Live headlines from trusted global sources. Click any story to open it on the original website.
In the spring of 2026, amid a fragile ceasefire in the Strait of Hormuz, President Donald Trump continues to insist that the United States is untouched by disruptions in the Persian Gulf. “We don’t use it”, he has claimed, echoing years of “energy dominance” rhetoric. The numbers tell a different story. The United States remains a net importer of crude oil. Its refineries are engineered for the me...
The magnitude 7.7 earthquake that hit Japan on Monday has renewed worries on Indonesia’s holiday island of Bali, which sits on the same Pacific Ring of Fire. Hours after the quake, the Japan Meteorological Agency issued a special advisory warning of a slightly elevated risk of a temblor with a magnitude of 8 or stronger in the coming days. It said there was a 1 per cent chance of a megaquake, comp...
In the first of a three-part series on Anthropic’s new powerful Mythos AI model, we look at its impact on Chinese AI, cybersecurity and competition with the US. US start-up Anthropic announced its latest artificial intelligence model Claude Mythos Preview on April 7, sparking an unprecedented global response among policymakers and regulators due to its powerful ability to identify and exploit cybe...
The geopolitical fallout from the Strait of Hormuz chokehold in the Middle East is just a “dry run”, with the Pacific being where the real action will occur if superpowers were to clash, Singapore’s top diplomat has warned. Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan also revealed on Wednesday that Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia shared an interest in keeping the Strait of Malacca open, even under the ...
Hong Kong residents, from housewives to stay-at-home mothers and couples, have rushed to theatres to secure HK$30 (US$4) tickets for Cinema Day, with many calling for even more discounts and family-friendly perks on other occasions. Before sales opened at noon on Wednesday, some customers started queuing up from as early as 10.30am at Star Cinema in Tseung Kwan O to get discounted tickets for scre...
Hong Kong residents, from housewives to stay-at-home mothers and couples, have rushed to theatres to secure HK$30 (US$4) tickets for Cinema Day, with many calling for even more discounts and family-friendly perks on other occasions. Before sales opened at noon on Wednesday, some customers started queuing up from as early as 10.30am at Star Cinema in Tseung Kwan O to get discounted tickets for scre...
China is backing Namibia’s bid to move beyond raw material exports by supporting the domestic processing of critical minerals and uranium. In a joint communique issued on Friday following talks in Beijing between Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his counterpart, Selma Ashipala-Musavyi, China pledged to help transform Namibia’s natural resources into higher-value products through domestic processing an...
China is backing Namibia’s bid to move beyond raw material exports by supporting the domestic processing of critical minerals and uranium. In a joint communique issued on Friday following bilateral talks in Beijing between Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his counterpart Selma Ashipala-Musavyi, China pledged to help transform Namibia’s natural resources into higher-value products through domestic proc...
Schools in India’s capital must ring regular bells to remind schoolchildren to drink water as the megacity gears up to face heatwave conditions, a new city order has said. Summer heat in the world’s most populous nation can be brutal – putting millions of people at risk, with nearly 11,000 people dying due to heatstroke between 2012 and 2021, according to government data. A heatwave in May 2024 in...
Mexico’s government said it was bolstering security at tourist sites after a man opened fire on tourists at pyramids outside Mexico City less than two months before the Fifa World Cup. The Monday shooting, carried out by a lone gunman on top of one of the Teotihuacan pyramids – a Unesco World Heritage Site and one of Mexico’s most frequented tourist attractions – killed one Canadian tourist and in...
A Chinese woman who tried to copy a recently viral lamp post climbing challenge got herself stuck and had to call the police to rescue her. The woman, surnamed Song, from eastern China’s Jiangsu province, was out for an after-dinner walk when she decided to take on the challenge. The self-rescue challenge requires people to cross their legs around a lamp post, remain in a sitting position then tr...
The first local case of dengue fever recorded for the first time in more than a year in Hong Kong indicates that undiagnosed imported cases could lead to an outbreak in the coming months, a health official has warned, while stressing that the risk was preventable. The warning by Albert Au Ka-wing, head of the Centre for Health Protection’s communicable disease branch, came after one case was recor...
Myanmar’s military-backed rulers have shaved time off Aung San Suu Kyi’s prison sentence and freed thousands of detainees, but analysts say the apparent goodwill gestures tell a story of a regime growing bolder, not more merciful. The government last week announced an amnesty for 4,335 prisoners, its third in six months, and reduced by a sixth the 27-year sentence of the 80-year-old Nobel Peace Pr...
Florida on Tuesday announced a criminal probe into whether artificial intelligence played a role in a deadly mass shooting at a university in the US state. The decision to launch an investigation came after prosecutors reviewed exchanges between OpenAI chatbot ChatGPT and the suspected gunman, who opened fire at Florida State University last year, according to state Attorney General James Uthmeier...
