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Top story SCMP • May 9, 2026 (4 months ago)

China boy, 4, survives 11-floor fall after climbing onto window to see if parents were coming home

A four-year-old boy miraculously survived after falling from the window of his 11th-floor home. After the boy gained consciousness, he said in tears to his mother that he had climbed onto the window because he was missing her so much that he wanted to see if she was coming home. The boy’s experience went viral online after his experience was reported by the Haibao News in early May. The incident u...

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SCMP • 4 months ago

Mexico to end school year 40 days early for World Cup amid heatwave

Mexican authorities have announced that the school year will end over a month early as the country gears up to host World Cup matches, prompting broad backlash. Education Secretary Mario Delgado said the decision to end the school year 40 days early was made in part due to a heatwave affecting several states. “We’re going to end the school year on June 5 because many states are already experiencin...

SCMP • 4 months ago

Mexico to end school year 40 days early for World Cup amid heat wave

SCMP • 4 months ago

Singapore shines as stable investment oasis amid global storms: ‘very appetising’

As global markets are roiled by geopolitical uncertainty and the energy fallout from war in the Middle East, a tiny speck in Southeast Asia has emerged as an oasis of stability – at least in terms of where the well-heeled can park their money. Giig Tanaporn, CEO and founder of business and wealth consultancy Unique Prime Group, has observed that high-net-worth clients, especially from the Middle E...

SCMP • 4 months ago

How a China-backed highway may turn landlocked Laos into a trade gateway

China has moved early to help Laos plan its longest highway, the latest project in Beijing’s push to expand transport connectivity in Southeast Asia. The initiative underscores Beijing’s broader effort to strengthen its economic footprint in the region through roads and railway infrastructure, as it seeks alternative trade routes amid a fractious relationship with the United States. Laos is conduc...

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Trump appeals latest court loss on tariffs as chaos and uncertainty amp up

SCMP • 4 months ago

US President Donald Trump filed an appeal on Friday after the latest legal setback to his signature tariff policy, piling on more chaos and global uncertainty and setting up a new tussle over billions of US dollars in refunds. The appeal follows a decision on Thursday by the US Court of International Trade that invalidated his use of a Section 122 trade provision that saw him slap 10 per cent impo...

Latest US-China rivalry combines undersea dominance with a race to riches

SCMP • 4 months ago

US President Donald Trump’s landmark visit to China comes as the Iran war disrupts global energy supplies, fuels economic uncertainty and adds fresh strain to Washington-Beijing ties. In the second part of a series examining how rivalry, interdependence and geopolitical crises are reshaping the relationship between the two powers, we look at their make-or-break contest unfolding beneath the ocean ...

Thanks to Trump, the gloves are off. There may be no new global order

SCMP • 4 months ago

The old order is dead. We just don’t know what will replace it. As Henry Kissinger reminded us in his 2014 book World Order, “no truly global order has ever existed”. After US President Donald Trump’s erratic actions, the gloves are off. American comedians and Iranian Lego cartoons tell us all we need to know about the demise of the old order. If the unipolar order is not viable, and America is ab...

‘Almost zero’ chance Dutch man got hantavirus in Argentina’s Ushuaia, official says

SCMP • 4 months ago

There is an “almost zero” chance that the Dutch man linked to the hantavirus outbreak on the MV Hondius cruise ship contracted the disease in the Argentine port of Ushuaia, a provincial health official said on Friday. Juan Petrina, director of epidemiology for Tierra del Fuego province, where Ushuaia is located, told reporters that his assessment was based on the virus’s incubation period, among o...

US nears US$400 million settlement with TikTok on child-privacy violations, report says

SCMP • 4 months ago

US President ⁠Donald Trump’s administration is nearing a US$400 million settlement with TikTok to resolve an ongoing lawsuit over alleged child-privacy violations, ABC News reported on Friday, citing sources familiar with the matter. The White House declined to comment, referring questions to the Justice Department, ‌which did not immediately comment. TikTok did not respond to a request for commen...

