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Trump casts doubt on Pentagon plan to live stream Fort Hood shooter’s execution
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Trump casts doubt on Pentagon plan to live stream Fort Hood shooter’s execution

US President Donald Trump cast doubt on Friday on whether authorities will live-stream the firing squad execution of the perpetrator of a deadly attack on American soldiers, a plan that has drawn broad and bipartisan condemnation. Nidal Hasan’s execution – scheduled for December 3 at Fort Hood, Texas, where he gunned down 13 people in 2009 – is set to be the first by a US military firing squad sin...

Hong Kong to expand community recycling after shelving waste-charging scheme
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Hong Kong to expand community recycling after shelving waste-charging scheme

Hong Kong will strengthen its community recycling network with measures such as round-the-clock automated collection points after scrapping the waste-charging scheme due to strong public backlash, the environmental chief has said. Secretary for Environment and Ecology Tse Chin-wan on Saturday also pledged to review the permitted profit levels of the city’s two power companies when their control ag...

How to zoom through new Huanggang Port crossing at Hong Kong’s border
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How to zoom through new Huanggang Port crossing at Hong Kong’s border

The Huanggang Port will open on Monday after more than six years of redevelopment and rounds of preparatory drills. The 24/7 checkpoint will be the first to adopt the “joint clearance” model, where passengers can complete both departure and entry clearance in a single three-gated automated channel. As the final checks are carried out, the South China Morning Post explains what you need to navigate...

Gen Z overtakes older collectors as art market spending rebounds globally: report
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Gen Z overtakes older collectors as art market spending rebounds globally: report

Gen Z high-net-worth collectors have overtaken older generations as the art market’s biggest spenders, with average fine art expenditure more than twice that of older collectors, helping drive a global sales rebound to nearly US$60 billion, according to the latest Art Basel and UBS market insights. The surge came as mainland China and Hong Kong continued to play pivotal roles in the global art mar...

South Korea: 38 injured as ceiling collapses during Daegu sales event

South Korea: 38 injured as ceiling collapses during Daegu sales event

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Thirty-eight people suffered minor injuries on Saturday when part of a ceiling collapsed at a building in South Korea’s southeastern city of Daegu, fire authorities said. According to local authorities and fire officials, the incident occurred at around 10.16am on the second floor of a four-storey building in Gwaneum-dong. At the time, a vendor was selling kitchenware and other goods to elderly cu...

Could Indonesia’s ‘content governor’ rival Prabowo for the presidency in 2029?

Could Indonesia’s ‘content governor’ rival Prabowo for the presidency in 2029?

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Dressed in his trademark white shirt and traditional Sundanese headcloth, West Java Governor Dedi Mulyadi stood near the barren slopes of Mount Wayang. Announcing a new initiative to pay hundreds of local farmers to replant its forests and shield the region from flooding, he delivered a line perfectly pitched for the cameras tracking his every step. “I am a leader who does not want obedience cause...

Spirit of Hong Kong Awards: explorer inspires youth through glacial field trips

Spirit of Hong Kong Awards: explorer inspires youth through glacial field trips

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When Wilson Cheung took Hong Kong secondary school students into the Swiss Alps this summer, terrain he had once been able to reach had become inaccessible. Glacier melt and thawing ground had destabilised parts of the mountain, while rockfall made fieldwork more hazardous. Only weeks earlier, Cheung had completed a roughly 1,700km (1,056-mile) scientific snowkite traverse across Greenland in 2026...

Australia says it won’t buy Russian fuel despite Trump’s diesel agreement

Australia says it won’t buy Russian fuel despite Trump’s diesel agreement

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Australia has no need to buy fuel from Russia and said that purchases from there would remain barred so that the country did not benefit from the invasion of Ukraine. “We don’t need or want Russian fuel in Australia,” Chris Bowen, Australia’s minister for climate change and energy, said on Saturday at a press conference in western Sydney. “We do not want Vladimir Putin to benefit from this war in ...

The hidden heartbreak of losing a pet in Singapore and Malaysia

The hidden heartbreak of losing a pet in Singapore and Malaysia

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Growing up in a Malay family in Singapore, Hafeez Hassan feared dogs. He never expected to mourn one like a sibling. “Maybe that is what I have been grieving all along … The experience of loving something that I was taught I was not supposed to love,” he said. Even as an adult, walking his former partner’s husky Pieces in public made Hafeez anxious that a relative might see him, or that he might b...

Worker prospects in Hong Kong hair, beauty sector not cut and dried amid staff shortages

Worker prospects in Hong Kong hair, beauty sector not cut and dried amid staff shortages

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Hongkonger Terrence Wu Chung-ting puts on an apron, picks up a comb and massages hair essence into a client’s scalp during a treatment for hair loss. But eight years ago, Wu’s job could not have been any more different. A finance graduate from one of the city’s top universities, he was then a marketer for beauty products and focused on sales. But when he saw untapped potential in Hong Kong’s haird...

