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Japanese airlines cancelled on Friday more than 100 flights as two tropical storms barrelled towards the archipelago, with authorities advising evacuations in some areas because of possible flooding and landslides. Severe tropical storm Mekkhala, downgraded from a typhoon, was packing gusts of up to 144km/h (89mph), according to forecasters, with heavy rain already pounding parts of southern and w...
A New York City housing board voted on Thursday to freeze the rents for about one million regulated flats for up to two years, fulfilling a central campaign promise of Mayor Zohran Mamdani only months into his term. The 7-1 vote by the city’s Rent Guidelines Board set increases at zero on both one-year and two-year leases from October. Hundreds of tenants who crowded into a Manhattan museum audit...
Hong Kong’s labour authorities are investigating a fatal accident in which a worker died after being run over by a construction vehicle at a sports ground. Police received a report at about 8.58am on Friday that a man had been hit by a vehicle at Kowloon Bay Sports Ground at Kai Lok Street and was trapped beneath it on the running track. The victim’s colleague reported the incident to emergency se...
A worker has died after being run over by a construction vehicle at a Hong Kong sports ground. Police received a report at about 8.58am on Friday that a man had been hit by a vehicle at Kowloon Bay Sports Ground at Kai Lok Street and was trapped beneath it on the running track. The victim’s colleague reported the incident to emergency services. Firefighters arrived to free the victim, but he was p...
In the first of a two-part series on the economy as Hong Kong marks 29 years since its return to Chinese rule, Denise Tsang and Vivian Au look at efforts at transformation, including the city’s bet on the Northern Metropolis, and the challenges ahead. Molly Lam lives alone in a public housing flat in Tsuen Wan but fear is a constant companion as she worries about losing her job. The restaurant wor...
Singaporean Hong Weilun was left disappointed after he failed to secure tickets for limited Teochew screenings of the Chinese film Dear You when they were released on Monday. “It is important to watch the original version because the mood, nuances and emotional weight of the film are best conveyed through the actors’ expressions, accents and subtle vocal cues,” Hong said. The 40-year-old, who is T...
A man in eastern China deceived long-time friends out of over 700,000 yuan (US$103,000) by changing the lock on a random vacant flat and posing as its owner to sell it to them. Sun, a Shanghai resident who previously owned two shops that went out of business, had a history of serving time for fraud, according to the mainland media outlet Xinmin Evening News. Following his release from prison in 20...
China’s 6G engineers have built a special metasurface system that can bounce wireless signals around like a precision mirror to fill in dead spots, while still sensing people moving about – just like a radar. The innovation earned a gold award at the International Exhibition of Inventions in Geneva in March, the online results of which were announced on June 14. The innovation is named Distributed...
A record 156 new models are expected to hit the Chinese automotive market in the second half of 2026, intensifying concerns about small players’ profitability as a new price war looms. The mass-market segment would see an influx of intelligent electric vehicles (EVs) priced at around 100,000 yuan (US$14,740), but only leading carmakers were expected to secure large orders thanks to their brand awa...
“Founding Father, Benjamin Franklin, published the sayings of Confucius in his colonial newspaper and today’s sculpture recognising that ancient Chinese age is carved into the face of the United States Supreme Court very proudly,” said US President Donald Trump in Beijing last month. It took two-and-a-half centuries for an American president to explicitly acknowledge the profound Chinese impact on...
As Hong Kong marks the 29th anniversary of its return to Chinese rule on July 1, the South China Morning Post talks to the city’s senior officials about the administration’s achievements so far and what may lie ahead. Hong Kong is on a global talent hunt for its own drug approval body which is expected to be launched by the fourth quarter of this year as the city bids to achieve its international ...
A public row between Seoul and the US-led United Nations Command (UNC) has revealed a fresh fault line over how the two interpret North Korea’s recent border fortification activities. South Korea views its arch-rival’s actions as a violation of the 1953 Korean war armistice agreement. The UNC does not. The dispute follows a separate disagreement over which authority should govern access to the dem...
The US Supreme Court on Thursday backed a Trump administration move to strip deportation protections from some 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians living in the United States. The conservative-dominated court, in a 6-3 ruling, said the Department of Homeland Security’s decision to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitian and Syrian immigrants was not subject to judicial review. TPS protects...
Hong Kong is seizing every opportunity to consolidate its role as a global financial centre, leveraging unique advantages and national strategies. This piece, the second in a miniseries focusing on the city’s financial industry ahead of the handover anniversary, explores the likelihood of an “IPO Connect” that could inject much-needed liquidity into the market and deepen international investors’ a...
Venezuela received offers of rescue teams and humanitarian aid from across the Americas on Thursday, including from right-wing governments that had broken off diplomatic relations with Caracas less than two years ago, after two earthquakes killed at least 188 people. The quakes, of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 and 39 seconds apart, struck the north of the country on Wednesday evening and were the stronge...
