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Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb commander who died while serving a life sentence for war crimes, was buried on Monday with military honours and crowds attending as Serbia defied European Union warnings against allowing public homage to the man found guilty of the continent’s first case of genocide since World War II. Thousands of mourners started arriving early at the small Serbian Orthodox Church ...
Chinese cities must brace for a potential nuclear attack, a new study has warned, singling out Japan for “sending a major danger signal” to the world. The report, from a People’s Liberation Army medical team, said the likelihood of a large-scale global nuclear war was relatively low. “However, the possibility cannot be ruled out that small or medium-sized nuclear-armed or potentially nuclear-armed...
Authorities in central China have joined forces effort to investigate suspected industrial dumping on the Yangtze River following the release of rare drone footage of the activity. The environment bureau in the Hubei city of Wuhan said on Monday that it had launched the inquiry in association with police and transport authorities. The announcement comes less than two weeks after Beijing revised pe...
UN rights chief Volker Turk warned on Monday that artificial intelligence could pose a threat to humanity, and pledged to press AI firms to reduce risks that his office said included disruptions to services, communications and democratic systems. He called for “cast-iron guarantees” to secure AI in a speech ahead of the start of his unprecedented second term, in which he also demanded accountabili...
Japan’s tourist hotspot Shinjuku will impose a ban on more than half of its holiday rentals, including homes on Airbnb, after a surge in complaints about visitors, an official has said. Known for its buzzing commercial and entertainment district in the Japanese capital Tokyo, Shinjuku has about 4,000 short-term rentals, according to the ward’s official website. That is nearly 10 per cent of the co...
Chinese Premier Li Qiang pledged to deepen cooperation with Qatar in energy, investment, AI and diplomatic efforts to de-escalate Middle East tensions. Li delivered the remarks during a meeting on Monday in Beijing with Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, who is on an official two-day visit to China aimed at bolstering bilateral ties. His visit came...
China and Russia have conducted their first joint on-site sea ice survey in the Arctic Ocean aboard the Xuelong 2 research icebreaker, as tensions continue to rise over economic opportunities in the rapidly warming northern region. Two researchers from Russia’s Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute boarded Xuelong 2 as part of China’s 16th Arctic Ocean Expedition, according to a September 5 repo...
Relations between China and Mexico should not be influenced by outside powers, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Monday, following reports the United States was pressuring its neighbour over its ties to Beijing. “China-Mexico relations are not directed at any third party, nor should they be influenced by any third party,” Wang told his Mexican counterpart Roberto Velasco Alvarez. He added that Chin...
The “circular deals” among AI titans increasingly resemble the “daisy chains” of the 1980s savings-and-loan crisis. Forty years ago, interconnected transactions obscured the dangers, multiplied systemic risks and helped inflate asset values before roughly a third of US thrift banks failed. Today’s financial engineering – an incestuous ecosystem of interlocking multi-year commitments to provide fin...
Taiwan’s military plans to step up its cyber defences against mainland China with a new threat-hunting team and foreign expertise as it deepens cooperation with the US. The Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command has earmarked NT$95.93 million (US$3.03 million) in its proposed 2027 budget to establish the team and bring foreign experts and instructors to Taiwan for advanced traini...
Hong Kong’s labour secretary has called for greater cross-sector efforts to help young people gain job experience amid disruption caused by artificial intelligence (AI), while Singapore’s trade minister has urged embracing a “continuous learning” mindset. Speaking at the Hong Kong Jockey Club’s PBC (Philanthropy for Better Cities) Forum 2026 on Monday, the city’s Secretary for Labour and Welfare C...
A professor at Hong Kong’s oldest medical school has been suspended from clinical work and face-to-face teaching after the university discovered he was temporarily disqualified from practising in Canada following past sexual harassment allegations. The University of Hong Kong (HKU) confirmed on Monday that Peter Tanuseputro, a clinical professor in the department of family medicine and primary car...
Germany on Monday urged the United Nations’ top court to throw out a case against it by Nicaragua, which has accused Berlin of “facilitating genocide” in Gaza with its support of Israel. Julia Monar, representing Germany at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), said judges lacked the jurisdiction to rule on the case and dismissed Nicaragua’s accusations as “inaccurate and distorted”. Nicaragua...
Hong Kong customs officers have intercepted two travellers in separate cases at the Lo Wu border checkpoint for allegedly importing live insects commonly used as reptile feed. On Saturday, officers stopped a 71‑year‑old local man at the arrival hall and seized 200 crickets from his baggage, valued at about HK$2,000 (US$255). The following day, officers intercepted a 66‑year‑old local woman at the ...
Tencent Holdings’ pivot from a core shareholder to a major creditor in Bilibili offers a clear window into how China’s Big Tech players are rebalancing portfolio risk while funding expensive artificial intelligence initiatives. The shift, executed through Bilibili’s proposed US$700 million convertible bond package announced on Friday, allows Tencent to lock in capital flexibility without severing ...