Trump announces 3-day ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine

SCMP • 4 months ago

US President Donald Trump announced on Friday that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to a three-day ceasefire and a prisoner exchange following US-mediated talks, saying negotiations to end the war were continuing and “we are getting closer and closer every day”. “I am pleased to announce that there will be a THREE DAY CEASEFIRE (May 9th, 10th, and 11th) in the War between Russia and Ukraine,” Trump p...

Trump announces three-day ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine

SCMP • 4 months ago

Trump trade chief says US wants balanced trade, not change to China’s system

SCMP • 4 months ago

US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer called for stability with Beijing days before US President Donald Trump’s closely watched trip to China, saying the US was not out to reshape the Chinese economy but to rebalance trade. The trade chief told Fox News on Friday that while the world’s two largest economies “always had a really robust trading relationship … it’s been wildly unbalanced with China ...

US to host new Israel-Lebanon talks as Trump team presses for Hezbollah disarmament

SCMP • 4 months ago

The United States will host two days of intensive talks between Israel and Lebanon next week in a renewed push for a broader peace and security arrangement, according to a State Department statement released on Friday. The talks, scheduled for May 14 and 15, will build on a previous round held on April 23 that Washington said was led personally by US President Donald Trump. In the statement, the U...

WHO boss arrives in Spain to oversee ship evacuation amid more suspected hantavirus cases

SCMP • 4 months ago

Two new suspected cases of hantavirus were ⁠reported on Friday, one in Spain and the other on the remote South Atlantic island of Tristan da Cunha, as experts race to contain an outbreak that began on a luxury cruise ship. The announcements in locations thousands of kilometres apart will fuel concern about a cluster of cases so far associated with three deaths, although the World Health Organizati...

WHO boss arrives in Spain for ship evacuation amid more suspected hantavirus cases

SCMP • 4 months ago

New suspected hantavirus cases found in Spain and remote Tristan da Cunha

SCMP • 4 months ago

Two new suspected cases of hantavirus were ⁠reported on Friday, one in Spain and the other on the remote South Atlantic island of Tristan da Cunha, as experts race to contain an outbreak that began on a luxury cruise ship. The announcements in locations thousands of kilometres (miles) apart will fuel concern about a cluster of cases so far associated with three deaths – though the World Health Org...

Trust is key if China’s international arbitration goals are to succeed, experts say

SCMP • 4 months ago

China’s international arbitration efforts have made significant progress, but more work is needed to attract foreign parties to arbitrate in China amid US-China rivalry, according to arbitrators and law scholars. China’s newly revised Arbitration Law took effect in March, marking the most significant overhaul of the country’s commercial dispute framework since 1994, in a move to promote cities suc...

Hong Kong secures US$3.5 billion to fund Northern Metropolis and green projects

SCMP • 4 months ago

Hong Kong has raised HK$27.6 billion (US$3.5 billion) through a green and infrastructure bond sale to finance the Northern Metropolis and low-carbon transformation projects. The offering drew investors from more than 30 markets across Asia, Europe, the Middle East and the Americas, signalling global institutional investors’ confidence in Hong Kong’s development, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority sa...

SCMP takes home 3 honours from Global Media Awards, including win for infographic

SCMP • 4 months ago

The South China Morning Post has taken home three honours at the International News Media Association’s 2026 Global Media Awards, with its infographic on Hong Kong’s deadly Tai Po fire winning first place for the best use of visual journalism. The awards were announced and presented in Berlin on Thursday, with the SCMP being the only Hong Kong media outlet recognised at the prestigious annual comp...

Asean to step up push for South China Sea code, energy security

SCMP • 4 months ago

Deeper economic cooperation between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations will hinge on whether a code can be laid down to govern maritime territory and activity in the South China Sea, Philippine leader Ferdinand Marcos Jnr has said. “We cannot institutionalise any of those things until the code of conduct is finalised,” he told a press conference on Friday at the close of the 48th...

