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Tesla is facing weaker sales in China this year, but the American electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer is looking to generate a buzz in its second-largest market by exhibiting its new self-driving vehicle, the Cybercab. The robotaxi – which operates entirely without a steering wheel, pedals or rear-view mirrors – would debut in major Chinese cities, including Beijing and Shanghai, starting mid-Septe...
In all his five decades of living in Hokkaido, Makoto Watanabe cannot recall ever being confronted by a cockroach. But he admits being alarmed by reports that the despised insects are taking advantage of global warming to gain a foothold in a part of Japan where winters were previously considered too hostile for large colonies to emerge. “When I was a university student in Tokyo 30 years ago, I us...
Retired harbour pilot Alex Yu Chi-leung sailed his 50-foot wooden yacht, Bowline, from Causeway Bay in Hong Kong to Dongao Island in Zhuhai under a new cross-border yachting scheme last week, but bureaucratic hurdles and shallow waters tempered the excitement of the leisure trip. It was Yu’s first voyage under the scheme, but it could also be his last unless mainland Chinese authorities improve ce...
China has launched a world-first industrial-scale facility to extract iron from previously discarded mine tailings and ultra-low-grade ore, turning waste into a valuable resource that can reduce its dependency on overseas supply. According to the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) last Tuesday, a production line capable of processing 5.56 million tonnes of refractory iron ore and tailings per year ...
At least 15 high-speed cross-border train services were delayed after a signalling fault prompted a 45-minute disruption of northbound services in Hong Kong on Sunday morning. The Transport Department said at around 8.30am that the MTR Corporation had notified authorities that high-speed rail services would be delayed due to a “signal fault”. At around 9.15am, the department said the MTR had resol...
The tragic death of a junior Chinese customs officer on the Sino-Nepal border, who had only been in her position for four days before being killed in a catastrophic mudslide, has stirred immense heartbreak online. Twenty-four-year-old Li Leiyang began her role as a plant quarantine officer at the Customs at Gyirong Port in Tibet on August 21, according to a report by news portal 163.com. On August...
Yap Yee Lin has been serving espresso at a Starbucks in Malaysia since 2012, longer than many of his colleagues have worked anywhere. But it was only last year, after 13 years with the company, that he was promoted to shift manager at a branch in Kuala Lumpur’s Bangsar Village II. The wait says less about Yap, who is deaf, than it does about how rare that kind of promotion still is for deaf worker...
Attacks on elderly straphangers are fuelling a spike in felony assaults within the New York City subway system, New York Police Department’s transit chief Joseph Gulotta said on Friday. As the NYPD contends with a 9 per cent jump in felony assaults in the city transit system this year, the department’s transit chief said roughly half of all attacks on the rails are targeting a few select groups. “...
The Labour Department recently upgraded its Heat Stress at Work Warning system, making it easier for higher-tier alerts to be sent out, so that employers and workers, especially those who have to work outdoors, can react quickly during very hot weather. Unfortunately, the most we seem to be able to do is issue warnings and recommend passive mitigation measures such as relaxing the work schedule, r...
English Premier League football club Chelsea’s lucrative new front-of-shirt sponsorship deal with a stablecoin issuer has left Hong Kong fans and retailers concerned about whether wearing or selling the top counts as illegal promotion under digital currency laws. Chelsea signed the deal with Circle to feature its USDC stablecoin brand on player jerseys for the 2026-27 season in late August, just t...
For a few seconds during Blackpink member Jennie’s headline set at Tokyo’s Summer Sonic festival last month, it looked like something had come undone. She turned away from the crowd, adjusted herself and then, the moment was gone. But online, the clip never disappeared – and more than 10 million views later, it has become the latest test of South Korea’s fight against AI-enabled sexual abuse. Fans...
Argentina has announced that it will investigate and sanction oil companies working near the Falkland Islands without authorisation, after President Javier Milei said the “winds of change” favour his country’s claim to the archipelago. Britain and Argentina fought a 10-week war in 1982 over the South Atlantic islands, a British overseas territory that Argentines call Las Malvinas. Argentina’s pres...
Britain’s Prince William will attend the funeral of Norway’s late King Harald next week in place of his father King Charles, Buckingham Palace said on Saturday. The heir to the throne is set to represent his father at the funeral on September 9, having also attended the funeral of Pope Francis last year on behalf of the king. British monarchs do not attend funerals of other heads of state per prot...
German start-up Isar Aerospace on Saturday launched its first rocket into space from a site in Arctic Norway, bringing Europe closer to offering satellite flights from its own soil. The uncrewed Spectrum rocket was the first commercial flight to reach orbit from continental Europe, where several nations have said they want a share of a growing market for space missions. “We’re in orbit! And just ...
Hong Kong has always had a simple answer to what young people should do with their lives: study hard, get a job, work harder, buy a flat and eventually complain about the next generation. That formula is becoming harder to sell. A whole lexicon has grown up around Generation Z’s uneasy relationship with work. In mainland China, there are “full-time children”, young adults who stay home and receive...
