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Forty years ago, the Stockholm Document turned the political promise of the 1975 Helsinki Final Act into a more practical system of confidence-building. Amid the Cold War, Europe’s East and West did not disarm, abandon deterrence or begin to trust one another. Instead, they agreed that military competition could be made safer through prior notification, observation, information exchange and verifi...
Read more: https://sc.mp/cc3d3c A landslide at the China-Nepal border has hit a key checkpoint with Tibet, resulting in “major casualties”, according to state media and footage shared online. The landslide began in Nepal’s Rasuwa region on Wednesday and struck Tibet’s bordering southwestern county Gyirong, according to Xinhua.
After two years of a cautious thaw, China and India are heading towards a pivotal test: can the relationship move beyond managed optics to meaningful engagement? President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are expected to cross paths next week at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Sources expect a short, tightly managed encounter on the side...
After two years of a cautious thaw, China and India are heading towards a pivotal test: can the relationship move beyond managed optics to meaningful engagement? President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are expected to cross paths next week at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Sources expect a short, tightly managed encounter on the side...
At least 72 people were dead and hundreds of others – many of them foreign tourists – were missing on Wednesday night, hours after massive flash floods and landslides engulfed a border area between China and Nepal. Chinese state media reported that the disaster struck Nepal at around 9am, spilling over into Gyirong county in the Tibet autonomous region, causing “major casualties and missing person...
Hundreds of people – many of them foreign tourists – were missing on Wednesday night, hours after a massive landslide engulfed a border area between China and Nepal. Chinese state media reported that the disaster struck Nepal at around 9am, spilling over into Gyirong county in the Tibet autonomous region, causing “major casualties and missing persons” at a border checkpoint in the county, which is...
Rescue operations are under way after a landslide at the China-Nepal border engulfed a key border checkpoint, resulting in “major casualties”, according to Chinese state media. The landslide began in Nepal at around 9am on Wednesday and also struck Tibet’s Gyirong county, which is under the administration of Shigatse city, according to Xinhua. Footage circulating online showed the landslide engulf...
Beijing has vowed to develop emerging industries such as 6G and robotics into new drivers of economic growth by the end of the decade, while pledging renewed efforts to curb cutthroat competition in the domestic automotive industry. Vice-minister of Industry and Information Technology Xin Guobin outlined plans through 2030 to develop a range of hi-tech industries as new pillars of the economy and ...
For years, South Asian students – particularly from India – treated an overseas undergraduate degree as the default springboard to an international career. That assumption is now changing. Students across the region are still drawn to prestigious Western institutions, but tightening visa restrictions, rising costs and uncertain post-graduation job markets in countries like the United States are pr...
Chinese artificial intelligence firm MiniMax on Wednesday posted a 283 per cent surge in first-half revenue to US$116.6 million, powered by a 700 per cent jump in its enterprise business, though top-line growth remains off pace to hit full-year analyst forecasts. Revenue for the six months ended June 30 accounted for roughly 32 per cent of the US$363.77 million expected by analysts for the full ye...
Hong Kong health authorities have confirmed that no child has shown signs of poisoning after drinking a batch of infant formula found to contain excessive levels of lead. The Department of Health gave an update on Wednesday, a month after Macau authorities alerted the public that a batch of Frisolac Prestige Stage 1 infant formula, manufactured by the Dutch company Royal FrieslandCampina, might co...
Hong Kong health authorities have confirmed that no child showed signs of poisoning after drinking a batch of infant formula found to contain excessive levels of lead. The Department of Health gave an update on Wednesday, a month after Macau authorities alerted the public that a batch of Frisolac Prestige Stage 1 infant formula, manufactured by the Dutch company Royal FrieslandCampina, might conta...
Few have spent as much time in the waters surrounding Singapore’s southwestern islands as fisherman Hamzah Mohamad, 71. The former resident of Pulau Sudong has been fishing, primarily by setting up bubu – wire fish traps in Malay – in the rocky coral reefs surrounding Sudong, Bukom and Semakau for more than half a century. He knows the underwater reefs by heart, what the wind changes mean for visi...
China has reminded its officials of their lifelong responsibility for serious environmental damage on their watch, tying green efforts more closely to performance assessments in the country’s push for higher-quality growth. The conditions and potential disciplinary action were outlined in revised rules released on Tuesday by the Communist Party and the State Council, China’s cabinet. Under the rul...
Facing a far larger Chinese military presence at sea, the Philippines is looking to drones not as a substitute for warships and aircraft but as a relatively low-cost way to make its forces harder to find, suppress and outmanoeuvre, analysts have said. The administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr has focused on expanding the military’s drone fleet as part of its external defence strategy. D...