King Charles will not live at Buckingham Palace after its 10-year refurbishment finishes next year, royal officials said on Thursday, ending nearly two centuries of the central London landmark serving as the British monarch’s primary residence. Officials at the same time disclosed the king paid £12.9 million (US$17.04 million) in tax in 2024/25 – the first time the figure has been made public – p...
Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) is expanding into the index business with plans to launch more proprietary benchmarks and related investment products, as traditional market gauges have lagged regional peers during the artificial intelligence-driven technology rally. The operator of Hong Kong’s stock exchange will debut the first exchange-traded fund (ETF) tracking its HKEX Tech 100 Index o...
As the United States marks the 250th anniversary of its founding, it confronts a new world order dominated by its relationship with China. In this wide-ranging series, we examine the pressure points and possibilities in those ties, from hard tech to soft power. Here, Khushboo Razdan separates the signals from the noise in the US debate over drones. Whether responding to a wildfire or searching for...
The European Union is offering Brazil a “more beneficial” partnership on critical minerals than the United States or China, the bloc’s international partnerships commissioner said on Thursday, promising investment in domestic refining and technology as Brussels works to cut its dependence on Chinese supply chains. European Commissioner for International Partnerships Jozef Sikela made the case duri...
Last week, while preparing a lecture on the visual culture of the Global South, I caught Google’s Gemini in a double hallucination. Cross-referencing a historical event between English and Chinese data sets, I found the English AI to be authoritative but inventing citations. In Chinese, the fabrications vanished but so did global context, replaced by an insular perspective. Disturbingly, the syste...
Venezuelans searched for survivors beneath collapsed buildings Thursday and rescue teams raced to northern areas rocked by a pair of powerful earthquakes that officials say killed at least 235 people and left more than 200 trapped. More were feared dead from the 7.2 and 7.5-magnitude earthquakes that struck Wednesday evening – among the strongest in Venezuela in more than a century and felt throug...
Venezuelans searched for survivors beneath collapsed buildings on Thursday and rescue teams raced to northern areas rocked by a pair of powerful earthquakes that officials say killed at least 188 people and left more than 200 trapped. More were feared dead. The 7.2- and 7.5-magnitude earthquakes that struck on Wednesday evening were among the strongest in Venezuela in more than a century and were ...
The United States has been asleep for decades as China undercut US economic strength by stealing ideas, technologies and, more recently, artificial intelligence advances, with the Chinese military first in line to benefit, according to testimony heard by a congressional committee on Thursday. The hearing by the House Select Committee on China, which focused on economic espionage and Chinese effort...
The controversial “Alligator Alcatraz” immigration detention centre – a costly Florida facility that became a symbol of US President Donald Trump’s deportation drive – has shut down after less than a year in operation, officials said Thursday. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, appearing at the remote Everglades site with White House border tsar Tom Homan, said the facility no longer held any detainee...
“Alligator Alcatraz,” the remote Florida immigration detention centre that faced harsh criticism for its conditions, has shut down nearly a year after opening, Governor Ron DeSantis said on Thursday. DeSantis said the centre at an isolated airstrip in the Everglades was always meant to be only temporary until more permanent detention facilities could be secured, and federal officials now have that...
The top US diplomat for East Asia sought to reassure Taiwan that Washington stood by its “Six Assurances” despite US President Donald Trump’s earlier dismissal of the policy, but offered no timeline for approving a stalled US$14 billion arms package to the self-ruled island. Michael DeSombre, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, told a House Foreign Affairs Committee he...
The top US diplomat for East Asia sought to reassure Taiwan that Washington stood by its “Six Assurances” despite US President Donald Trump’s earlier dismissal of the policy but offered no timeline for approving a stalled US$14 billion arms package to the self-ruled island. Michael DeSombre, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, told a House Foreign Affairs Committee hea...
A liner along the bottom of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was cut with a sharp knife or razor this month, causing damage to the foam sealant installed as part of a US$16 million rehabilitation project, a top official at the National Park Service said. The US Park Police responded June 9 to a complaint by the park service, said Frank Lands, deputy director of operations for the park service....
A liner along the bottom of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was cut with a sharp knife or razor this month, causing damage to the foam sealant installed as part of a US$16 million rehabilitation project, a top official at the National Park Service says. The agency reported the June 9 incident to US Park Police, said Frank Lands, deputy director of operations for the park service. Lands made t...
US House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast warned that “America is the superhero” and China the “supervillain” in the contest for global artificial intelligence (AI) leadership on Thursday, just two days after US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said America’s “biggest risk” on AI is China getting ahead. The United States and China remain locked in an increasingly competitive race for ...
