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This live article is freely available to our registered users. Please log in or create an account below. Get real-time updates and exclusive reporting. Subscribe now with great savings to stay ahead. Defence ministers, military chiefs, diplomats and analysts have gathered in Singapore this weekend for the annual Shangri-La Dialogue, where regional security challenges will be discussed and a flurry...
This live article is freely available to our registered users. Please log in or create an account below. Get real-time updates and exclusive reporting. Subscribe now with great savings to stay ahead. Defence ministers, military chiefs, diplomats and analysts have gathered in Singapore this weekend for the annual Shangri-La Dialogue, where regional security challenges will be discussed and a flurry...
This live article is freely available to our registered users. Please log in or create an account below. Get real-time updates and exclusive reporting. Subscribe now with great savings to stay ahead. Defence ministers, military chiefs, diplomats and analysts have gathered in Singapore this weekend for the annual Shangri-La Dialogue, where regional security challenges will be discussed and a flurry...
This live article is freely available to our registered users. Please log in or create an account below. Get real-time updates and exclusive reporting. Subscribe now with great savings to stay ahead. Defence ministers, military chiefs, diplomats and analysts have gathered in Singapore this weekend for the annual Shangri-La Dialogue, where regional security challenges will be discussed and a flurry...
A federal judge ordered US President Donald Trump to respond to “grievous allegations” that his deal with the government to create a US$1.8 billion fund to resolve his lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service was the result of a “fraud” on the court. In an order on Friday, US District Judge Kathleen Williams gave the president’s personal lawyers until June 12 to respond to a request by a group...
The goodbye emails started arriving on a Monday. By Friday, Sheila’s inbox told the story of an organisation coming apart at the seams, one farewell at a time. Sheila* had spent nearly a decade helping run US-funded development projects in the Philippines. She had watched them grow, hire staff and take root in local communities. When Washington ordered a freeze on foreign aid in January 2025, she ...
Central Asia is tilting more decisively towards China as geopolitical uncertainty deepens, with Beijing’s expanding influence recasting the former Soviet states’ strategic orientation. In the final instalment of a three-part series, Cao Jiaxuan examines how Central Asian members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation have shaped the bloc’s response to the US-Iran conflict. Read the first part he...
When Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr accepted the Asean gavel from Malaysian counterpart Anwar Ibrahim in Kuala Lumpur last October, the script was already written: a packed agenda, South China Sea diplomacy in the spotlight and a regional digital economy deal to clinch. Then the world changed. On February 28, US and Israeli forces struck Iran. The Strait of Hormuz, an artery of global s...
A former Southern California mayor pleaded guilty on Friday to acting as an illegal agent of the Chinese government. Eileen Wang, who stepped down as the mayor of Arcadia earlier this month, was charged in April with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She pleaded guilty to doing the bidding of Chinese officials by sharing articles favourable to Beijing, with...
A judge on Friday ordered the removal of US President Donald Trump’s name from the Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts, ruling that the iconic Washington venue cannot be renamed without an act of Congress. US District Judge Christopher Cooper in Washington directed the Trump administration to take down all physical signage bearing Trump’s name and to eliminate any references to a “Trump Ken...
China’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi said on Friday that Canada could surpass its goal of increasing exports to China by 50 per cent by 2030 during a meeting with Canada’s Foreign Minister Anita Anand. Wang said he thought Canada’s exports to China could increase by 100 per cent, building on momentum between the countries. “Canada is focused on growing our economy and diversifying our trad...
Former US attorney general Pam Bondi rebuffed questions about President Donald Trump’s involvement in handling records of the Justice Department’s investigation of accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, Democratic lawmakers said. “She refused to answer any questions about President Trump,” congressman Robert Garcia, the top-ranking Democrat on the House panel investigating Epstein, told reporters...
The Canadian man who helped scores of people worldwide kill themselves by selling them poison pleaded guilty on Friday to 14 counts of aiding suicide, as prosecutors said they will withdraw murder charges. Since Kenneth Law’s arrest in 2023, details of the online forums where he advised distressed people on how to end their lives have caused public outrage and triggered investigations in several c...
The European Commission agreed on a tough new approach to trade relations with China, at a rare Beijing-focused debate among Brussels’ leadership on Friday. In a presentation, trade chief Maros Sefcovic laid out why the bloc needed to take stronger steps to defend itself from what is described as a new “China shock” to its industries, according to people briefed on the event. This may require deve...
A former chairman of the Hong Kong Journalists Association has failed in his bid to overturn a conviction and five-day jail sentence for obstructing a police officer. Ronson Chan Ron-sing, 45, had refused to present his identity card to police during a stop-and-search procedure nearly four years ago. Deputy Judge Lily Wong Sze-lai dismissed his appeal at the High Court on Friday and ordered him in...
