations regarding the construction of the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline have stalled, according to multiple sources who have knowledge of the issue, as both sides cannot bridge a big gap over gas price expectations. “China hopes to secure a price comparable to Russia’s subsidised residential rate, around US$50/thousand cubic metres, or at least the domestic industrial rate of...
Alibaba Group Holding is giving users the ability to put artificial intelligence-powered “digital employees” to work within rival office platforms, opening a new competitive front against ByteDance and Tencent Holdings in enterprise AI. The latest version of the QoderWake tool, launched by Alibaba Cloud on Tuesday, allowed users to generate fully functioning workers using a single-line description...
Schools in the capital of Indonesia’s South Sumatra province switched to remote learning on Wednesday as worsening haze from forest and peatland fires pushed air pollution to unhealthy levels, adding to disruptions that had already affected more than 1.4 million students across the country, officials said. Indonesia has been plagued by forest and land fires for decades but an intensifying El Nino ...
Imagine it is the height of the Tang dynasty (618–690, 705–907), and the imperial court awaits a gift of pure opulence. The exotic luxury would not have been a golden statue or precious gem; those were easy enough for high royalty to procure. Rather, it was a humble peach, specifically, the “golden peach of Samarkand,” which symbolised the allure and mystery of a faraway land. Originating in what ...
If mastering drone-swarm technology was not difficult enough, China is now tackling the more complex task of integrating uncrewed land, sea and air platforms, according to the country’s leading developer in the field. In an article posted on China Electronics Technology Group Corporation’s (CETC) social media account on Sunday, the company’s Intelligent Technology Research Institute said drone-swa...
A battle for control of Yemen’s coastal plains overlooking the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait, launched on Friday by Iran-aligned Houthi rebels, is rapidly intensifying into an all-out war with Saudi-backed government forces. A wave of Houthi missile and drone strikes launched against four cities in southern Saudi Arabia early on Tuesday, injuring 73 civilians, may prove to be the tipping point in...
Biomedicine is set to feature in Hong Kong’s first five-year plan, due to be unveiled next week, as the city’s top officials signal closer medical cooperation across the Greater Bay Area. Lending weight to those ambitions, global pharmaceutical company GSK emphasised its interest in expanding its role in the region’s biotech development on Wednesday, at the fifth Hong Kong International Biotechnol...
Biomedicine is set to feature in Hong Kong’s first five-year plan, due to be unveiled next week, as the city’s top officials signal closer medical cooperation across the Greater Bay Area. Lending weight to those ambitions, global pharmaceutical company GSK emphasised its interest in expanding its role in the region’s biotech development on Wednesday, at the fifth Hong Kong International Biotechnol...
Geologists say they have identified a new deposit in central China that can yield high-purity quartz comparable to the quality produced at a critical world-leading mine in the United States. The quartz from the Chinese deposit is described as having “highly similar” properties to the resources produced at North Carolina’s Spruce Pine, which is crucial to the global production of solar panels and s...
Geologists say they have identified a new deposit in central China that can produce high-purity quartz comparable to the quality produced at a critical world-leading mine in the United States. The high-purity quartz from the Chinese deposit is described as having “highly similar” properties to the resources produced at North Carolina’s Spruce Pine, which is crucial to the global production of sola...
Kazakhstan has signed a memorandum of understanding with Hong Kong’s transport authorities to establish a laboratory and discussed the low-altitude economy to help manage traffic jams. Bakhtiyar Mukhametkaliyev, Kazakhstan’s vice-minister of artificial intelligence and digital development, told the South China Morning Post on Wednesday about discussions with the team of Hong Kong’s Secretary for T...
South Korea is inching closer to a potentially risky military role in the Strait of Hormuz after sending a fact-finding team to the Middle East, with Seoul weighing US pressure to contribute against the threat of Iranian retaliation. The mission underscores the dilemma Seoul faces over supporting a major security ally and avoiding being dragged into a conflict it did not start. Observers argue tha...
A gunman shot and killed a kindergarten teacher on Wednesday inside a school building in eastern Thailand, where 44 children and three other teachers were evacuated safely, authorities said. The shooting took place about 11am inside a building at the Nongplalai Municipal Kindergarten in Chonburi province, about 150km (93 miles) southeast of the capital Bangkok. All 44 students were unharmed and ev...