China will impose provisional anti-dumping duties of up to 99.2 per cent on Japanese dichlorosilane, a critical chemical used in chipmaking, after an eight-month investigation found that dumped imports had harmed local manufacturers. The Ministry of Commerce announced the preliminary ruling on Monday, saying importers of dichlorosilane originating from Japan would be required to pay corresponding ...
Hong Kong landlords and property industry figures are accusing banks of deepening the city’s shop slump by pulling back from commercial mortgages, leaving more potential buyers unable to secure financing even though property values have fallen sharply. Shop buyers were increasingly being turned away, even though Hong Kong’s residential market had gained momentum this year and banks were competing ...
Hong Kong flag carrier Cathay Pacific and Google are expanding AI-powered flight trials designed to steer aircraft away from contrail-forming zones in the Asia-Pacific region, using the data to inform broader sustainability decisions. Condensation trails, or contrails, form when aircraft fly through cold, humid patches of air, trapping atmospheric heat and accounting for roughly one-third of aviat...
Malaysian police have contacted Islamist opposition leader Abdul Hadi Awang over his explosive claim that the United States once offered to help his party topple the government – an allegation Washington has flatly dismissed as false. The controversy erupted after Hadi told thousands of delegates at the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) congress in Kelantan on Saturday that American representative...
Huawei Technologies has unveiled its first smartphone powered by a next-generation mobile processor based on the company’s proprietary Tau Scaling Law, continuing its push to boost chip performance while reducing reliance on advanced foreign semiconductor equipment. Speaking at a launch event in Guangzhou on Monday, Richard Yu Chengdong, chairman of Huawei’s consumer business group, described the ...
Tesla China has launched discounts on its Shanghai-made cars for the first time since the end of 2024, responding to falling deliveries in the world’s largest market for electric vehicles (EVs). Prices of Model 3 vehicles in inventory would be reduced by 5,000 yuan (US$745) each, while buyers of the Model Y could enjoy a discount of 10,000 yuan per unit, the US carmaker announced on Monday. The pr...
Despite being bitten nine times and losing a finger to its venom, 77-year-old “Snake Doctor” Chen Yuanhui remains on the front lines of researching and protecting the Mangshan pit viper, the rare species he discovered 37 years ago. Originally from southern China’s Guangdong province, Chen graduated from a clinical college in central China’s Hunan province at the age of 19 and worked at a snakebite...
A television drama produced by Beijing’s top counter-espionage agency has put the spotlight on real-life cases in the high-stakes intelligence battle between mainland China and Taiwan. Over the past decade, mainland Chinese spy dramas have rarely touched on contemporary espionage across the Taiwan Strait but on Sunday state broadcaster CCTV began airing a 40-episode television series about such in...
British minister Emma Reynolds has condemned hundreds of protesters who blocked streets in the English coastal city of Portsmouth late on Sunday to try to stop the arrival of migrants from France, calling them “thuggish”. The gathering was the second anti-migrant demonstration in two days, after masked men disrupted traffic in the port of Dover on Saturday, chanting “Stop the boats”, a referen...
The South China Morning Post has signed an agreement with a leading university in Kazakhstan to foster the exchange of knowledge between East and Central Asia while extending Hong Kong’s media presence in the region. The memorandum of understanding (MOU) was signed on Monday in Astana, just ahead of the SCMP’s China Conference: Central Asia 2026, a flagship event making its debut in the region. Ac...
Hong Kong is poised to play a bigger role in financing Chinese green-technology companies’ expansion into emerging markets, as geopolitical fragmentation and high funding costs reshape how capital is deployed in the global energy transition, according to senior banking executives. The city’s deep sustainable-finance market and offshore yuan liquidity could help channel capital into green and clima...
Nepal is seeking financial aid following the catastrophic flood that killed hundreds of people and caused billions of dollars in economic losses, tapping a global financial mechanism established to address the impacts of climate change in developing countries. Kathmandu has formally requested the UN-backed Fund for responding to Loss and Damage to “respond rapidly, directly and effectively” amid t...
Philippine prosecutors filed a criminal charge on Monday against a lawmaker and cousin of President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr over his alleged involvement in a massive corruption scandal involving bogus flood-control projects. The case came more than a year after Marcos put the so-called “ghost” infrastructure projects, believed to have cost Filipino taxpayers billions of dollars, centre stage in a pub...
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s promise to unveil more projects in eight months’ time at the launch of the country’s second modern destroyer hints at another major strategic military asset, according to experts. “The nuclearisation of our navy is being realised, making it increasingly suited, diversified and practical for the use of our deterrent,” Kim said while commissioning the Kang Kon in th...
China’s artificial intelligence developers are competing for paying users on a new consumer front: Alibaba Group Holding’s Tmall, where AI subscription plans are now being sold alongside smartphones, skincare and luxury fashion brands. Moonshot AI, developer of the Kimi K3 model, and MiniMax were in talks to open official flagship stores on the e-commerce platform, people familiar with the matter ...