Singaporean teenager flown to hospital after falling ill during Lion Rock hike

Singaporean teenager flown to hospital after falling ill during Lion Rock hike

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A Singaporean girl has been flown to a hospital after falling ill during a hike with two other friends at Hong Kong’s Lion Rock, according to police. The force received a report on Saturday from the mother of one of the hikers at about 6.50am. Her daughter called for help after the 17-year-old Singaporean friend vomited and experienced chills during their hike at Lion Rock, a 495-metre-high mounta...

Will Taiwan issue derail Washington and Beijing’s latest reset? Analysts are sceptical

Will Taiwan issue derail Washington and Beijing’s latest reset? Analysts are sceptical

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Recent interactions involving the US and Taiwan are not expected to derail the current momentum in relations between Washington and mainland China, according to diplomatic analysts. Beijing was taking a pragmatic approach to navigating the complexities of the Taiwan issue, they said, but the fate of a US$14 billion arms package for the island remained a key concern. During President Xi Jinping’s r...

Trump slams Norway and Nobel committee after missing out on Peace Prize

Trump slams Norway and Nobel committee after missing out on Peace Prize

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US President Donald ⁠Trump reiterated his complaints on Friday about not receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, calling it a disgraceful and embarrassing decision that had left a ‌stain on Norway, which hosts the Nobel committee. Trump unleashed on Norway hours after the committee awarded this year’s prize to Navi Pillay, a former International Criminal Court judge who oversaw a UN report that concluded...

Spirit of Hong Kong Awards: Blind musician with rare birth disease plays her heart out

Spirit of Hong Kong Awards: Blind musician with rare birth disease plays her heart out

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A year after a seven-hour surgery in Hong Kong in 2025, Cassie Li Pui-ying was on stage at Queen Elizabeth Stadium, playing the drums before an audience of more than 2,500 people. She heard the applause but could not see who it came from. That March night was organised by Live Theatre, which her mother Marine Mak also helps run. Li sang, spoke and played the drums. The group gives visually impaire...

Why a Communist Party boss had a coffee shop date with Chinese content creators

Why a Communist Party boss had a coffee shop date with Chinese content creators

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The setting may have been casual but the choice was not when the Communist Party boss of a northeastern Chinese province sat down with digital content creators at a coffee shop on Wednesday. Jilin province party secretary Huang Qiang invited the influencers to the relaxed setting of the Songyuan Coffee Shop in Changchun to encourage them to “actively promote mainstream values and spread positive e...

Chinese police crack real-life ‘Breaking Bad’ drug lab, arresting ex-chemistry professor

Chinese police crack real-life ‘Breaking Bad’ drug lab, arresting ex-chemistry professor

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Police in eastern China recently dismantled a cross-border drug-trafficking gang that allegedly involved a retired chemistry professor and a master’s degree holder in producing narcotics. The case went viral in China, where social media users dubbed it “China’s Breaking Bad,” after the American crime drama that aired from 2008 to 2013. The series is widely regarded as one of the greatest TV shows ...

Malaysia urged to police its firms in Indonesia as haze shuts schools

Malaysia urged to police its firms in Indonesia as haze shuts schools

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Malaysia is facing renewed pressure to clamp down on its companies over their alleged links to forest fires abroad, as recurring haze from Indonesia continues to disrupt schools and daily life despite years of regional efforts to tackle the problem. On Thursday, Malaysia ordered schools to close across several states, including Johor, Malacca, Negeri Sembilan, Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya and the Rompi...

Japanese brewer designs ‘wobbly’ beer glass to encourage responsible drinking

Japanese brewer designs ‘wobbly’ beer glass to encourage responsible drinking

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A craft beer producer in central Japan is hoping that its U-shaped “wobbly” glass will encourage people to drink water along with their beer, in a bid to prevent excessive alcohol consumption and dehydration. The “Wobbly Beer Glass by Yona Yona Ale”, produced by Yoho Brewing based in Nagano prefecture, has been on sale since August amid growing awareness of the need for responsible drinking. The i...

Japanese brewer designs “wobbly” beer glass to encourage responsible drinking

Japanese brewer designs “wobbly” beer glass to encourage responsible drinking

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A craft beer producer in central Japan is hoping that its U-shaped “wobbly” glass will encourage people to drink water along with their beer, in a bid to prevent excessive alcohol consumption and dehydration. The “Wobbly Beer Glass by Yona Yona Ale”, produced by Yoho Brewing based in Nagano prefecture, has been on sale since August amid growing awareness of the need for responsible drinking. The i...

