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Last week, Xia Baolong, Beijing’s point man on Hong Kong and Macau affairs, made a two-day trip to the city to review the Hong Kong government’s progress across many areas. Everything seems to have been orchestrated with precision. Ahead of Xia’s arrival, the government launched its two-month public consultation on the city’s first five-year plan. The day after Xia concluded his visit, the governm...
Australian police seized a record 2.7 tonnes of cocaine hidden in plastic tubs buried underground on the outskirts of Sydney, detectives said on Monday. It was the largest cocaine haul in Australian history, a joint organised crime investigation force said in a statement. Police allege a Sydney-based organised crime group arranged for a foreign vessel to offload the cocaine in northern Queensland ...
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. More mainland Chinese investors could gain access to a broader range of products in Hong Kong under a review by authorities, the finance chief has said, dismissing concerns that a re...
A Chinese woman developed rashes and itching after applying extreme sun protection measures, including wearing a sunscreen product that covers her whole face. The woman from eastern China’s Jiangsu province was recently reported to have developed red and itchy skin while travelling. She applied sun cream before wearing a hat and mask that covers her whole face, to screen herself from the strong su...
Canada is deploying two frigates and a submarine to the world’s largest multinational naval exercise this week, in what analysts describe as both a display of Indo-Pacific seriousness and a pointed rebuttal to Washington’s “freeriding” charge. HMCS Ottawa, HMCS Regina and submarine HMCS Corner Brook are slated to join the biennial Rim of the Pacific Exercise (Rimpac) from Wednesday to July 31, whi...
A flamboyant US-backed lawyer who has never held public office narrowly won Colombia’s presidential run-off Sunday, swinging the country hard right with a promise to wage war against drug-running guerrilla groups. With almost all polling centres reporting, Abelardo de la Espriella won 49.66 per cent of the vote versus left-wing Senator Ivan Cepeda’s 48.70 per cent. The 47-year-old’s victory was se...
A flamboyant US-backed lawyer who has never held public office narrowly won Colombia’s presidential run-off Sunday, swinging the country hard right with a promise to wage war against drug-running guerrilla groups. With almost all polling centres reporting, Abelardo de la Espriella won 49.66 per cent of the vote versus left-wing Senator Ivan Cepeda’s 48.70 per cent. The 47-year-old’s victory was se...
A flamboyant US-backed lawyer who has never held public office narrowly won Colombia’s presidential run-off on Sunday, swinging the country hard to the right on a promise to wage war against drug-running guerrilla groups. With more than 99 per cent of polling centres reporting, Abelardo de la Espriella had 49.65 per cent of the vote, an unassailable lead over his rival, left-wing Senator Ivan Cepe...
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. Authorities are expected to roll out measures to strengthen Hong Kong’s role as an offshore Chinese yuan hub next month, the finance chief has revealed, with the government pushing t...
Nie Huihua, a professor of economics at Renmin University, discusses how an effective understanding of China’s development requires a shift from Western-centric frameworks to an integrated perspective that recognises how formal institutions, informal grass-roots mechanisms and cultural collectivism couple to create a self-consistent and adaptive governance system. SCMP Plus readers get early acces...
People caught vandalising the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on Washington’s National Mall will be fully prosecuted, US Attorney Jeanine Pirro said on Sunday. President Donald Trump has blamed vandalism for recent problems with the newly renovated pool, including its new blue paint peeling off. Citations for vandalism have been issued, Pirro said on Sunday, adding that even minor crimes must ...
People caught vandalising the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on Washington’s National Mall will be fully prosecuted, US Attorney Jeanine Pirro said on Sunday. President Donald Trump has blamed vandalism for recent problems with the newly renovated pool, including its new blue paint peeling off. Citations for vandalism have been issued, Pirro said on Sunday, adding that even minor crimes must ...
People caught vandalising the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on Washington’s National Mall will be fully prosecuted, US Attorney Jeanine Pirro said on Sunday. US President Donald Trump has blamed vandalism for recent problems with the newly renovated pool, including its new blue paint peeling off. Citations for vandalism have been issued, Pirro said on Sunday, adding that even minor crimes mu...
China-Asean relations are usually described in two ways. One emphasises danger: the South China Sea, US-China rivalry, military pressure and risk of Southeast Asia being pulled into China’s orbit. The other emphasises opportunity: trade, infrastructure, investment, supply chains and shared growth. Both are true. Neither is enough. I recently joined a study tour by the University of Hong Kong’s Cen...
US claims that an individual with ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) tried to join the Iran team’s flight to the United States on Saturday are “fabricated and entirely baseless allegations”, the country’s football federation (FFIRI) has said. Markwayne Mullin, the US Homeland Security Secretary, told Fox News on Sunday that someone under the guise of being the Iranian federation ...
