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Malaysia’s anti-corruption agency on Monday questioned former economy minister Rafizi Ramli over a billion-ringgit semiconductor deal with British chip designer Arm Holdings, escalating a politically sensitive inquiry that has swept up ministers, senior officials and one of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s most outspoken former allies. Rafizi, the Pandan MP and a former senior figure in Anwar’s refo...
Ultra-low-priced Hong Kong tour packages reliant on commissions and pushing mainland Chinese visitors to make additional purchases remain prevalent despite tighter government regulations, the South China Morning Post has found. The business model has come under renewed scrutiny after the Travel Industry Authority revoked the licences of a travel agency and its tour guide over four cases of suspect...
A United Airlines plane hit a light pole and a delivery truck on a New Jersey highway while landing Sunday at Newark Liberty International Airport, officials said. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) officials said the Boeing 767 landed safely after arriving from Venice, Italy, and the agency would investigate the incident. No injuries were reported on the plane, and the truck driver was taken t...
Hong Kong’s Exchange Fund, the war chest used to defend the local currency, reported its smallest investment gain in five quarters as the Middle East crisis weighed on stock market performance. The fund gained HK$34.5 billion (US$4.4 billion) in the first quarter, 56 per cent lower than HK$79.2 billion a year earlier, according to data released by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) on Monday....
Hong Kong universities are rapidly gaining favour among mainland Chinese families as they shun the intense domestic competition of the gaokao and uncertainties stemming from Sino-US tensions, embracing the city’s generous non-local admission quotas. The Blue Book on Mainland Students Studying in Hong Kong released late last month underscores this trend, attributing it to geographic proximity, cult...
On a quiet March morning at Incheon International Airport, the head of a government agency responsible for administering industrial accident insurance stood before a memorial adorned with flowers and a photo of Nguyen Van Tuan. The 23-year-old Vietnamese worker had died 10 days earlier in a conveyor belt accident at a gravel factory in Icheon, Gyeonggi province. Korea Workers’ Compensation and Wel...
Congratulations to Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po for getting the city’s budget to sail through the Legislative Council. It wasn’t always such smooth sailing and Chan would do well to acknowledge as much. When Chan was first given the keys to the city’s coffers, they were full. Successive financial secretaries faced political pressure of a very different kind. There weren’t many issues that o...
A Hong Kong policeman turned public relations adviser will be promoted to lead the government’s Information Services Department, the South China Morning Post has learned. John Tse Chun-chung, who has served as the government’s information coordinator since 2024, is expected to take up the post on a three-year contract as early as Tuesday. Tse, 49, joined the police force in 1999. He became a well-...
A Hong Kong policeman turned public relations adviser will be promoted to lead the government’s Information Services Department, the South China Morning Post has learned. John Tse Chun-chung, who has served as the government’s information coordinator since 2024, is expected to take up the post as early as Tuesday. Tse, 49, joined the police force in 1999. He became a well-known face during the 201...
A Hong Kong policeman turned public relations adviser will be promoted to lead the government’s Information Services Department, the South China Morning Post has learned. John Tse Chun-chung, who has served as the government’s information coordinator since 2024, is expected to take up the post as early as Tuesday. Tse, 49, joined the police force in 1999. He became a well-known face during the 201...
A bride from eastern China slipped into a coma after a botched cold treatment, but she awoke and smiled at her fiancé just two days before her wedding. Wang Ranran, 24, from Taian in Shandong province, had been in a six-year relationship with her fiancé, Zhang Xirui. After registering their marriage at the end of last year, they eagerly planned their wedding for April 25, securing a popular emcee ...
A bride from eastern China slipped into a coma after a botched cold treatment, but she awoke and smiled at her fiancé just two days before her wedding. Wang Ranran, 24, from Taian in Shandong province, had been in a six-year relationship with her fiancé, Zhang Xirui. After registering their marriage at the end of last year, they eagerly planned their wedding for April 25, securing a popular emcee ...
The fragile ceasefire between the US and Iran has continued into its third week. There are signs of a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz looming on the horizon. These are the major takeaways from what happened overnight. What did Trump say? President Donald Trump said on Sunday that the US would “help free up” ships stranded in the Strait of Hormuz within hours. No details were provided. “This proc...
Hong Kong should develop its shipping insurance and management capabilities, among other areas, to strengthen its status as a global maritime hub amid intensifying geopolitical tensions, former city leader Leung Chun-ying has said. Leung, in his capacity as co-founder and honorary adviser to the Hong Kong Chamber of Shipping, said in a wide-ranging interview last week that the city should adopt bi...
AI skills are becoming a clear salary advantage for Singapore’s software engineers, with those who have such capabilities earning up to 25 per cent more than their peers, according to a new salary report by NodeFlair. The Singapore-based tech talent platform said its findings came from more than 230,000 verified data points and showed software engineers with AI expertise commanded a 13 to 25 per c...
