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Long lines stretching across several blocks have formed in Hong Kong as shoppers turned up days ahead of the launch of the “Royal Pop” pocket watches – a collaboration between luxury watchmaker Audemars Piguet and Swatch. A South China Morning Post reporter observed about 50 people queuing in Causeway Bay on Thursday evening, a few metres from the Swatch store on Kai Chiu Road. “If you don’t try, ...
Long lines stretching across several blocks have formed in Hong Kong as shoppers turned up days ahead of the launch of the “Royal Pop” pocket watches – a collaboration between luxury watchmaker Audemars Piguet and Swatch. A South China Morning Post reporter observed about 50 people queuing in Causeway Bay on Thursday evening, a few metres from the Swatch store on Kai Chiu Road. “If you don’t try, ...
The United States cast Israel-Lebanon talks held in Washington on Thursday as “productive and positive” and a State Department official said more discussions aimed at ending their conflict will continue on Friday. A senior Lebanese official said earlier that Lebanon will demand that US ally Israel cease fire in the face-to-face talks, as Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah continued to trade blows d...
The US hailed “positive talks” on Thursday, as it sought to extend a shaky ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon. The truce – considered to still be in place despite hundreds of deaths in Israeli strikes – ends on Sunday and violence again flared as the two governments met in Washington. Israel has pounded Lebanon and invaded its south in response to retaliatory fire from Shia movement Hezbollah fo...
US President Donald Trump’s landmark visit to China comes as the US-Iran war disrupts global energy supplies, fuels economic uncertainty and adds fresh strain to Washington-Beijing ties. In the latest instalment of a series examining how rivalry, interdependence and geopolitical crises are reshaping the relationship between the two powers, we explore the intensifying US-China legal arms race. For ...
The head of the CIA visited Cuba on Thursday, an extraordinary step-up in contact between Washington and Havana as the communist-run island reels from US pressure, declaring that it is out of oil. John Ratcliffe’s trip appeared to be only the second visit by a CIA director to Cuba since former leader Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution. Ratcliffe met with Raul Guillermo Rodriguez Castro, grandson of f...
CIA Director John Ratcliffe met with Cuban officials in Havana on Thursday, the communist government said, as the island endures record energy shortages. The visit comes at a low moment in US-Cuba relations, after Washington imposed a fuel blockade on its neighbour in January and US President Donald Trump slapped sanctions on the island and mused about taking it over. The meeting with Ratcliffe to...
The US should lift its blockade on Cuba rather than offer aid to the struggling island, President Miguel Diaz-Canel said on Thursday, as the country endures worsening power cuts. His comments came the same day CIA Director John Ratcliffe met with Cuban officials in Havana. The meeting took place “in a context marked by the complexity of bilateral relations, with the aim of contributing to the poli...
In recent years, the Brics grouping has attracted attention as it adds members and positions itself as the voice of the Global South. At a Brics forum held in Beijing last month, officials discussed expanding trade within the grouping. Such initiatives reflect both an impulse to reduce exposure to external shocks linked to the US dollar and a long-term ambition to reshape global finance. These gat...
Brazil’s government expressed concern over China’s renewal of US beef import licences, warning the move could reshape competition in the country’s largest meat export market. A senior Brazilian government official told the South China Morning Post that the renewal brought “anxiety” to the sector and could affect domestic cattle prices. China is Brazil’s largest beef market, and the quota system al...
A tourist from Washington state is facing federal charges after a witness recorded what prosecutors say was a video of him hurling a coconut-sized rock at an endangered Hawaiian monk seal just off a Maui beach last week. Special agents with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration arrested Igor Mykhaylovych Lytvynchuk, 38, in the Seattle area Wednesday, the US attorney’s office in Honol...
The head of US Border Patrol, the agency tasked with securing the nation’s frontiers and increasingly tapped by the Trump administration for immigration operations in American cities, announced his resignation on Thursday. Michael Banks’ decision, announced in a Fox News interview and later confirmed by the Department of Homeland Security, was the latest leadership shake-up of officials implementi...
The head of US Border Patrol, the agency tasked with securing the nation’s frontiers and increasingly tapped by the Trump administration for immigration operations in American cities, announced his resignation Thursday. Michael Banks’ decision, announced in a Fox News interview and later confirmed by the Department of Homeland Security, is the latest leadership shake-up of officials implementing U...
We have put together stories from our coverage of Xi and Trump’s meeting in Beijing. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. Thucydides Trap, personal touches – all you need to know from Xi-Trump summit so far The two leaders began the day with an extravagant welcome on the steps of the Great Hall of the People before heading in for talks. 2. After fanfare a...
We have put together stories from our coverage of Xi and Trump’s meeting in Beijing. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. Thucydides Trap, personal touches – all you need to know from Xi-Trump summit so far The two leaders began the day with an extravagant welcome on the steps of the Great Hall of the People before heading in for talks. 2. After fanfare a...
