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This story has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by subscribing. The Hong Kong Observatory issued a black rainstorm warning on Monday evening, the first of the year, with a trough of low pressure expected to bring heavy rainfall in the coming 24 hours. The upgrade to the top-tier warning came 45 minutes after the forecaster ...
This story has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by subscribing. The Hong Kong Observatory issued a red rainstorm warning on Monday evening and forecast heavy rain for the next 24 hours. The forecaster first issued an amber warning at 7.20pm before upgrading it to red 30 minutes later. Earlier, at 5pm, it warned that the rai...
Hong Kong ranks among the world’s largest data centre hubs but has a carbon footprint exceeding the global average, according to a global think tank study, which calls for a responsible strategy to tackle the “unintended impacts” of using artificial intelligence (AI). The June report by the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health also quantified not only carbon but wa...
The head of the World Health Organization on Monday visited Uganda, where a deadly Ebola outbreak has killed two people after spreading from the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The WHO has declared an international health emergency over the current outbreak, which was announced on May 15 in the northeastern DRC. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus recently also visited...
Two Hongkongers have been sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering a man by suffocating him with tape in a village temple and burying his body under concrete outside, with a judge describing the killing as hideous “beyond words”. High Court Judge Anthony Kwok Kai-on handed down the mandatory sentences to Chan Wah-hing, 67, and Chan Yiu-lung, 33, on Monday after they were earlier convicted of m...
A powerful magnitude 7.8 earthquake that struck southern Mindanao on Monday morning served as a stark reminder of the Philippines’ vulnerability to a major quake in Metro Manila, disaster experts said. The tremor, which triggered tsunami warnings along the southern coast, left collapsed buildings, damaged homes and debris-strewn streets in its wake. At least 19 people were killed and more than 130...
Chinese President Xi Jinping said Beijing’s commitment to North Korea and its leader Kim Jong-un was “unwavering ” on Monday. The trip is Xi’s first foreign visit of the year, and during his talks with Kim in afternoon, Xi expressed strong support for the North Korean leader. “No matter how the international situation changes, the firm stance of the Chinese [Communist] Party and government in high...
Hong Kong authorities will not favour existing ride-hailing platform drivers in the allocation of such vehicle permits, citing concerns about encouraging illegal activities and difficulties in execution, the transport minister has said. Secretary for Transport and Logistics Mable Chan on Monday also refrained from revealing whether a time frame was being planned to review the controversial 10,000 ...
A Hong Kong court has jailed four men for up to three years and one month for rioting during the 2019 anti-government protests, in the latest round of sentences following authorities’ pledge to pursue those involved regardless of the time elapsed. The District Court on Monday sentenced the four defendants for their roles in clashes at and around Polytechnic University in Hung Hom, the site of some...
In the second and final instalment of a two-part series on China’s pivotal national college entrance examination, or gaokao, the SCMP explores the evolution of the country’s contemporary examination system and its ongoing influence on societal and familial expectations. This year, China’s gaokao saw 12.9 million candidates, representing the second consecutive year of decline. Despite this trend, t...
An 86‑year‑old woman died on Monday morning after falling from her flat while cleaning a window at a residential estate in Discovery Bay, an upscale seaside community in Hong Kong. Police said they received a report at around 10am from security staff at Greendale Court in Greenvale Village who discovered the woman lying unconscious outside the building. Paramedics arrived shortly after and pronoun...
When Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Pyongyang on Monday, he was entering a country undergoing notable development in both its nuclear programme and conventional combat capacity. North Korea has been aided in these developments by Russian military technology and economic aid, which Pyongyang received in exchange for sending troops and equipment to support Moscow’s war in Ukraine. These adv...
China’s President Xi Jinping received a colourful welcome in Pyongyang as he began his two-day state visit to North Korea, his first in seven years. After landing at the airport, where Xi and first lady Peng Liyuan were welcomed by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and his wife Ri Sol-ju with a handshake, the Chinese leader was escorted through the streets of Pyongyang by a nine-column motorcade to ...
Chinese President Xi Jinping started his first visit to North Korea since 2019 pledging “unwavering” friendship and deeper ties with a country that boasts a growing nuclear arsenal and increasing ties with Russia. “No matter how times change or how the international situation evolves, the friendship between China and North Korea remains invincible,” Xi said in an article published on Monday by Rod...
A 13-year-old Thai girl has confessed to killing her seven-year-old sister while arguing over a toy and a mobile phone, in a case that has attracted attention online because of the young ages of the suspects. Police were called to a village in Sangkhla Buri district, Kanchanaburi province, on May 30 after seven-year-old Nong Agnoon went missing. Her body was found in a rubber plantation about 600 ...