Rudy Giuliani, the ex-mayor of New York City and a former adviser to US President Donald Trump, is in critical but stable condition at a hospital, his spokesman said Sunday. Spokesman Ted Goodman did not say what sent the 81-year-old to the hospital or how long he has been there. “Mayor Giuliani is a fighter who has faced every challenge in his life with unwavering strength, and he’s fighting with...
Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani has been hospitalised and is in “critical but stable condition”, his spokesman said on Sunday. The spokesman, Ted Goodman, did not immediately provide more details about Giuliani’s condition or how long he has been hospitalised. “Mayor Giuliani is a fighter who has faced every challenge in his life with unwavering strength and he’s fighting with that s...
Investment scams targeting Hong Kong’s elderly rose by 17 per cent in the first quarter of 2026 against a year ago, despite an overall decline in the number of cases, with police warning that better-educated retirees with more investment experience were more vulnerable to fraudsters. Superintendent Theodora Lee Wai-see of the force’s commercial crime bureau said elderly victims’ losses contributed...
One Palestinian man was killed and four others seriously wounded during an Israeli military raid in the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Nablus on Sunday, the Palestinian Red Crescent said. The Palestinian Health Ministry said the man’s wife was in labour at a local hospital when she was informed of his death. The Red Crescent said five people were hit by gunfire during an Israeli military opera...
One Palestinian man was killed and four others seriously wounded during an Israeli military raid in the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Nablus on Sunday, the Palestinian Red Crescent said. The Ramallah-based Palestinian Health Ministry said the man’s wife was in labour at a local hospital when she was informed of his death. The Red Crescent said five people were hit by gunfire during an Israeli...
Two US service members are missing in southwestern Morocco after taking part in annual multinational military exercises in the North African country, the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) said on Sunday. The service members are US Army soldiers who went missing while on a hike, a US defence official told Associated Press on condition of anonymity as they were not allowed to speak publicly abo...
Two US service members are missing in southwestern Morocco after taking part in annual multinational military exercises in the North African country, the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) said on Sunday. The service members are US Army soldiers who went missing while on a hike, a US defence official told Associated Press on condition of anonymity as they were not allowed to speak publicly abo...
Bai Chongen is a prominent Chinese economist and government adviser. He is the dean of Tsinghua University’s School of Economics and Management and serves concurrently as vice-chairman of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce. From 2015 to 2018, he was a member of the Chinese central bank’s monetary policy committee. Here, he discusses how China can avoid “Japanification”, what Beijing...
Beijing’s decision last Monday to block Meta’s US$2 billion acquisition of the Chinese-founded AI start-up Manus came as little surprise. The central government had already flagged its investigation and barred the company’s two founders from leaving the country. At first glance, the intervention appears disruptive to Chinese firms seeking foreign capital and US companies eyeing investments in Chin...
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he must accept that US President Donald Trump does not share his opinions to work with the United States within Nato but stressed there was no link between their rift and a planned troop drawdown. Merz dismissed suggestions that his criticism of US war planning in Iran had sparked Washington’s Friday announcement that the US would reduce its military presence...
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he must accept that US President Donald Trump does not share his opinions to work with the United States within Nato but stressed there was no link between their rift and a planned troop drawdown. Merz dismissed suggestions that his criticism of US war planning in Iran had sparked Washington’s Friday announcement that the US would reduce its military presence...
A suspected outbreak of the rare hantavirus infection on a cruise ship in the Atlantic Ocean killed three people, including an elderly married couple, and sickened at least three others, the World Health Organization and South Africa’s Department of Health said on Sunday. The WHO said an investigation was under way, but that at least one case of hantavirus had been confirmed. One of the patients w...
Three people have died on a cruise ship in the Atlantic, the WHO said Sunday, one a confirmed case of hantavirus – an illness usually transmitted to humans from rodents. The illness broke out on the MV Hondius, travelling from Ushuaia in Argentina to Cabo Verde, formerly known as Cape Verde. “To date, one case of hantavirus infection has been laboratory confirmed, and there are five additional sus...
Three people have died on a cruise ship in the Atlantic, the WHO said Sunday, one a confirmed case of hantavirus – an illness usually transmitted to humans from rodents. The outbreak occurred on the MV Hondius, travelling from Ushuaia in Argentina to Cabo Verde, formerly known as Cape Verde. “To date, one case of hantavirus infection has been laboratory confirmed, and there are five additional sus...
Jean-Luc Melenchon, the leading figure in the hard-left France Unbowed (La France Insoumise) political party, will stand in next year’s presidential election, he said on Sunday. “Yes, I am a candidate,” Melenchon told TF1 TV. Melenchon, 74, has been a fixture of the French left for decades, holding ministerial posts in past governments when he was a Socialist Party member. He ran for president ...
