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Japan’s transport ministry on Friday reprimanded Japan Airlines and urged it to compile preventive measures by July 17 after an incident in which two cabin attendants drank the day before a flight in May, delaying a scheduled flight for about 40 minutes. The female JAL employees had falsely reported in an internal investigation that they had not consumed alcohol in violation of company regulations...
In an era of naval warfare defined by air superiority, precision missiles and autonomous drones, China’s navy appears to be bringing back the “big guns”. A new naval gun system is said to be in development which takes 155mm, or 6.1-inch, artillery shells. That would make it the largest of its kind in the world today. The naval gun has recently been spotted undergoing sea-based performance testing ...
The Philippines’ confrontational approach to maritime territorial disputes, such as its championing of the 2016 South China Sea arbitration ruling, has not only failed to resolve regional tensions, it also risks undermining Asean centrality. In May, addressing Japan’s National Diet, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr announced that Manila would mark the ruling’s 10th anniversary in July, an...
Inside a sprawling broadcast hub in Dallas, thousands of devices supplied by Lenovo are helping Fifa manage and distribute content from stadiums across the United States, Canada and Mexico, forming part of the technological backbone of the largest World Cup ever staged. The central role played by the Chinese-founded technology company highlights a reality often obscured by geopolitical tensions be...
A shooter who opened fire in the West Texas city of Midland died on Friday after a stand-off with police following an attack that left one person dead and at least nine others injured, city officials said. The suspect, 45-year-old Victor Mata Villarreal, had shot at police just days earlier during a chase and was already being sought by authorities when he began firing at officers and bystanders i...
Even popes have travel delays. Lucky for Pope Leo, King Felipe VI offered a way out, and a way home. Leo’s Iberia charter, due to take him back to Rome after a week-long visit to Spain, was grounded by a technical problem Friday, prompting Spain’s king to offer his private jet instead. Felipe escorted Leo to his Falcon on the tarmac at the airport in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, in the Canary Islands. ...
Catapulted by the market debut of his rocket company SpaceX, Elon Musk is now the world’s first trillionaire. That level of wealth, all owned by just one person, was once unfathomable. Before Friday, the trillion dollar mark was reserved for measures like the GDP (or staggering debt) of a handful of major economies – and, in the last decade alone, the value of some of the biggest companies to ever...
The Trump administration on Friday said that it is “80-85%” confident of signing the peace agreement with Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end the war in the Middle East. “We do expect to be signing this agreement over the next few days … if I were to give you a confidence that we were going to be signing this agreement, I maybe would have said 75 per cent this morning; it’s probably more l...
The US and Iran have “never been closer” to a deal on ending the war in the Middle East, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Friday, as mediator Pakistan said a final text had been agreed on. “The Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding has never been closer,” Araghchi wrote on social media, referring to the Pakistani capital which hosted previous US-Iran talks. “Pending its finalization...
In a post on the social media platform he owns, Elon Musk recently lamented: “Whoever said ‘money can’t buy happiness’ really knew what they were talking about.” Now the world’s richest person can put that maxim to an even bigger test as he adds a new title: world’s first trillionaire. SpaceX shares opened at US$150 each, 11 per cent above their offering price after they began trading in New York ...
British artist David Hockney, one of the most influential and defining figures in contemporary art whose paintings captured the world in brilliant colour, has died aged 88, his publicist announced on Friday. Tributes poured in for the 1960s pop art pioneer who established himself as a globally renowned painter and master draughtsman and kept painting, experimenting and exhibiting right up until hi...
A one-year-old boy remains in a critical condition in a Hong Kong hospital after contracting Covid-19, the second infant confirmed as severely infected with the contagious disease within a week, according to health authorities. The Centre for Health Protection at the Department of Health said on Friday that both boys had good past health but had not been inoculated against Covid-19. The centre urg...
A one-year-old boy remains in a critical condition in a Hong Kong hospital after contracting Covid-19, the second infant confirmed as severely infected with the contagious disease within a week, according to health authorities. The Centre for Health Protection at the Department of Health said on Friday that both boys had good past health but had not been inoculated against Covid-19. The centre urg...
Huawei Technologies is studying whether to run its newest Ascend artificial intelligence chips inside its cloud and AI services in Latin America, a senior executive has confirmed, in a move that would push Chinese-designed hardware deeper into a region long courted by US suppliers. Mark Chen, president of Huawei Cloud Latin America, gave the confirmation in an exclusive interview with the South Ch...
The Tumen River has resurfaced as one of the big issues for keen observers of relations between China and North Korea but after the leaders of the two countries met this week, there was no mention of it in the official statements after the summit. The river is a natural border between China, North Korea and Russia, and a narrow strip of it that runs between North Korea and Russia blocks Chinese ac...