A six-year-old boy in Thailand’s Nakhon Si Thammarat province died after he was attacked by his grandfather’s pet monkey, sparking concern in a country where exotic animals are often kept as companions. Nathan Ekkarat Srichan was walking alone to his grandfather’s grocery shop on Saturday morning when the fatal attack happened, the Thairath newspaper reported. Unaware of the danger, he came near t...
Hong Kong will expand a travel scheme that allows mainland Chinese motorists to enter the city for leisure, opening it to drivers from five more Greater Bay Area cities and doubling the daily quota for urban trips. Authorities said on Monday that the Southbound Travel Scheme for Guangdong Vehicles would be extended to all nine mainland cities under the Greater Bay Area scheme, up from the current ...
Moonshot AI, the developer of China’s popular Kimi chatbot, is seeking to raise between US$1 billion and US$2 billion in a new funding round that could value the company at as much as US$30 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter, as competition among the country’s leading artificial intelligence developers intensifies. The Beijing-based company was targeting a valuation roughly 50...
“When we graduate, what can we do?” As a philosophy professor, questions like this – about employability – often crop up in my conversations with students. Indeed, with youth unemployment on the Chinese mainland standing at almost 17 per cent, and intense competition among those seeking employment, it is no wonder that the priority for many – even students graduating from elite universities – is a...
United States carrier Delta Air Lines has resumed direct flights to the city after the pandemic, launching a daily service to Los Angeles amid surging fuel prices. Jeff Moomaw, the airline’s vice-president for Asia-Pacific, said on Monday that it would take some time to increase services connecting the city to more destinations as the carrier remained focused on current demand. “Our focus right no...
Chinese scientists who inserted a gene from desert moss into cotton say their innovation can boost yields by nearly a quarter through protection against a pervasive fungal disease that threatens crops worldwide. The team, led by researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography (XIEG), inserted a stress-resistance gene from a species of steppe moss that ...
Next-generation Chinese electric-vehicle (EV) batteries that charge in minutes are expected to add fuel to global sales of the country’s carmakers. An EV battery that goes from a 10 per cent to a 98 per cent charge in under six-and-a-half minutes was the star of the Super Technology Day event staged in Beijing in April by the world’s biggest producer of batteries for EVs, Contemporary Amperex Tech...
A bear roaming the streets of a Japanese city for three days forced the closure of nearly 100 schools on Monday, as dozens of hunters and officials searched for the animal. The city government of Utsunomiya, north of Tokyo, closed all 94 public primary and junior high schools in the area after receiving more than 10 reports of bear sightings since Saturday – including in a shopping arcade. “We hav...
A bear roaming the streets of a Japanese city for three days forced the closure of nearly 100 schools on Monday, as dozens of hunters and officials searched for the animal. The city government of Utsunomiya, north of Tokyo, closed all 94 public primary and junior high schools in the area after receiving more than 10 reports of bear sightings since Saturday – including in a shopping arcade. “We hav...
Foreign governments, international banks and multinational companies are increasingly tapping China’s domestic bond market, as panda bond issuance hit a record high in the first five months of the year. A total of 11 entities sold 14 panda bonds – yuan-denominated debt instruments issued by foreign entities in mainland China’s onshore market – worth 26.64 billion yuan (US$3.7 billion) in May, up 2...
Visiting the popular Po Pin Chau area in Hong Kong’s geopark will require real-name reservations under a pilot scheme aimed at preventing scalping and no-shows, officials have told lawmakers concerned about its effectiveness. Undersecretary for Environment and Ecology Diane Wong Shuk-han told the Legislative Council subcommittee on ecology and tourism on Monday that authorities would not use a fir...
A diplomatic feud between Beijing and Tokyo appears to have spilled over to the arts, with what looks like an unofficial boycott on Japanese film, music and books. China has slapped official restrictions on tourism and trade with Japan since the row erupted in November, but so far there has been no official ban on the cultural sector. However, the Shanghai International Film Festival, which begins...
A Chinese man bought a flat on the 34th floor of a newly developed building only to be told four years later that the building only had 32 floors. The man, surnamed Shen, from northwestern China’s Shaanxi province, bought a new-build flat in a village near the provincial capital city Xian in 2013. He bought a 90-square-metre unit on the 34th floor of a building which cost 2,646 yuan (US$400) per s...
A Chinese man bought a flat on the 34th floor of a newly developed building only to be told four years later that the building only had 32 floors. The man, surnamed Shen, from northwestern China’s Shaanxi province, bought a new-build flat in a village near the provincial capital city Xian in 2013. He bought a 90-square-metre unit on the 34th floor of a building which cost 2,646 yuan (US$400) per s...
A South Korean protest calling for a redo of last Wednesday’s local election over ballot shortages at polling stations has taken an unexpected turn, with some protesters demanding that actress and singer IU send coffee to the rally. The demand appears to stem from IU’s decision in 2024 to provide prepaid food and drinks for demonstrators calling for the impeachment of former president Yoon Suk-yeo...
