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Hong Kong will soon open its first convenience store operated by a humanoid robot as part of the city’s push to integrate AI into everyday life and deepen residents’ understanding of the technology, the finance chief has said. Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po also revealed on Sunday that a high-level government committee dedicated to AI development in Hong Kong had been formed and would hold it...
President Xi Jinping is heading to North Korea on Monday with the aim of proving that China remains the best prospect for reviving his host country’s economy. The visit, Xi’s first in seven years, will focus on reinforcing ties with Pyongyang at a time when the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula appears increasingly out of reach, according to analysts. The carefully timed sequence of diploma...
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s party led the opposition Monday in early results from parliamentary elections that could cement his Westward tilt, after threats from Moscow and claims of Russian interference. Armenia and Russia are technically allies, but Moscow has compared the former Soviet republic’s ambitions to join the European Union to the path it claims triggered its 2022 invasio...
Armenia’s ruling Civil Contract party is leading in a parliamentary election with 54.44 per cent of the vote, according to early voting results from Armenia’s electoral commission that were broadcast on public television. Sunday’s vote, Armenia’s first general election since a crushing military defeat by Azerbaijan in 2023, was viewed as a test of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s push to deepen ...
Armenians are voting on Sunday in parliamentary elections as the incumbent government, under mounting Russian pressure, seeks to loosen ties with Moscow and deepen cooperation with the West. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and his ruling Civil Contract party are looking for a strong mandate for a new geopolitical course. The opposition they face includes some parties that are vocally pro-Russian. C...
Inside a sparsely furnished 100 sq ft public housing flat in Hong Kong’s Hung Shui Kiu, a family of two lives with little more than a bunk bed, television stand, sofa and some donated clothes racks. This flat is the temporary home of 69-year-old resident surnamed Ho and her daughter. They were among the 5,000 Wang Fuk Court residents displaced by an inferno that ravaged the Tai Po estate on Novemb...
The arrival of Yuan Gujie, the new deputy director of Beijing’s liaison office in Hong Kong, has sparked widespread speculation. Her legal background and experience in Guangdong province suggest that her posting carries a clear agenda: to promote deeper integration between Hong Kong and other Greater Bay Area cities. One thing is clear: if the Northern Metropolis is to accelerate, Hong Kong’s exis...
A Hong Kong couple whose baby was born at home and placed in court-ordered care has said they can visit their son for up to one hour a week while they work to prove their parenting capability, as they outlined three potential outcomes listed by social welfare authorities. The unmarried couple, Tsang Wai-bong and Kwan Pui-sin, told the South China Morning Post on Sunday that they were scheduled to ...
A Hong Kong couple whose baby was born at home and placed in court-ordered care has said they can visit their son for up to one hour a week while they work to prove their parenting capability, as they outlined three potential outcomes listed by social welfare authorities. The unmarried couple, Tsang Wai-bong and Kwan Pui-sin, told the South China Morning Post on Sunday that they were scheduled to ...
While many Chinese people joke that they “work like a dog” because they are anxious about dropping out of the rat race, there is a tradition in some areas that people can legitimately “lie flat” once a year to ward off bad luck. The day is called tian chuan, or the day when the sky breaks. It usually falls on the 20th day of the first lunar month, and marks the day when the sky that Nuwa mended br...
A Hong Kong school principal who was sacked after he swore at security guards during a student trip to Singapore has said he feels “shock and regret” over his immediate dismissal, saying he will seek legal advice on his employment rights. Lee Cheuk-hing, former principal of San Wui Commercial Society Secondary School in Tuen Mun, said in a statement on Friday that he had appointed legal representa...
This story has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by subscribing. Hongkongers can expect occasional showers and squally thunderstorms over the next few days before the rain gradually eases by midweek. The week got off to a soggy start, with the forecaster issuing an amber rainstorm warning – the lowest in a three-tier system ...
The Hong Kong Observatory issued an amber rainstorm warning signal at 3pm on Sunday, warning of widespread heavy rain and intense gusts as the city continued to face a rainy weekend. The forecaster on Sunday afternoon said that heavy rain has fallen or is expected to fall over the city, with rates exceeding 30mm [1.2 inches] in an hour, and that it was likely to continue. It urged residents to avo...
In their bare-bones tent in southern Gaza, Mostafa Shaaban built his family’s makeshift toilet behind a curtain in a corner. He dug a shallow pit in the sandy soil, poured a concrete slab around it, fixed a bottomless bucket over the hole, then topped it off with a battered, plastic toilet seat. It reeks with a foul odour and buzzes with flies and mosquitoes only a few feet from where they sleep a...
Beijing has sent a flotilla that includes mainland China’s largest patrol vessel to waters east of Taiwan in response to Japanese-Philippine maritime boundary negotiations. The Ministry of Transport ships are expected to conduct joint patrols with a coastguard formation dispatched to the same waters last Monday. The Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily published a commentary on Sunday that ac...
