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In the sci-fi novel The Three-Body Problem, humans build “gravitational wave antennas” to broadcast to the cosmos. Now, Chinese scientists have made a step forward in turning that idea into hardware – only in reverse. Science and Technology Daily reported on Saturday that a team from the Institute of Mechanics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences had developed the optical core of a giant space detec...
A teenager was charged on Monday with assaulting controversial blogger Amos Yee over the weekend at an anime convention in Singapore. Bosco Chun Ho Wang, an 18-year-old Chinese national and Singapore permanent resident, was given one charge each of public nuisance and voluntarily causing hurt. The incident occurred at about 2.10pm on Saturday at level 4 of Suntec City Convention Centre. Chun is ac...
Speaking about her stepbrother Timothy Heng, Tessa Oh said that his family knew him to be someone who put others before himself and showed up for the people in his life. Early on, hearing that he was still on Indonesia’s Mount Dukono after it erupted while most of his fellow hikers had been evacuated, “my first thought was that he must have [run] back and tried to help someone”, the 30-year-old jo...
Speaking about her stepbrother Timothy Heng, Tessa Oh said that his family knew him to be someone who put others before himself and showed up for the people in his life. Early on, hearing that he was still on Indonesia’s Mount Dukono after it erupted while most of his fellow hikers had been evacuated, “my first thought was that he must have [run] back and tried to help someone”, the 30-year-old jo...
Hong Kong authorities may widen support to cover more younger elderly residents to bolster protection, the welfare minister has said, calling current efforts to identify at-risk seniors “just the beginning” as the city reels from two tragedies in a week. Secretary for Labour and Welfare Chris Sun Yuk-han told the South China Morning Post that the government was mobilising all available resources t...
You can’t buy happiness, they say. But we “buy” dopamine fixes all the time. Just whip out the smartphone and we easily go down that rabbit hole of endless doom scrolling, falling into the addictive trap of instant gratification, chasing likes, shares, comments and followers as rewards. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that plays a key role in our experience of pleasure, focus, reward and motivation...
US President Donald Trump will pay a state visit China from May 13 to 15, at the invitation of President Xi Jinping, the foreign ministry in Beijing said on Monday. It will be the first visit to China by a US president in almost nine years and comes at a time of heightened tensions between the two countries over a range of issues. It also coincides with the fragile US-Iran ceasefire and the blocka...
US President Donald Trump will pay a state visit China from May 13 to 15, at the invitation of President Xi Jinping, the foreign ministry in Beijing said on Monday. It will be the first visit to China by a US president in almost nine years and comes at a time of heightened tensions between the two countries over a range of issues. It also coincides with the fragile US-Iran ceasefire and the blocka...
Thailand’s former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra was released on parole on Monday after serving eight months in jail for an abuse of power conviction, a return to the spotlight for a tycoon formerly at the fulcrum of Thai politics but whose two-decade spell over the electorate appears to have evaporated. Looking slimmer with a short trimmed haircut, the 76-year-old was greeted with hugs by his ...
Thailand’s former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra was released from prison on parole on Monday, raising the prospect of a return to the spotlight for the political heavyweight. The 76-year-old telecoms billionaire has been serving a one-year prison sentence for corruption since September. He is required to wear an electronic monitor until his probation ends in four months. His hair closely cropp...
Cigarette butts will be considered “strong evidence” of a possible breach under a proposed construction site smoking ban, Hong Kong’s labour chief has said, even as he sought to reassure contractors that preventive measures could shield them from the maximum HK$400,000 (US$51,070) fine. Secretary for Labour and Welfare Chris Sun Yuk-Han revealed further details about the ban in an interview with t...
Nine years after his lavish first visit to China as US president, Donald Trump is scheduled to head back to Beijing on May 14-15. Beijing has not confirmed the date yet. With tensions over tariffs, Taiwan and tech rivalry still simmering, the summit will test whether the world’s two biggest powers can stabilise their fractious relationship. What to expect Pragmatic deals over grand resets Don’t lo...
A woman in eastern China has been fined for applying make-up and dancing behind the wheel, then claiming her car’s driver-assistance system drove better than she could. According to CCTV News, the driver, surnamed Lin, is from Wenzhou in Zhejiang province and had repeatedly posted videos online flaunting her vehicle’s assisted driving. In the widely shared clips, Lin is seen travelling through a t...
The US-Israel war against Iran has now entered its tenth week and there has been little progress on the stalled peace talks. These are the major takeaways from what happened overnight. What did Trump say? Iran reportedly sent a response to Washington’s latest proposal – a one-page memo aimed at ending the war – but it was rejected by US President Donald Trump. “TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!” he wrote on s...
Israel’s next election campaign is well under way, with political defections, fractious coalition-building and naked appeals to ethnic exclusion marking its opening salvoes as a crowded field of challengers queues up to try Benjamin Netanyahu for the security catastrophe of October 7, 2023 and the wars that followed. The vote, constitutionally set for this October, is shaping up as a referendum on...