US adds 115,000 jobs in April, but experts warn of hidden weakness in economy

SCMP • 4 months ago

US employment rose more than expected in April, while the unemployment rate remained steady, government data showed, with the world’s largest economy firming recent labour market gains but analysts warning of underlying weakness. “Total nonfarm payroll employment edged up by 115,000 in April, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.3 per cent,” the US Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS) said. T...

China and US in AI revolution race as tech rivals battle for global supremacy

SCMP • 4 months ago

At a New York City ballroom late last month, a crowd of hi-tech luminaries gathered at an honours ceremony. The biggest draw for the assembled tech geniuses was Nvidia founder Jensen Huang, the superstar head of one of the world’s most valuable companies, set to receive the night’s top award. In some ways, engineers have been at the centre of every industrial revolution, Huang told the crowd, from...

Ke Tao, China’s remote sensing expert who was ‘devoted’ to national defence, dies at 48

SCMP • 4 months ago

China’s top remote sensing expert Ke Tao died from an illness on Wednesday at the age of 48, according to an obituary from Wuhan University. “Comrade Ke Tao made outstanding achievements in national defence science and technology and remote sensing mapping,” the obituary released on Thursday by the university’s School of Remote Sensing and Information Engineering said. Ke, a professor at the schoo...

3 convicted in Hong Kong’s largest football match-fixing scandal in years

SCMP • 4 months ago

A Hong Kong court has convicted two footballers and a betting agent of bribing fellow players to rig game outcomes in the city’s largest match-fixing case in recent years. Former Hong Kong Under-23 player Brian Fok was convicted on Friday of five charges, including three counts of offering an advantage to an agent in violation of the Prevention of Bribery Ordinance. The 32-year-old Nigerian-born d...

Chinese EV maker Leapmotor taps Stellantis’ Spanish plant for EU production

SCMP • 4 months ago

Leapmotor, one of China’s strongest-performing electric vehicle (EV) makers this year, has taken a major step towards building cars locally for European customers after agreeing with shareholder Stellantis to add a line at a Spanish plant previously earmarked for Opel. The Hangzhou-based company and Stellantis, owner of Peugeot, Fiat and Jeep, would jointly build Opel’s new fully electric C-sport ...

China’s shipping firms brace for a new ‘era of chaos’ as Iran war drags on

SCMP • 4 months ago

China’s shipping giants are bracing for a harsh new reality of persistent global volatility, as the closure of the Strait of Hormuz shifts from being a problem of transit delays to a hard volume shock. With the crucial energy corridor still paralysed as the US-Israel war on Iran drags on with no clear end in sight, China’s state-backed shipping majors are doubling down on long-term contracts and c...

Pentagon releases new files on UFOs, praises Trump’s ‘transparency’ push

SCMP • 4 months ago

The Pentagon has begun releasing new files on UFOs, saying members of the public can draw their own conclusions on “unidentified anomalous phenomena” (UAP). Besides the Pentagon, the effort is led by the White House, the director of national intelligence, the Energy Department, Nasa and the FBI. The Pentagon said on Friday in a social media post that while past administrations sought to discredit ...

DeepSeek to soon close first external fundraising in US$50b valuation: sources

SCMP • 4 months ago

Chinese artificial intelligence high-flier DeepSeek is expected to close its first external financing round soon, boosting its valuation to up to US$50 billion, according to three people familiar with the matter, as the country’s marquee state-backed investment vehicle joins in bankrolling what is seen as a national technology champion. The round was being backed by a group of state-linked investo...

Why Iran’s ambassador to China thinks the US can’t turn Beijing against it

SCMP • 4 months ago

Iran does not believe the US has leverage to turn Beijing against Tehran, its ambassador to China said. Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli’s remarks came amid speculation Washington may offer Beijing trade concessions or tariff relief in exchange for pressuring Iran into accepting a peace deal during US President Donald Trump’s trip to China next week. “Iran and China … share very common views on issues such...