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Thailand’s foreign ministry denied on Thursday that French President Emmanuel Macron knelt before the country’s king during his state visit to Paris this week, after an AI-generated picture circulated online. King Maha Vajiralongkorn and Queen Suthida’s trip was the first official visit by a Thai monarch to France since 1960, marking the 170th anniversary of formal diplomatic relations between the...
Hong Kong health authorities have called on the public to stay vigilant as the city has entered the summer flu season, with Covid-19 cases also on the rise. Dr Albert Au Ka-wing, head of the communicable disease branch of the Centre for Health Protection, said on Thursday that surveillance data suggested flu cases rose significantly last week, signalling the beginning of the seasonal infection per...
Every year, farmers in India burn millions of tonnes of stalks, husks and other plant matter left after a harvest that has long contributed to winter smog in South Asia. But the agricultural waste – also known as crop residue – could become a source to make sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) for airlines around the world, according to a new study. SAF is a green alternative to conventional jet fuel d...
Hong Kong’s box office takings for the first half of 2026 rose by nearly 25 per cent year on year, with comedy film Night King emerging as the highest-grossing movie over the six-month period. According to figures from the Hong Kong Box Office, 142 films premiered between January 1 and June 30, of which 17 were locally made. The movies generated HK$664 million (US$85 million) in takings, up from H...
Recent People’s Liberation Army exercises showed that China’s older aircraft carriers could operate more closely in tandem with the more advanced Fujian than previously thought, experts say, as fighter jets upgraded to use electromagnetic catapults were spotted on the older Liaoning carrier. Images taken during a 40-day mission in the South China Sea and Pacific Ocean that ended on June 22 showed ...
Riding a wave of booming cross-border dealmaking, China’s AI-driven drug-design firms are charging onto the global stage despite Washington’s growing scrutiny of Chinese biotech firms. The value of out-licensing deals struck by Chinese biotech companies with top global multinational pharmaceutical companies climbed to US$75 billion in the first five months of 2026, up from zero before 2020, accord...
An independent legal group has proposed that Beijing designate Hong Kong as the country’s “space finance capital”, positioning the city as a gateway for commercial development of the sector under the national five-year plan. The Asian Academy of International Law also proposed in policy papers issued on Thursday that Hong Kong should enact a space asset registration and finance ordinance to provid...
Hong Kong flag carrier Cathay Pacific Airways will resume Middle East passenger flights in September, six months after suspending services amid ongoing regional conflict. The airline said on Thursday it would progressively restore passenger and cargo operations, starting with freighter flights to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, from August 1. Daily passenger flights to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and ...
When a farmer in southwestern China was bitten by a cobra, his panicked wife instantly sucked out the venom as she mimicked what she had seen on television, only to end up being poisoned herself. The old man was working in his field in Yuanyang county, Yunnan province, when the cobra bit his finger, the Jimu News reported. His wound soon became swollen and he felt dizzy and weak. It was then that ...
Hundreds of people were besieging Lidl supermarkets in and around Paris on Thursday, with scuffles and shouting matches breaking out as residents scrambled to get their hands on bargain air-cooling units before the next heatwave hits the French capital. With few air conditioners on sale elsewhere for less than €1,200 (US$1,400), police were called to at least two stores as huge crowds descended on...
A Hong Kong court has granted bail to an assistant manager of the project consultant behind a HK$336 million (US$42.8 million) renovation at the fire-ravaged Wang Fuk Court, pending a money laundering trial. Li Min, 33, secured bail at the High Court on Thursday after spending three weeks behind bars in connection with the city’s deadliest blaze in recent history. Her bail money was set at HK$300,...
Assets and wealth under management in Hong Kong surged to a record high last year as global investors returned to Chinese assets, underscoring the city’s edge over Switzerland as a wealth hub. Financial firms in Hong Kong managed HK$42.2 trillion (US$5.38 trillion) worth of assets last year, a 20 per cent increase from the previous peak of HK$35.5 trillion in 2024, according to a report released b...
Eight Buddhist monks died in northeastern Thailand on Thursday – and over a dozen more were injured – after an 11-year-old boy driving his parents’ truck crashed into pilgrims walking along a deserted rural road. Images of the devastation, shared across social media, showed the bodies of orange-robed monks lying on the road with their alms bowls strewn across the accident site in Mukdahan province...
A young couple in Indonesia’s conservative Aceh province were publicly caned on Thursday after an Islamic sharia court convicted them of violating Islamic law by kissing during a TikTok live stream. Aceh’s sharia court ordered the two people to be whipped with a rattan cane 21 times each for kissing without being married. At least 100 people witnessed the caning, carried out by a group of people w...
China’s Politburo called for “forceful” countermeasures against floods and droughts as El Nino effects exacerbate the impact of extreme weather events in the country. Local authorities should strengthen flood controls on major rivers, improve rescue capabilities and bolster management of water sources, the top decision-making body said after a monthly meeting on Tuesday chaired by President Xi Jin...