The conduct of another Hong Kong educator has been thrust into the spotlight after photos showing him carrying a female student in his arms surfaced online, with education authorities revealing they dealt with the matter when they first learned of the images two years ago. The Education Bureau’s response to questions from the South China Morning Post about the photos on Friday came a day after the...
Vietnam’s leader To Lam on Friday struck a sombre tone at a summit when he warned of three foundational crises converging to cause global instabilities – those of international order, development models and strategic trust. He was delivering the keynote address at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Asia’s premier defence forum, in his first speech on Vietnam’s foreign policy to an international...
A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from moving ahead with a US$1.8 billion compensation package that critics have denounced as a “slush fund” for President Donald Trump’s political allies. US District Judge Leonie Brinkema barred the administration from taking any further action to create or operate the fund while she considers whether to impose a longer-lasting...
Finance ministers from the EU’s six biggest economies (E6) have agreed a common position on a European Commission proposal for joint capital markets supervision, Germany’s finance ministry said on Friday. The push for financial market players to be supervised at a European Union rather than national level is part of a bid to boost the bloc’s competitiveness as it struggles with weak growth and...
A Kenyan court temporarily halted the opening of an Ebola quarantine centre for US nationals on Friday following a petition filed by a rights group. The facility was due to open in the east Africa nation on Friday according to US officials, to quarantine Americans arriving from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is battling a major Ebola outbreak. Washington has defended its criticised de...
A Hong Kong court has jailed two footballers and a betting agent for up to 17 months in the city’s largest match-fixing scandal in recent years, ruling that they deliberately undermined the integrity of the sport. Former Hong Kong Under-23 player Brian Fok, Brazilian player Luciano Silva da Silva and betting agent Waheed Mohammad returned to West Kowloon Court on Friday to be sentenced on five cha...
Hong Kong leader John Lee Ka-chiu met lawmakers on Friday to discuss a “highly targeted, substance-heavy” report they compiled outlining proposals on how the city’s first five-year plan should proactively align with national development. The closed-door meeting took place ahead of the government’s planned launch of a public consultation on Hong Kong’s five-year plan in early June as previously rep...
Young people from China and the United States should continue to contribute to cultural exchanges and mutual understanding between the two countries, Chinese President Xi Jinping has said in a letter to a university student in Hong Kong. The Chinese University of Hong Kong said on Friday that fourth-year undergraduate Liu Runjie received the letter after he and other students shared their experien...
China’s claim it had used “electronic interference” during a confrontation with a Dutch warship in the disputed waters of the South China Sea might signal growing confidence in its capabilities in this area, analysts said. The PLA’s Southern Theatre Command, which oversees the South China Sea, accused the frigate De Ruyter of “illegally entering” waters near the Paracel Islands on Wednesday and re...
A 51-year-old hiker who went missing on Lantau Island has been found dead after a two-day search amid a heatwave in Hong Kong. Authorities launched a search for the man, surnamed Chan, on Thursday following a report by his wife to police that morning that he had not returned home after leaving for a hike on Wednesday. Chan had told his family he planned to hike on section 8 of the Lantau Trail, wh...
I did not pay much attention during maths and science classes in school. I could never get into the mindset for STEM study, but I can see there is comfort in the fact that the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter will always be pi, or that the quadratic formula will always produce the right answer when applied correctly. I envied my many STEM friends for their skills, their fields of ...
China and British delegations discussed concrete plans to strengthen military engagement during talks on Friday on the sidelines of a major security event in Singapore. Major General Meng Xiangqing, who led the Chinese delegation to Asia’s largest defence summit, the Shangri-La Dialogue, met United Kingdom military officials, signalling both militaries’ willingness to maintain communication. Meng...
Lo Wai-kwok, the 73-year-old chairman of Hong Kong’s largest pro-business party and a former lawmaker, has announced his engagement to a Cantonese opera actress 42 years his junior, becoming the talk of the city’s political circles. Lo’s engagement to 31-year-old Yemina Yu Chung-yan comes five years after the death of his wife Adelina Wong Siu-chun. The couple, whose wedding will be held in Octobe...
Lo Wai-kwok, the 73-year-old chairman of Hong Kong’s largest pro-business party and a former lawmaker, has announced his engagement to a Cantonese opera actress 42 years his junior, becoming the talk of the city’s political circles. Lo’s engagement to 31-year-old Yemina Yu Chung-yan comes five years after the death of his wife Adelina Wong Siu-chun. The couple, whose wedding will be held in Octobe...
The Shenzhou-21 astronauts returned to Earth on Friday after staying in Tiangong space station for more than 200 days, establishing the record for longest on-orbit stay by a Chinese crew. The trio touched down at the Dongfeng landing site in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region at around 8.11pm aboard the Shenzhou-22 spacecraft, according to state broadcaster CCTV. Their stay was extended by one m...