A 90-year-old woman in Beijing is devoted to caring for her husband with Alzheimer’s disease, determined to safeguard not only his health but also his dignity. Wen Bo and her husband, who is two years older, first met as secondary school classmates. After several years of long-distance courtship, they married in 1960. Together, they raised two sons and embraced an active lifestyle for decades, eng...
People in China reacted with frustration and disbelief after American consulates around the world began cancelling immigrant visa interviews – the latest setback for applicants waiting to enter the United States legally. A post by an immigration agent on the Chinese social media platform RedNote claimed that the US consulate in Guangzhou had abruptly cancelled all immigrant visa interviews on Tues...
China warned of reprisals against possible United States sanctions as the Trump administration launched “economic D-Day” in a bid to isolate Iran following six months of military conflict. “China will do everything necessary to firmly safeguard its rights and interests,” foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian told reporters on Tuesday. Economic warfare would “only serve to fuel tensions and lead to r...
Hong Kong will unveil its first five-year plan and annual policy address on September 16, the city’s leader has announced, as he visited residents from lower-income households and inspected community services to gather public views. “The five-year plan draws the eyes of a dragon, while the policy address draws the entire dragon,” Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu said after visiting Un Chau Estate ...
Hong Kong will unveil its first five-year plan and annual policy address on September 16, the city’s leader has announced, as he visited grass-roots residents and inspected community services to gather public views. “The five-year plan draws the eyes of a dragon, while the policy address draws the entire dragon,” Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu said after visiting Un Chau Estate in Sham Shui Po o...
China has tested a new variant of the YJ-18A anti-ship cruise missile bearing a black stealth coating, according to specialists who say the advanced finish on the ship-launched missile will improve its penetration ability. The coating was highlighted in footage released by state broadcaster CCTV on Saturday, which showed an extreme-performance test of a new type of anti-ship missile fired from a n...
China has tested a new variant of the YJ-18A anti-ship cruise missile bearing a black stealth coating, according to experts who say the advanced finish on the ship-launched missile will improve its penetration capability. During a missile test in an unknown sea area, a missile was fired from a navy ship’s vertical launch system for an extreme-performance test of a new type of anti-ship missile, ac...
China’s largest hotpot chain Haidilao International Holding has seen takeaway emerge as its fastest-growing segment, with demand for single-serving meals like rice-bowl sets surging, amid positive revenue and profit growth in the first half. Takeaway revenue for the Hong Kong-listed group reached 2.05 billion yuan (US$305 million) in the first six months, surging 121.2 per cent year on year. The s...
As Washington increasingly turns away from the multilateral order it once helped build, Beijing is emerging as an advocate of international cooperation and rules-based stability. For some, the real surprise is that China’s rise is not challenging the world order but that its interests align with preserving it. When I met Foreign Minister Wang Yi in the corridor of a congress centre in Myanmar, he ...
We have put together stories from our coverage on science from the past two weeks to help you stay informed. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. Chinese team aims to put ‘smart’ diabetes probiotic on US shelves within 2 years Chinese researchers have engineered a probiotic that could make diabetes care as simple as drinking a cup of yogurt or swallowing ...
China is drawing up an extensive set of standards for brain-computer interface technology, seeking to accelerate the commercialisation of a field in which Chinese start-ups are increasingly competing with Elon Musk’s Neuralink for global leadership. Under draft guidelines released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), Beijing aims to formulate or revise more than 40 standa...
China is drawing up an extensive set of standards for brain-computer interface technology, seeking to accelerate the commercialisation of a field in which Chinese start-ups are increasingly competing with Elon Musk’s Neuralink for global leadership. Under draft guidelines released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), Beijing aims to formulate or revise more than 40 standa...
Celebrating its 45th anniversary this year, the Student of the Year (SOTY) Awards unveiled a series of forward-looking initiatives while honouring a community-minded student-athlete from Ying Wa College with the Grand Prize for exemplifying this year’s theme: “Leadership in Action: Shaping the Possible.” Organised by the South China Morning Post and solely sponsored by The Hong Kong Jockey Club, w...
A huge wall of mud and rock collapsed into a river on the Himalayan border of Nepal and China’s Tibet on Wednesday, triggering catastrophic flooding on the Nepali side that killed scores of people and left hundreds of tourists missing. In a still-unfolding disaster, verified videos showed dozens of people swept away at the border, with authorities on both sides fearing far higher casualties and m...
A massive flash flood swept away villages in Nepal on Wednesday, killing at least 95 people and damaging roads, bridges and power projects in areas near Tibet, authorities said. At least 341 foreign travellers were missing from the region, including more than 100 Indians, three US citizens and 12 British nationals, Nepal’s tourism ministry said. Dozens of local people were also missing. South Kor...