The MTR Corporation has sold HK$18.8 billion (US$2.4 billion) in green bonds, setting a Hong Kong dollar-denominated issuance record and marking its first publicly offered bond in the local currency market, as it seeks to diversify funding for a raft of projects. The rail giant said on Wednesday that it sold five-, 10- and 30-year bonds, with the size of each tranche also representing the largest ...
The MTR Corporation has sold HK$18.8 billion (US$2.4 billion) in green bonds, the largest and the company’s first public bond issuance in the Hong Kong dollar market, in its latest efforts to diversify funding sources for a string of projects. The rail giant said on Wednesday that it sold five-year, 10-year and 30-year bonds, with the size of each tranche also representing the largest for their re...
A notorious North Korean hacking group is likely behind the theft of nearly US$300 million in cryptocurrency over the weekend, an affected party has said, in the biggest known crypto heist this year. It is the latest such incident linked to North Korea, whose sophisticated cybercrime programme uses stolen cryptocurrency to help fund its nuclear weapons development, according to a United Nations pa...
The State Council, China’s cabinet, has published guidelines on innovative drug pricing that a bank analyst has described as the “most significant” in a decade, as they aim to reward drug innovation and ease pricing tension for domestic and multinational pharmaceutical companies. The framework document published this month said patented innovative drugs would be supported through value-based prici...
The State Council, China’s cabinet, has published guidelines on innovative drug pricing that a bank analyst has described as “the most significant” in a decade, as they aim to reward drug innovation and ease pricing tension for domestic and multinational pharmaceutical companies. The framework document published this month said patented innovative drugs would be supported through value-based prici...
Pope Leo arrived in Equatorial Guinea on Tuesday on the fourth and final leg of his Africa journey, and denounced the “colonisation” of Africa’s minerals and the “lust for power” in a country whose repressive leader has been in office since 1979. Adoring crowds in the largely Catholic country lined the road from the airport into the administrative capital, Malabo, cheering the first pope to visit ...
The satirical faux-news site The Onion has signed a new, restructured deal to take over Infowars from conspiracy peddler Alex Jones. Under the new terms, the Onion would license Infowars from Gregory Milligan, the court-appointed manager of the site since August 2025, instead of buying its assets outright for US$1.75 million, as parent company Global Tetrahedron initially tried to do in a 2024 auc...
A Singaporean man who was seen in a viral video assaulting a Filipino woman at Lucky Plaza shopping centre was charged on Wednesday over the incident and a previous alleged attack on the same woman. Andrew Suresh Markandan, 47, was handed two charges of voluntarily causing hurt to Alibutdan Vilma Litgio and two charges of mischief by damaging her property. He is accused of first assaulting the vic...
The last batch of residents who briefly returned to their flats in Hong Kong’s Wang Fuk Court under a special government arrangement said prayers and left flower bouquets as a final farewell to their fire-ravaged homes. The residents, who were among 79 households that registered to visit Wang Sun House on Wednesday morning, arrived at the building with trolleys, backpacks and bags, some armed with...
The Iran conflict is pushing Saudi Arabia to reconsider its US-led security strategy, with China emerging to play a limited, but functional role, analysts say. However, deep US ties in defence would restrict Saudi Arabia’s broader cooperation with China, they added, as one expert predicted Riyadh was likely to deepen ties with regional powers such as Pakistan and Turkey. In a rare alignment, Crown...
A US appeals court ruled on Tuesday that Texas can require the Bible’s Ten Commandments to be displayed in public schools, a win for Christian conservatives who want their faith in classrooms. The 120-page decision by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals came in response to the legal battle that sprang up after a Texas law, Senate Bill 10 (SB10), required the scripture be posted in every classroom –...
Both chambers of Britain’s parliament have approved a bill that would ban children aged 17 and under from buying cigarettes during their lifetime. The Tobacco and Vapes Bill aims to stop anyone born after January 1, 2009 (now aged 17) from taking up smoking. Health minister Wes Streeting called this a “historic moment for the nation’s health” that will lead to the “first smoke-free generation, pro...
Lebanese armed group Hezbollah said it fired rockets and drones into northern Israel on Tuesday, accusing the Israeli military of violating a ceasefire ahead of US-mediated talks between the Israeli and Lebanese governments this week. The Israeli military earlier said Iran-aligned Hezbollah had fired several rockets towards its troops operating in southern Lebanon, in what it described as a “blata...
This story has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by subscribing. Four officers from Hong Kong’s fire department testified on Wednesday before an independent committee investigating the Wang Fuk Court fire, as hearings entered their 17th day. The conflagration, which broke out on November 26 last year amid a major renovation,...
This story has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by subscribing. Four officers from Hong Kong’s fire department are testifying on Wednesday before an independent committee investigating the Wang Fuk Court fire, as hearings enter their 17th day. The conflagration, which broke out on November 26 last year amid a major renovati...
This story has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by subscribing. Four officers from Hong Kong’s fire department are testifying on Wednesday before an independent committee investigating the Wang Fuk Court fire, as hearings enter their 17th day. The conflagration, which broke out on November 26 last year amid a major renovati...