Gautam Adani agreed to pay US$6 million to settle Securities and Exchange Commission allegations that he broke US securities rules by making false and misleading representations about Adani Green Energy. The proposed settlement also involves an agreement from his nephew Sagar to pay US$12 million. If finalised, the deal would be a significant boon to the Adani Group, whose interests range from coa...
US authorities are moving to resolve the fraud charges against Indian billionaire Gautam Adani, according to people familiar with the matter, and end a criminal case that has hung over Asia’s richest person for more than a year. The Justice Department may announce that they are dropping the charges as soon as this week, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing a confidential matt...
US President Donald Trump said Chinese President Xi Jinping offered to help broker an end to the Iran conflict and ensure freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, underscoring how Middle East tensions have become intertwined with a broader effort by Washington and Beijing to steady relations. In an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity set to air on Thursday evening in the US, Trump...
Hong Kong police arrested a driver after his truck hit a parked vehicle and killed a worker on a closed section of the Cheung Tsing Highway in Tsing Yi in an accident that also left five others, including four South Korean tourists, injured on Thursday. A source said that the accident happened at around 5.10pm when the local driver of a minivan carrying the four tourists pulled over to the side of...
The meeting may have been delayed but when the summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Donald Trump took place on Thursday, it yielded a forward-looking agreement. Sitting down for talks at the Great Hall of the People in central Beijing, the two leaders agreed to make stability a key goal of relations over the next three years – and beyond, according to state media. Tru...
Kevin Warsh’s confirmation as the next chair of the United States Federal Reserve has fuelled debate over whether potential policy compromises with the administration of US President Donald Trump could undermine American financial credibility and inadvertently strengthen Chinese assets. The Senate confirmed Warsh as the 17th chair of the Fed on Wednesday in a 54-45 vote, mostly along bipartisan li...
The chandeliers glittered at the Great Hall of the People on Thursday night when Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Donald Trump raised a toast to a “fantastic” summit. “It was a fantastic day, and in particular, I want to thank President Xi, my friend, for this magnificent welcome ... and for so graciously hosting us on this very historic state visit,” Trump said, nearly nine yea...
Chinese President Xi Jinping raised the “Taiwan question” early in his summit with US counterpart Donald Trump on Thursday, warning that any mishandling of the critical issue could lead to conflict and push relations into an “extremely dangerous situation”. Xi’s messaging on Taiwan was tougher in tone than during their last Beijing summit in 2017, analysts noted. They suggested that managing this ...
A star Chinese researcher laid off by Facebook owner Meta Platforms has co-founded a start-up focused on self-improving artificial intelligence systems, joining a wave of US and Chinese firms developing models capable of autonomously refining their own code and reasoning. Tian Yuandong, former research scientist director at Meta’s FAIR (Fundamental AI Research) team, launched Recursive Superintell...
Hong Kong health authorities have opened an investigation into an alleged medical blunder involving an improperly sealed catheter that led to the death of a 75-year-old man following a heart procedure at Tuen Mun Hospital. The Hospital Authority said on Thursday that the patient, who had a history of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and high cholesterol, was admitted on Wednesday last week af...
Statements issued by China and the United States after their summit on Thursday revealed stark contrasts in each side’s priorities. Washington focused on trade, fentanyl and Iran, while Beijing emphasised Taiwan, stabilising bilateral ties and Trump’s compliments about President Xi Jinping. Trump’s state visit to China marks the first trip to the country by a US president in nine years and it bega...
Wrestling with mounting financial difficulties and the challenges of caring for a child with autism, Hong Kong mother Chau Ting-ting found herself struggling several years ago with thoughts of ending her life. The 30-year-old recalled on Thursday that her son Ziyi, now five, began displaying symptoms consistent with autism when he was two years old. Counsellors advised her to send the boy to a nur...
Wrestling with mounting financial difficulties and the challenges of caring for a child with autism, Hong Kong mother Chau Ting-ting found herself struggling several years ago with thoughts of ending her life. The 30-year-old recalled on Thursday that her son Ziyi, now five, began displaying symptoms consistent with autism when he was two years old. Counsellors advised her to send the boy to a nur...
Labour’s Wes Streeting announced his resignation as health minister on Thursday, calling for a leadership contest to oust British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who has shown no sign he is ready to step down. Disastrous results for the governing Labour Party in last week’s local elections have plunged Britain into its latest crisis, just under two years after Starmer won a large majority on a vow ...
France’s health minister said on Thursday that 26 people in France identified as close contacts of hantavirus cases linked to the MV Hondius cruise ship had tested negative for the illness. Dutch authorities said that all people who arrived in the Netherlands on evacuation flights from the ship this week have also tested negative. Twenty-six people are in hospital isolation in France, including 22...