Modi and Xi can’t bridge the India-China divide by themselves

Modi and Xi can’t bridge the India-China divide by themselves

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Last month, President Xi Jinping travelled to New Delhi to attend the Brics summit – his first visit in seven years. On the summit’s sidelines, Xi and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had an in-depth conversation that explored topics of shared interest between them, such as leveraging open-weight artificial intelligence (AI) for mutual benefit. Even so, such sanguine signals were soon drowned o...

India’s ‘cockroach’ movement leader detained as capital locks down

India’s ‘cockroach’ movement leader detained as capital locks down

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Police in the Indian capital Delhi detained the founder of the Cockroach Janta Party, Abhijeet ‌Dipke, on Saturday, ahead of a protest called by the youth movement demanding the resignation of ⁠the country’s chief election commissioner, the ‌party said. TV channels reported earlier that police ‌officers met Dipke at ⁠Delhi ⁠airport after he arrived from Mumbai and asked him ‌to ‌call off the prote...

India’s capital locked down as youth protest targets election chief

India’s capital locked down as youth protest targets election chief

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Central Delhi was sealed on Saturday, with thousands of police and paramilitaries on patrol, metro stations shut, mobile internet suspended and markets closed to guard against a youth protest demanding India’s chief election officer quit. The protest, called ‌by the “cockroach” youth movement, hopes to draw thousands of demonstrators who want Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar to quit over ...

Central Delhi locked down, internet cut as youth protest demands election chief quit

Central Delhi locked down, internet cut as youth protest demands election chief quit

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Central Delhi was sealed on Saturday, with thousands of police and paramilitaries on patrol, metro stations shut, mobile internet suspended and markets closed to guard against a youth protest demanding India’s chief election officer quit. The protest, called ‌by the “cockroach” youth movement, hopes to draw thousands of demonstrators who want Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar to quit over ...

Lack of heat action plan leaves Hong Kong’s vulnerable residents at risk, experts warn

Lack of heat action plan leaves Hong Kong’s vulnerable residents at risk, experts warn

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Environmentalists and academics have criticised the omission of a systemic heat-health action plan in Hong Kong’s first five-year plan and latest policy address, warning that relying on “common sense” is failing to protect vulnerable residents from rising temperatures. Their comments came as new research from the University of Hong Kong (HKU) found that extreme heat may have contributed to as many...

New Taipei-Hong Kong subsea route opened to cut risk and meet AI demand

New Taipei-Hong Kong subsea route opened to cut risk and meet AI demand

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One of the world’s biggest network service providers has opened a new subsea route between Taipei and Hong Kong to strengthen the system against repeated underwater cable disruptions around the island. Britain-headquartered RETN said the new route would take its total to six serving Taiwan: four connecting Taipei and Hong Kong, and two linking Taipei and Tokyo. “Like many island economies, Taiwan’...

Anthropic AI model sent fake murder tip to US police, hit government sites

Anthropic AI model sent fake murder tip to US police, hit government sites

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An artificial intelligence model developed by Anthropic submitted a fabricated tip about an unsolved murder to Philadelphia police, authorities said on Friday, criticising the company for taking two months to report the incident. The Philadelphia Police Department said the false submission was made in July through PhillyUnsolvedMurders.com, a public website where people can share information about...

Kurt Campbell on US’ China focus, the Indo-Pacific Quad, risks of AI

Kurt Campbell on US’ China focus, the Indo-Pacific Quad, risks of AI

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Kurt Campbell is a veteran US diplomat and strategist who has played a leading role in shaping Washington’s approach to China and the Indo-Pacific for more than a decade. He served as the White House coordinator for Indo-Pacific affairs from 2021 to 2024 and as US deputy secretary of state from 2024 to 2025. Previously, he served as assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs f...

Southeast Asia battles Big Tech to protect children online

Southeast Asia battles Big Tech to protect children online

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Indonesia officially barred under-16s from using “high-risk” social media earlier this year. But that hasn’t stopped the son of one Jakarta-based writer from using it. Aged 14, he already had accounts on Instagram and TikTok – among the platforms Jakarta said children would be banned from using – as well as popular video game Minecraft and gaming platform Roblox. To register, he simply lied about ...

Southeast Asia takes on Big Tech to protect children online

Southeast Asia takes on Big Tech to protect children online

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Indonesia officially barred under-16s from using “high-risk” social media earlier this year. But that hasn’t stopped the son of one Jakarta-based writer from using it. Aged 14, he already had accounts on Instagram and TikTok – among the platforms Jakarta said children would be banned from using – as well as popular video game Minecraft and gaming platform Roblox. To register, he simply lied about ...