A fire at a wedding party in Democratic Republic of Congo’s capital Kinshasa left at least 22 people dead, the regional mayor said on Saturday. Several others were injured. The fire started on Friday night and continued into early Saturday in a building in Lingwala in northern Kinshasa. The building’s narrow hallways were constricted by people trying to escape the fire. Several people - some alive...
A commemoration was held on Saturday in Belgrade for war criminal Ratko Mladic two days ahead of his burial, attended by dozens of former military staff, family members and officials. Mladic died last week after suffering several strokes while serving a life sentence in The Hague for war crimes committed during the 1990s war in Bosnia. His body was returned to Serbia on a government plane on Thurs...
A gravedigging contest in a Hungarian cemetery may sound like the opening line of a comedy sketch. It proved to be anything but as 38 competitors grabbed picks and shovels on Saturday. The Hungarian Association of Cemetery Maintainers and Operators organises the contest to showcase the gravedigging trade and its skills, and shake off death-related taboos. The dry summer-baked soil in the public ce...
An Egyptian court sentenced a well-known television presenter and 11 others to death for manufacturing and trafficking narcotics in a sprawling drugs case, official media reported on Saturday. The presenter, Sarah Khalifa, 39, is best known for her programme Mission Impossible, which dealt with issues concerning security and crime. The state-linked Al-Ahram newspaper said a Cairo court sentenced “...
A Greek air force plane crashed at an air show north of Athens on Saturday, killing the two pilots, officials said, as thousands of people attended the event. A fire after the crash sent up large plumes of black smoke. There were no injuries among the spectators. The crash of the twin-seat Phantom F4 jet took place during a low-altitude manoeuvre. Air force officials in Greece said the bodies of t...
The United States ambassador to Israel condemned Israeli settler violence in the occupied West Bank again on Saturday, calling the behaviour an “act of terror” as he visited Palestinian American residents shaken by months of attacks. Mike Huckabee referred to such settlers as “terrorists”, a word that US officials usually reserve for Palestinian militants. “If there are squatters that come in and ...
US Central Command (CENTCOM) said it hit three Iranian oil tankers on Saturday, including one off the coast of Kharg Island adjoining Iran’s major oil export hub. CENTCOM said the strikes were conducted after Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) launched ballistic missiles at a pair of US Navy ships. “Let the message to the IRGC be clear: If you shoot at two of our ships, we will impose...
The US military says it has struck three Iranian oil tankers after Navy warships were targeted with missiles. The military’s statement on Saturday said an aircraft carrier and a destroyer evaded “multiple unprovoked Iranian attacks” and no US personnel were hurt. It said two Iranian oil carriers were “permanently disabled” and the third, unladen one, was destroyed. The US statement said the tanker...
Hong Kong’s first astronaut Lai Ka-ying and her two fellow Shenzhou-23 crew members will deliver a live lecture from space for students and teachers in the city and neighbouring Macau. Hong Kong authorities revealed on Saturday plans for live broadcasts of “Tiangong Class” to take place soon, without specifying the date and time. The activity, jointly organised by the Hong Kong and Macau governmen...
After being stranded in the South China Sea following a power failure in July, the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Benfold was towed to Subic Bay in the Philippines for emergency repairs. The facility is among the repair and maintenance hubs the US Navy has been developing in the region, strategically pushing for allies to perform major maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) work on US naval ves...
Dozens of masked anti-immigration protesters blocked roads leading to Britain’s busiest ferry port on Saturday, clogging traffic and disrupting travellers and cargo vehicles heading for France. The government condemned the action, saying it went beyond peaceful protest. The Port of Dover said Saturday morning that all traffic in and out was “stopped due to an ongoing public order incident” and pol...
China has started an international project to build a three-dimensional satellite network between Earth and the moon that will track solar activity and study some of the universe’s most powerful explosions. The project plans to send 30 backpack-sized CubeSats into highly elliptical orbits around Earth in the next four years or so, according to the Deep Space Exploration Laboratory, which will lead...
Medical experts have stressed that Hong Kong’s next generation of healthcare professionals must combine clinical rigour with emotional resilience, an open-minded approach to artificial intelligence (AI) and the drive to transform the sector. The remarks came during a panel on the first day of the Global Education Summit, co-organised by the South China Morning Post and HSBC Premier. “We always tal...
Asia remains shackled by “mental colonisation” despite accounting for over half the global population, a former UN Security Council president has said, while warning that Taiwan remains the region’s most dangerous flashpoint. “The big mistake that Asians made after the end of colonial rule [is assuming] that the end of physical colonisation would automatically mean the end of mental colonisation,”...
Chinese researchers have developed a table-top magnetic sensor that operates at room temperature and can spot magnetic signals a billion times fainter than the Earth’s own field. The Levitated Magnet Magnetometer (LeMaMa) functions like a compass with a needle that floats in mid-air with virtually no friction. By tracking the needle’s tiny deflections, the team can measure magnetic fields down to ...
