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Malaysia will deploy military veterans as full-time hostel wardens at a group of elite boarding schools from Wednesday, in a new push to curb bullying after a series of abuse cases stirred public anger over student safety. In a move reminiscent of Netflix’s trending K-drama Teach You a Lesson, where a Special Ops veteran takes on school bullies, the first 16 former Malaysian Armed Forces personnel...
India has stepped up engagement with Chinese media as Beijing presses New Delhi to issue visas to its journalists ahead of a possible visit by President Xi Jinping later this year, though any breakthrough on the issue is likely to take time, according to people familiar with the matter. The outreach includes a meeting between officials from the Indian embassy in Beijing and representatives of Chin...
This article was first published on July 1, 2011 Plane beats train, but winning isn’t everything by Will Clem, Shi Jiangtao Two South China Morning Post reporters yesterday pitted the new high-speed Shanghai–to–Beijing train against an airliner and discovered that although taking to the skies had the edge for speed, rail won out for comfort and convenience. They set off from the SCMP’s Shanghai bu...
China and the European Union released a joint statement on Monday following talks between China’s Minister of Commerce, Wang Wentao, and the EU’s trade chief, Maros Sefcovic, in Brussels. During the meeting, the two sides agreed to establish a joint platform to monitor trade flows and to set up working groups to ease bilateral economic tensions. EU-China Joint Statement by scmp
WhatsApp, one of Hong Kong’s most popular messaging apps, will soon no longer require users to share their phone numbers before they start texting. Starting this week, users can reserve a unique username, which allows them to text without swapping numbers, for use later this year when the Meta-owned service launches the feature. Users will need to know a person’s exact username before they can tex...
WhatsApp, one of Hong Kong’s most popular messaging apps, will soon no longer require users to share their phone numbers before they start texting. Starting this week, users can reserve a unique username, which allows them to text without swapping numbers, for use later this year when the Meta-owned service launches the feature. Users will need to know a person’s exact username before they can tex...
When late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez built this coastal housing development bearing his name as part of his socialist revolution, residents found a fresh start after deadly floods had decimated the area more than a decade earlier. But after two back-to-back earthquakes flattened parts of the 1,100-unit complex last Wednesday, engineers have urged the Venezuelan government to swiftly audit sim...
The Philippines is uniquely positioned to serve as a gateway for Greater Bay Area businesses into Southeast Asia, the country’s trade secretary said on Tuesday, as she outlined Manila’s push to promote a pro-investment environment. Speaking at the South China Morning Post’s GBA-Asean Summit 2026, Cristina Aldeguer-Roque urged investors to view the Philippines as a springboard into the region and t...
The dragon’s serpentine forms have adorned Chinese pottery for millennia, and this mythical creature has come to symbolise power, strength, and good fortune. Dragon motifs on pottery date back nearly as far as Chinese written history itself, with the earliest example discovered on a vessel from the Yangshao culture (5000 BC–3000 BC). The association between dragons and ceramics persisted for centu...
Singapore authorities have caught a rider seen in a viral video striking a “Superman” pose while riding an e-bike in the latest of a series of crackdowns. In the video, taken in the early hours of May 23 outside Keppel MRT station, the rider is caught on camera going faster than cars on his vehicle. At one point, he even lies on his stomach with his legs extended as if he is flying. Based on the 1...
Singapore authorities have caught a rider seen in a viral video striking a “Superman” pose while riding a personal mobility device (PMD) in the latest of a series of crackdowns. In the video, taken in the early hours of May 23 outside Keppel MRT station, the rider is caught on camera going faster than cars on his PMD. At one point, he even lies on his tummy with his legs extended as if he is flyin...
Security around the Malaysia-Thailand border has been tightened after two Malaysian men were wounded in a roadside bomb blast in Narathiwat province, an area riven by a deadly insurgency against Bangkok. While police say the men – Abdullah Syarapi Abd Rahman, 45, and Muhammad Yusri Udin, 38, both from Kelantan – are not believed to have been the target of the improvised explosive device (IED), the...
Flight schools across China said they had been told to suspend training and undergo safety inspections by authorities after a light sport aircraft crashed into Beijing’s tallest skyscraper on Friday. The pilot was killed when he flew the two-seater plane into the building near the East Third Ring Road, injuring 13 people, the Chaoyang district government said in a statement on Saturday. There were...
Nepal has culled more than 600,000 birds and destroyed around 1 million eggs as an H5N1 bird flu outbreak spreads across the Kathmandu Valley, shutting the capital’s only zoo and raising fears among scientists over the virus’ potential to mutate into a form transmissible between humans. The outbreak began in eastern Nepal in March before reaching the densely populated valley around mid-June – a de...
A former Hong Kong lawmaker who previously headed the city’s largest, now-defunct opposition party has been released from prison after completing his sentence in a landmark subversion case. Wu Chi-wai, former chairman of the Democratic Party, which dissolved last year, was released from Stanley Prison on Tuesday morning. He boarded a seven-seater car which took him to Fung Tak Estate in Diamond Hi...