Indonesia has always been a favourite travel destination for Malaysians and visitor numbers are expected to increase with the neighbouring country’s currency hitting a record low. Melaka Tourism Association president Madelina Quah said the low rupiah presents an advantage for Malaysians travelling and shopping in Indonesia. “This will translate to cheaper holidays, shopping for weddings and buying...
A Chinese team of medical experts has arrived in the Democratic Republic of Congo for a three-month frontline mission to contain an expanding Ebola outbreak across a mining region with extensive Beijing-backed mineral investments. The five-member team of specialists in epidemiology, clinical medicine, research and traditional Chinese medicine arrived in the capital Kinshasa on Tuesday. According t...
A Chinese team of medical experts has arrived in the Democratic Republic of Congo for a three-month frontline mission to contain an expanding Ebola outbreak across a mining region dense with Beijing-backed mineral investments. The five-member team of specialists in epidemiology, clinical medicine, research and traditional Chinese medicine arrived in the capital Kinshasa on Tuesday. According to Ch...
Central Asia can become a strategic logistics hub for Hong Kong as wars in the Middle East and Europe persist, with cargo volume between the city and two countries in the region surging nearly fivefold year on year, the Airport Authority chairman has said. Fred Lam Tin-fuk, who joined a recent trip with Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu to Central Asia, also said on Sunday that passenger traffic at...
For nine days, Nurul Nisa was crammed onto one of four fishing boats with 130 others, fleeing her village in Myanmar in search of safety. She was a child then, but she still remembers the crying, the sleepless nights and the hunger. “We had to drink seawater,” she said, recalling the journey she made with her mother and two sisters in 2010, after their village had been burnt down. To secure the fo...
A recent series of child protection controversies, including a couple who initially refused DNA testing to register their home-born baby, has prompted calls for Hong Kong authorities to review guidelines for identifying neglect and to expand the list of professionals required to report suspected abuse. Under the Mandatory Reporting of Child Abuse Ordinance – which took effect in January – people i...
A recent series of child protection controversies, including a couple refusing a DNA test to register their home-born baby, has prompted calls for Hong Kong authorities to review guidelines for identifying neglect, and to expand the list of professionals required to report suspected abuse. Under the Mandatory Reporting of Child Abuse Ordinance – which took effect in January – people across 25 desi...
Tey Yong How remembers running along the shores of eastern Singapore as a child, the sea breeze mingling with the smell of sizzling seafood. Birthday dinners here meant three or four tables pushed together, with cousins chasing each other between the chairs as the adults pulled apart succulent chilli crab. “My childhood memories will linger there,” the 47-year-old said on a recent Wednesday evenin...
One of China’s most prominent nuclear scientists has publicly clarified his role in the country’s rapidly expanding waste-to-energy sector, following years of speculation linking nuclear weapon technologies to municipal waste incineration. In a June 2 press release from the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE), veteran nuclear weapons physicist and CAE academician Du Xiangwan confirmed that he and...
Once reserved for wealthy travellers, Dubai’s top-notch hotels have become almost exclusively reliant on residents, drawn in by dizzying staycation offers as war drives tourists away. On the Palm, an artificial island that has become synonymous with Dubai opulence, five-star hotels are busy on weekends and holidays once more, despite having been deserted by tourists. The clientele is driven by hot...
A first-term lawmaker who was blacklisted by Beijing over his alleged support for Taiwanese independence will challenge Taipei’s popular incumbent mayor in the local elections later this year. The ruling Democratic Progressive Party’s decision to nominate Puma Shen Pao-yang, an outspoken critic of Beijing whose political identity has been built around his calls to strengthen the island’s security,...
In Jakarta last month, many May Day demonstrations took place, but two stood out as reflections of the divisions among Indonesia’s trade unions. At the National Monument (Monas), tens of thousands of workers gathered at a rally with President Prabowo Subianto as the guest of honour. Several kilometres away at the People’s Representative Council complex, around 10,000 people assembled under a diffe...
Jaslinda Saludin, the Malaysian hiker who went missing after descending Gunung Batu Putih mountain in Perak state’s Tapah two weeks ago, has been found and is now undergoing treatment. “Thank you to everyone involved, especially the police, Fire and Rescue Department personnel, NGOs, the Orang Asli (indigenous people) and all those who participated in the search operation,” said her husband, Haszm...
Six years after the Ladakh crisis erupted in May 2020, triggering the worst military confrontation between India and China in decades, the two countries are attempting something that once seemed improbable: a diplomatic reset. The latest indication came late last month when officials met in Beijing for the 35th meeting of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India-China Borde...
Visiting indoor ski resorts, enjoying water parks and eating at dim sum restaurants in Shenzhen and other nearby cities have become weekend draws for Hong Kong residents holding foreign passports, who praise a travel permit that has made crossing the border easier and faster. But even two years after the launch of the scheme, some hiccups remain, such as the lack of recognition of the permit by so...