Ramiro Valdes, one of Fidel Castro’s earliest collaborators who was lauded at home as a hero of the Cuban revolution, has died at the age of 94, President Miguel Diaz-Canel said on social media on Sunday. The president did not provide a cause of death. A top government official for decades after Castro’s rebels came to power in 1959, Valdes held the honorary titles “Hero of the Republic” and “C...
Ramiro Valdes, one of Fidel Castro’s earliest collaborators who was lauded at home as a hero of the Cuban revolution, has died at the age of 94, President Miguel Diaz-Canel said on social media on Sunday. The president did not provide a cause of death. A top government official for decades after Castro’s rebels came to power in 1959, Valdes held the honorary titles “Hero of the Republic” and “C...
Thousands of Czechs rallied in the capital on Sunday to condemn a plan by the government led by populist Prime Minister Andrej Babis to overhaul funding for public broadcasters that is considered dangerous for their independence. The protesters gathered in front of the Czech public television offices in Prague, Czech Republic, to voice their support for the media a day before their staff plan to g...
Thousands of Czechs rallied in the capital on Sunday to condemn a plan by the government led by populist Prime Minister Andrej Babis to overhaul funding for public broadcasters that is considered dangerous for their independence. The protesters gathered in front of the Czech public television offices in Prague, Czech Republic, to voice their support for the media a day before their staff plan to g...
The United States expects talks with Iran to continue through the night in Switzerland, a US diplomat told reporters early Monday, as they work to permanently end the Middle East war. The current round of negotiations got off to a rocky start, with the Islamic Republic’s delegation walking out in response to US President Donald Trump’s threats to strike Iran over its support for Hezbollah Sunday. ...
The United States expects talks with Iran to continue through the night in Switzerland, a US diplomat told reporters early Monday, as they work to permanently end the Middle East war. The current round of negotiations got off to a rocky start, with the Islamic Republic’s delegation walking out in response to US President Donald Trump’s threats to strike Iran over its support for Hezbollah Sunday. ...
The United States expects talks with Iran to continue through the night in Switzerland, a US diplomat told reporters early Monday, as they work to permanently end the Middle East war. The current round of negotiations got off to a rocky start, with the Islamic Republic’s delegation walking out in response to US President Donald Trump’s threats to strike Iran over its support for Hezbollah Sunday. ...
Iran’s delegation is still at the Swiss venue for talks with the United States on ending the Middle East war, and the US delegation expects to keep working with them through the night, a senior US diplomat said early on Monday. The talks included “clarifying some of the confusing messaging from Iran on the Strait and building deconfliction mechanisms to ensure the Strait will remain fully open”, t...
Iran’s delegation on Sunday walked out of the Swiss venue where it held talks with the United States towards permanently ending the Middle East war, after Donald Trump threatened to strike the Islamic republic over its support for Hezbollah. The negotiations to end a war that sowed chaos across the region and rattled the global economy are meant to trigger a 60-day period to settle broader issues ...
Iran’s delegation on Sunday walked out of the Swiss venue where it held talks with the United States towards permanently ending the Middle East war, after Donald Trump threatened to strike the Islamic republic over its support for Hezbollah. The negotiations to end a war that sowed chaos across the region and rattled the global economy are meant to trigger a 60-day period to settle broader issues ...
Iran’s chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf warned the United States on Sunday against making threats at the Islamic republic, vowing that “our armed forces are ready to respond”. “Don’t they think that if their threats had any effect, they would not have reached today’s state of desperation? We do not take American threats into account,” said Parliament Speaker Ghalibaf, after US President D...
Pope Leo on Saturday exalted the first American saint, Mother Frances Cabrini, as a model for Christians today to care for migrants in need, as he visited her birthplace during a day trip to northern Italy. Leo, who has clashed with the Trump administration over its migrant crackdown, urged young people in particular to learn about Cabrini’s life and service, once again confirming history’s first ...
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s Prosperity Party (PP) won a landslide victory in legislative polls held June 1, the election commission said on Sunday, giving it almost 90 per cent of the seats. Abiy has led Ethiopia since 2018, and is increasingly criticised for growing authoritarianism, in contrast to his early years when he won the Nobel Peace Prize for mending relations with neighbouring...
Much of Europe was preparing Monday for an already fierce heatwave to intensify even further in the coming days, with some countries taking special measures to mitigate its effects. France recorded heat-related deaths over the weekend. A leading researcher reiterated that human-driven climate change had contributed to the recent record-breaking heatwave. In France, 49 of the country’s 96 mainland ...
