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Hundreds of security guards and police officers were deployed on Tuesday to evict about 20 residents from a Hong Kong village as part of the government’s Northern Metropolis blueprint, despite residents saying their concerns remain largely unresolved. The operation by the Lands Department on Tuesday sparked heated confrontations with Tin Sam Tsuen villagers, who lived in properties built under the...
Palestinian civilians are caught between “mass atrocities” of Israeli forces, settlers and Hamas’ brutal rule, a UN-mandated inquiry said on Tuesday. Civilians across war-ravaged Gaza and the occupied West Bank are being “systematically and deliberately” subjected to severe rights violations, the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry said. The investigative team, which last year con...
A Taiwan-US defence planning programme has sparked debate in Taiwan’s legislature over whether its strategic value justifies its higher cost after the government proposed raising its budget more than twelvefold next year. At the centre of the controversy is a sharp increase in funding for the Joint Force Design (JFD) programme, a bilateral defence planning mechanism used to assess the island’s mil...
Hong Kong Chu Hai College has sued its finance head, along with a company and its director, for allegedly embezzling over HK$25 million (US$3.19 million) by disguising the transfers as academic and administrative expenses. The private institution filed the lawsuit in the High Court on Monday to reclaim what it said were misappropriated funds transferred to finance director Ray Yip Kam‑chun, Ho Chu...
Scepticism is rife about US President Donald Trump’s claims to have reprimanded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu over recent military escalations with Lebanese Hezbollah and Iran despite ceasefires negotiated by Washington. While Netanyahu’s apparent defiance is widely seen as an embarrassment to Trump, analysts say the mercurial US leader has done little more than wag his finger a...
A Chinese woman who went to great lengths to access her late brother’s blog has discovered his deep love for her 14 years after his death, moving many people online. Wenwen, 24, from southwestern China’s Sichuan province, had a brother 14 years older than her and her twin sister. In 2012, he died in a car crash with their father on their way to another city for work. He was only 24 years old. Afte...
The Philippines has accused China of building an artificial structure at the hotly contested Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea. Citing aerial monitoring, the National Task Force for the West Philippine Sea, an inter-agency body overseeing Manila’s maritime strategy in the South China Sea, said on Tuesday that a floating platform six metres (19.7 feet) wide and six metres long was located wi...
The Pentagon added tech giants Alibaba and Baidu and carmaker BYD to a blacklist of Chinese companies with military ties amid widening competition between the world’s two largest economies. Drug maker WuXi AppTec, robot company Unitree and carmaker Nio were among other businesses added to the 1260H list, according to a US Department of Defence notice. Some Chinese companies no longer operating in ...
A summit between Russia and Asean next week promises to ease Southeast Asia’s energy crisis and Moscow’s diplomatic isolation – but not all of the bloc’s leaders are expected to show up. Analysts are also divided on whether Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr, the current Asean chair, will travel to Kazan for the meeting, hosted by Russian President Vladimir Putin on June 17–18. The summit m...
China is moving to leverage data as a core strategic asset, aiming to build industry-specific data sets to power its next-generation artificial intelligence models, as developers worldwide grapple with a looming data drought. On Monday, the country’s data authority unveiled a sweeping nationwide plan to boost the supply of high-quality AI training data, underscoring Beijing’s resolve to secure a l...
Beyond the diplomatic choreography of last month’s Xi-Trump summit, what are the structural implications of a less confrontational US-China relationship for the Asia-Pacific? The subsequent visits by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to India and US Secretary of Defence Peter Hegseth to Singapore in late May shed some light on the question. Both Rubio and Hegseth had accompanied Trump to Beijing. ...
Southeast Asia’s extensive supply chains could be disrupted if it faces planned US tariffs over Washington’s accusations of forced labour in 60 economies, as analysts say the proposal is just a way for President Donald Trump to resurrect his trade levy agenda. Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam are among the economies flagged by the US for purportedly f...
Inside a metal shell being hurled from a standstill to a speed many times faster than sound, the pressure could be as high as an elephant standing on every square inch of a human body. To make matters worse, an invisible, violent magnetic storm is raging through its path. This is the world inside an electromagnetic rail gun. For decades, this has been the nightmare that kept weapons engineers awak...
Visiting a historic mountainside in Pyongyang, Chinese President Xi Jinping emphasised the shared sacrifices and deep historical ties between China and North Korea. On Tuesday, Xi and first lady Peng Liyuan paid tribute at the Sino-Korean Friendship Tower in Moran Hill, accompanied by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and his wife Ri Sol-ju. Honour guards placed a floral basket at the monument beari...