We have selected seven stories from the SCMP’s coverage of Asia over the past week that resonated with our readers and shed light on topical issues. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. Malaysia has never had so many Chinese tourists. It wants more As Thailand loses its allure, Malaysia turns to viral algorithms to entice millions of independent Chinese t...
A passenger jet reported striking a drone while approaching JFK International Airport on Monday, and just hours later, a helicopter pilot alerted a close call with a remote-control plane near the same airport. The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the first incident that happened as a JetBlue plane passed through 3,000 feet (914 metres) Monday morning while it was crossing the coast...
Hong Kong is rolling out a series of discounts, shopping perks, giveaways and countless deals to celebrate the 29th anniversary of the city’s return to Chinese sovereignty on July 1. To get you in the public holiday spirit, the South China Morning Post unpacks what is on offer, from deals on food and drinks to retail goods and public transport. 1. Someone mentioned food? Restaurants are taking the...
When a villager in the southern province of Guangdong was walking near his home on a mild day shortly after Christmas in 2019, he noticed a yellow suitcase beneath an expressway embankment. Inside was the headless body of a woman. When police arrived and searched the area, they found the head inside a red travel bag alongside the highway, about 1km south of the villager’s discovery. Nearly seven y...
Diners at a sleek teppanyaki restaurant in Tokyo’s Asakusa district wait happily as chefs sear marbled Kobe beef over open grills. Expectations are high at Kisshokichi, one of the world’s largest Kobe beef chains. But behind the brand’s success lies a dilemma shared by businesses across Japan. Founder Kiyomi Akagi, now in his mid-sixties, faced a question confronting a growing number of ageing own...
Hongkongers have snapped up the first batches of free tickets to visit two PLA naval ships within minutes of their release for a weekend port call in the city. A South China Morning Post reporter observed that the initial batch was gone within four minutes after being released at 10am on Tuesday. The second round of tickets, released at 3pm, were all snatched up in six minutes. On Monday, China’s ...
Hongkongers have snapped up the first batch of free tickets to visit two PLA naval ships within minutes of their release for a weekend port call in the city. A South China Morning Post reporter observed that the initial batch was gone within four minutes after being released at 10am on Tuesday. On Monday, China’s Ministry of National Defence said a People’s Liberation Army naval task group would v...
Like other advanced cities, Hong Kong faces a range of clearly defined challenges that must be directly addressed in the next few years. Two that stand out are the effects of climate change and the consequences of an ageing population, which, one way or another, will impact every section of society. This means concerted action and practical solutions are required from each branch of industry – and...
The world’s largest buyer of biopharmaceutical royalties has set up its first Asia-Pacific base in Hong Kong, joining a string of multinational corporations in the pharmaceutical sector establishing offices in the city as out-licensing deals by mainland Chinese biotechnology firms hit record highs. Royalty financing gives drug developers an alternative way to raise capital even as US investment re...
Esmeraldo Maligsa, a farmer and president of the Bohol Ube Growers Association, harvests 2,000kg (4,400lbs) of ube, the purple tuber native to the Philippines, every seven months. He and the other farmers in his group manage a collective yield of between 5 tonnes and 8 tonnes, fetching prices of 90 to 100 pesos (US$1.50 to US$1.70) per kg. Such is the price the ubi kinampay, dubbed the “Queen of P...
Hong Kong is uniquely positioned to connect Asean with the Greater Bay Area and build a “powerful and complementary partnership” amid a shifting geopolitical landscape, the city’s leader has said. Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu made his remarks at the South China Morning Post’s GBA-Asean Summit 2026 on Tuesday, which also saw the launch of a new chamber of commerce for the 11-member Association ...
Hong Kong has surrendered its IPO fundraising crown to Nasdaq following SpaceX’s blockbuster listing earlier this month, but it did so while seeing its IPO proceeds register a year-on-year rise of about 84 per cent in the first half of 2026 – consolidating the region’s position as a primary offshore financial hub for Chinese issuers. A total of 83 companies raised US$26.42 billion on the Hong Kong...
Beijing has publicised three cases of local governments falsifying achievements to boost their records, which involved manipulating revenue data, misusing special-purpose government bonds and concealing off-balance-sheet debt. Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported on Sunday that a central working group and the Communist Party’s top anti-corruption watchdog had announced cases highlighting typi...
Japan is accelerating plans to acquire and develop drones for its military by stepping up cooperation with Ukraine and learning from Kyiv’s wartime experience against Russia as it seeks to deploy more unmanned systems across its territory in the Pacific. To complement this strategy, Japanese companies are boosting cooperation with their European counterparts to manufacture anti-submarine drones. “...
Nearly a year has passed since Hong Kong launched the first phase of its carer support data platform last July, linking the Social Welfare Department, Hospital Authority and the Housing Authority into a single alert system for “high-risk carers”. These include those receiving a living allowance as low-income carers of the elderly, carers of the disabled and carers of those who live in public housi...