Hong Kong’s retail sales in May rose 7.9 per cent year on year, extending the streak of growth to 13 months, with the sector benefiting from an increase in visitor numbers amid mainland China’s Labour Day “golden week” holiday. The value of retail sales for the month reached HK$33.8 billion (US$4.3 billion), according to provisional figures released by the Census and Statistics Department on Thurs...
China can provide “all-round” support for Ukraine’s post-war industrial recovery, Beijing’s envoy to Kyiv said while reaffirming his country’s commitment to pushing for a ceasefire and a political settlement for a conflict in its fifth year. The remarks were made by China’s ambassador to Ukraine, Ma Shengkun, in an article published by the Interfax-Ukraine news agency on Tuesday, marking the 15th ...
As China’s leading DRAM maker ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) prepares for its expected 29.5 billion yuan (US$4.3 billion) Shanghai Star Market listing, the critical question facing investors is whether the firm can convert its cyclical windfall into permanent industry leadership. The Hefei-based chipmaker enters the market at a uniquely lucrative moment: a global memory shortage driven by sur...
There are many disconnects in financial markets. One of them is Japan’s benchmark 10-year bond yield, which currently stands at just 2.7 per cent despite the country’s large public debt burden – more than 240 per cent of economic output. Although Japanese bond yields have risen sharply in the past three years, the 10-year yield is slightly lower than that of Germany, whose government debt as a per...
There are many disconnects in financial markets. One of them is Japan’s benchmark 10-year bond yield, which currently stands at just 2.7 per cent despite the country’s large public debt burden – more than 240 per cent of economic output. Although Japanese bond yields have risen sharply in the past three years, the 10-year yield is slightly lower than that of Germany, whose government debt as a per...
The pilot of a small plane that crashed into Beijing’s tallest building last week had long suffered from anxiety and discussed “ending his life” in his diaries, authorities in the Chinese capital said on Thursday. In a brief summary of an investigation, the Chaoyang district government said the pilot was a 66-year-old Beijing resident, identified only by his surname Liu. Liu died when the light ai...
The pilot of a small plane that crashed into Beijing’s tallest building last Friday had long suffered from anxiety and discussed “ending her life” in her diaries, Chinese authorities said on Thursday. More to follow...
Wu Xinbo is the dean of the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai and a leading Chinese researcher on the US. In this interview, he analyses how shifts in US foreign policy are changing the relationship between the two countries. SCMP Plus readers get early access to articles in the Open Questions series. As the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary, how do yo...
Indonesia’s former president Joko Widodo has begun a nationwide tour that analysts say is aimed at transforming his youngest son’s small political party into a major force before the 2029 elections. Widodo kicked off the tour in Lampung on Friday, using the visit to appear alongside Indonesian Solidarity Party (PSI) officials and accept a local royal title, signalling that he remains a force in In...
Indonesia’s former president Joko Widodo has begun a nationwide political tour that analysts say is aimed at transforming his younger son’s small party from a marginal player into a significant force before the 2029 elections. Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi, kicked off the tour in Lampung on Friday, using the visit to appear alongside Indonesian Solidarity Party (PSI) officials and accept a loc...
Beijing has downplayed reports that the World Bank will phase out lending to China by 2031, with the Ministry of Finance noting that the nation’s advancing economy and changing development needs were shifting cooperation away from financing and towards knowledge sharing. “This is the natural result of changing domestic needs and the transformation of bilateral cooperation,” the ministry said in a ...
A large number of mainland Chinese companies hoping to list shares on the Hong Kong stock exchange are anxiously waiting for a nod from the mainland securities regulator, with many now at risk of having their listing applications lapse. More than 430 companies were currently waiting in the initial public offering (IPO) pipeline, according to data from bourse operator Hong Kong Exchanges and Cleari...
The Vatican on Thursday excommunicated six bishops from the ultraconservative Society of St Pius X and said any lay believers who “formally adhere” to the group would suffer the same fate. The Vatican decree comes a day after the traditionalist breakaway group consecrated four new bishops, defying a plea from Pope Leo not to do so. The decree called the ceremony “an act of schismatic nature”. For ...
India has asked WhatsApp to justify the implementation of a planned feature covering usernames and to freeze the roll-out in its biggest market, escalating a crackdown on messaging anonymity that began with Telegram, according to a government letter. Earlier this week, Meta’s WhatsApp said it had begun a phased global roll-out, including in India, of the feature, which lets users reserve a unique...
China has banned tiletamine, a common veterinary anaesthetic, after its recreational inhalation among young people escalated sharply. Since July 1, the compound has been classified as a controlled substance and is regulated as strictly as fentanyl. Tiletamine has a chemical structure similar to ketamine, commonly known as “K powder”, and it was mainly used for surgical anaesthesia in pets such as ...