The United States and China should hold regular high-level meetings and deepen cooperation on emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, as greater transparency is essential to avoid a downturn in relations, a veteran US diplomat has said. Richard Haass, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, said meetings between senior officials from Washington and Beijing should bec...
As the United States quietly pulls its most precious military assets away from the coasts of Asia, they are falling back to places like Guam in Micronesia, a US island territory far beyond the reach of most conventional missiles. It sounds like a retreat but for the Chinese military it is actually a much trickier problem. In modern warfare, distance can become a shield and dispersion a weapon. Thi...
Hong Kong’s finance chief praised a blockbuster film about the Teochew community as it premiered locally on Friday, and highlighted the ethnic group’s contributions to the city’s development, even as some critics slammed the production as propaganda. Dear You, an unexpected box-office hit that was shot on a shoestring budget, focuses on a grandson’s efforts to learn more about his family history b...
An intern doctor has been arrested by Hong Kong police on suspicion of accessing patient data without authorisation and fired from her hospital, according to an insider and medical authorities. A source said the 24-year-old woman was arrested on Friday evening after allegedly accessing a computer with dishonest intent at Caritas Medical Centre in Sham Shui Po. She was being detained for investigat...
Hong Kong’s Hospital Authority has fired an intern doctor for serious misconduct including breaching patient privacy and professional confidentiality. The authority said on Friday that it maintained a high standard of ethics, integrity and discipline, adding that the dismissal followed an investigation by an independent committee. The intern had violated medical ethics and integrity, infringed upo...
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Friday rejected the idea that he had lost authority in his role, and said he would fight to keep his job, adding that anyone who wanted to replace him would have to deal with the same financial constraints. The comments come a day after Defence Minister John Healey delivered a fresh blow to the prime minister’s already weakened leadership by quitting and ...
China’s decision to ban Philippine Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jnr and his family from Chinese territory has taken Beijing’s maritime feud with Manila into unusually personal territory, with analysts saying the move appeared aimed at warning other Philippine officials against taking a hard line. The sanctions, announced by China’s foreign ministry on Thursday following Teodoro’s recent crit...
A Hong Kong court has extended an injunction restraining the finance chief of a private college, his wife and two other defendants from handling more than HK$25 million in allegedly misappropriated funds. The High Court on Friday also ordered the four defendants to disclose to Hong Kong Chu Hai College all of their assets worth HK$50,000 or more within 21 days, to help the plaintiff assess which i...
Even Western pundits grudgingly admitted the summit between President Xi Jinping and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was a success. Both sides, according to Bloomberg, “appear to have walked away with what they wanted”. Given China’s rising pre-eminence while avoiding any damaging war, it’s no surprise that Xi had the upper hand in his recent meetings with US President Donald Trump and Russian Pre...
The US and Iran may sign an agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz on the sidelines of the Group of Seven world leaders summit next week, according to senior officials. A senior Iranian official indicated overnight that a deal is likely, said a G7 official and a diplomat from outside the group, who both asked not to be named discussing sensitive matters. This year’s G7 summit takes place in Evia...
Zhejiang University in China has overtaken Harvard University to become the top academic institution in the world, according to the 2026 Nature Index. This is the first time Harvard has lost its top position in the rankings since the index’s inception in 2014. Tsinghua University, also from China, was third. Chinese institutions dominated this year’s list, accounting for nine of the top 10 – up fr...
Beijing confirmed on Friday the arrest of Min Zin, a US citizen and political analyst at a Myanmar-focused think tank, on suspicion of espionage and endangering national security. “It is understood that Min Zin has been placed under criminal detention by the relevant authorities in accordance with the law on suspicion of engaging in espionage and endangering China’s national security,” foreign min...
Three property sites will be handed over to the future operator of the planned green transit system in Hong Kong’s East Kowloon to boost the project’s financial viability under arrangements approved by the government. The project, which will link Choi Hung and Ma Yau Tong, will be put to tender next month with the goal of opening the 7km (4.3 mile) rail line by 2033. Similar to the arrangements fo...
China has established a top-level laboratory in Shanghai dedicated to photonic computing as the country strives to bypass the power constraints and US technology curbs hobbling its ambitions in artificial intelligence development. The Shanghai Key Laboratory of Integrated Photonic Computing Chips and Systems, launched on Wednesday, was China’s first industry-academia platform dedicated to the fiel...
The state elections in Johor and Negeri Sembilan, scheduled for July 11 and August 1, have opened two battlegrounds where economic issues take precedence over the political wrangling of Malaysia’s coalition parties. The ballot will also test whether Singapore-linked rail projects, economic zones and a data centre investment push have translated into support among Johor’s 2.73 million voters grappl...