Nobel Peace laureate and activist Narges Mohammadi has been transferred to a Tehran hospital more than a week after collapsing in prison, her foundation said on Sunday. Her transfer comes after days of pleading by her family and others who described her condition as critical. Her foundation said she has been granted a prison sentence suspension on bail. It was not clear for how long her sentence i...
For Hong Kong-based artist Apple Tong Wing-yin, Wang Fuk Court has always been more than a home address. It was a library of her life’s work. Tong, a prominent deaf illustrator and graphic designer who communicates through what she calls her “silent language” of art, kept the many canvases that spoke for her inside her flat in the Tai Po housing estate. In November last year, that library was redu...
Six-seat premium electric sport utility vehicles (SUVs) are emerging as an unlikely game changer in China’s automotive market, with more than a dozen new locally developed models set to challenge German luxury brands this year. The spacious vehicles, increasingly popular among wealthy families in mainland China, could drive a rebound in the world’s largest car and electric vehicle (EV) market as t...
Six-seat premium electric sport utility vehicles (SUVs) are emerging as an unlikely game changer in China’s automotive market, with more than a dozen new locally developed models set to challenge German luxury brands this year. The spacious vehicles, increasingly popular among wealthy families in mainland China, could drive a rebound in the world’s largest car and electric vehicle (EV) market as t...
Cheng Li-wun is the chairwoman of Taiwan’s largest opposition party, the Kuomintang (KMT). In this far-ranging interview, she discusses her vision for peace and cooperation between Taiwan and mainland China, her meeting in April with Communist Party chief Xi Jinping and her coming trip to the United States in June. Cross-strait relations have been increasingly tense for more than 10 years. What ap...
Cheng Li-wun is the chairwoman of Taiwan’s largest opposition party, the Kuomintang (KMT). In this far-ranging interview, she discusses her vision for peace and cooperation between Taiwan and mainland China, her meeting in April with Communist Party chief Xi Jinping and her coming trip to the United States in June. The original interview was conducted in Chinese. SCMP Plus members can read a Chine...
On April 28, the United Arab Emirates informed the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) it was leaving. Three days’ notice. No call to Riyadh beforehand, apparently. The grievance about production quotas was years old: Abu Dhabi had threatened to quit in 2021. What’s changed has nothing to do with the barrel count. It is about who underwrites Abu Dhabi’s security when it acts on a ...
Iran sent its response to the latest US ceasefire proposal via Pakistani mediators and wants negotiations to focus on permanently ending the war, but President Donald Trump quickly rejected it as “TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!” with no details. Iran seeks to end the war on all fronts, including in Lebanon, where Israel is fighting the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group, and to ensure the security of ...
Cheng Li-wun is the chairwoman of Taiwan’s largest opposition party, the Kuomintang (KMT). In this wide-ranging interview, she discusses her vision for peace and cooperation between Taiwan and mainland China, her meeting in April with Communist Party chief Xi Jinping and her upcoming trip to the United States in June. The original interview was conducted in Chinese. SCMP Plus members can access th...
Russia and Ukraine swapped accusations of breaking a US-brokered ceasefire on Sunday, with both sides claiming to have suffered casualties in drone and artillery strikes over the past 24 hours. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russia was neither observing the truce nor “even particularly trying to”, adding there had been no calm in front-line areas despite a lull in large-scale att...
Russian attacks wounded at least nine people in eastern Ukraine on Sunday, the second day of what was supposed to have been a three-day truce with Russia, Ukrainian officials said. Russia also conducted assault operations on the front line, although it did not launch any “large-scale” air raids during the day, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his evening address. “On the front line, ...
One of five French people flown back to France on Sunday from the cruise ship struck by a deadly hantavirus outbreak is showing symptoms of the illness, French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said. “One of them showed symptoms in the repatriation plane,” he posted on social media. “These five passengers have immediately been placed in strict isolation until further notice. “They are getting medic...
Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium must be “taken out” before the US-Israeli war against Iran can be considered over, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told an American broadcaster Sunday. “It’s not over, because there’s still nuclear material – enriched uranium – that has to be taken out of Iran. There’s still enrichment sites that have to be dismantled,” Netanyahu said in an interview ...
Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium must be “taken out” before the US-Israeli war against Iran can be considered over, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview on Sunday. “It’s not over, because there’s still nuclear material – enriched uranium – that has to be taken out of Iran. There’s still enrichment sites that have to be dismantled,” Netanyahu said in an excerpt of an i...
Chinese Vice-Premier He Lifeng will travel to South Korea this week for trade talks with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, both sides confirmed on Sunday, in the final round of negotiations before a summit between President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump in Beijing. The meeting is scheduled for May 12 and 13 in Seoul and comes days before Trump’s state visit to China on May 14 and 15....