A government investigation into an alleged indecent assault of a four-year-old kindergarten pupil at an international school in Hong Kong’s Stanley has concluded that the claim of child maltreatment was “not established”, drawing the weeks-long probe to a close. The International Montessori School (IMS) welcomed the Social Welfare Department’s conclusion, expressing “immense relief” after going th...
We have selected seven stories from the SCMP’s coverage of Asia over the past week that resonated with our readers and shed light on topical issues. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. At least 35 dead, 200 injured, after magnitude 7.8 quake hits Philippines At least 35 people were killed and more than 200 injured after a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck ...
Rescuers searched the rubble on Tuesday of a collapsed building in the southern Philippine city of General Santos, the worst hit by a powerful earthquake that has killed at least 37 people and injured hundreds, to reach two people still believed to be trapped inside. Regional fire officer Edgar Tanawan, who was leading the operation, said two people had been pulled out alive from the commercial b...
Israel’s latest strikes on Lebanon and Iran have made clear that US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who started the war in lockstep, want different things. Trump had publicly warned Israel not to strike Beirut in its war with Iran-backed Hezbollah militants. When it did, on Sunday, Iran responded by firing ballistic missiles at Israel for the first time since ...
A Hong Kong court has sentenced veteran film producer and actor Raymond Wong Pak-ming to five months in prison for sharing insider information with his sister to trade shares in an entertainment company he chaired in 2017. However, the 80-year-old will not have to begin serving the sentence immediately, after Magistrate Ko Wai-hung granted him bail pending appeal on Tuesday. Ko said he would not c...
Malaysia’s newest “rebel party” has issued a rare public call for election candidates, as former economy minister Rafizi Ramli races to turn his breakaway Bersama outfit into a serious force before a string of state polls. The move comes after Johor dissolved its assembly last Monday, with Negeri Sembilan doing the same on Friday, paving the way for polls in both states well before the next genera...
Hong Kong’s anti-corruption chief has said trust is the real currency of finance, with an official from mainland China’s watchdog pledging to continue fostering a clean business environment and deepen regional cooperation. At an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) seminar on Tuesday, Danny Woo Ying-ming, commissioner of the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC), said corruption har...
A long-suffering domestic violence victim in China who struggled to cover the 7,000 yuan (US$1,000) cost of treating her injuries has discovered that her husband had hidden 14 million yuan (US$2 million) from her. The 53-year-old woman’s story, reported by Shanghai Morning Post in early June, has been viewed 20 million times on mainland social media and triggered a heated discussion. The woman, su...
A Chinese team has transplanted a pig’s kidneys and liver into a patient who had suffered brain death, a world first that could pave the way for multi-organ animal-to-human transplants. After the operation, the organs functioned within the 53-year-old man for nearly five days before the study was ended in line with his family’s wishes. Xenotransplantation, or the transplant of organs or tissues fr...
A Chinese team has transplanted a pig’s kidneys and liver into a patient who had suffered brain death, a world first which may pave the way for multi-organ animal-to-human transplants. After the operation, the organs functioned within the 53-year-old man for nearly five days before the study was ended per his family’s wishes. Xenotransplantation, or the transplant of organs or tissues from one spe...
Singapore’s Prime Minister Lawrence Wong has said his government will focus on making life better for families and rely less on incentives to encourage citizens to have more babies, as the city state grapples with a record-low fertility rate. Wong acknowledged the limits of government efforts to reverse falling birth rates, a challenge confronting countries around the world. “Think about it less a...
Hong Kong’s top decision-making body has approved to propose a flat 2 per cent pay rise for civil servants this year, citing the need for a prudent approach to managing public finances amid a volatile geopolitical environment. The raise will bring about an extra annual government spending of HK$6 billion (US$765.7 million), according to Secretary for the Civil Service Ingrid Yeung Ho Poi-yan, who ...
Hong Kong’s top decision-making body has approved a flat 2 per cent pay rise for civil servants this year, citing the need for a prudent approach to managing public finances amid a volatile geopolitical environment. The raise will bring about an extra annual government spending of HK$6 billion (US$765.7 million), according to Secretary for the Civil Service Ingrid Yeung Ho Poi-yan. She said on Tue...
A more rigorous appraisal system for Hong Kong’s civil servants aims to bolster public trust and support, but adjustment to the changes will take time, the city’s leader has said. Facing backlash from unions, Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu said on Tuesday that the government would provide further explanation of the revamped appraisal system, which he described as a “fair reward and punishment me...
A US Army Apache attack helicopter crashed near the Strait of Hormuz, with President Donald Trump saying the two crew members abroad were “fine” after the incident involving the strategic waterway, which remains under a chokehold by Iran. What caused the crash remained unclear Tuesday morning in the Middle East, which was still reeling after Iran and Israel exchanged fire the previous day in the b...
