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Residents have continued searching for memorabilia in their fire-ravaged homes on the second day of pick-up sessions at Wang Fuk Court, with some seeking help from a robotic device and others expressing gratitude to neighbours who saved their lives during the blaze. Wang Sun House residents on the middle floors began returning home on Tuesday, with opinions divided over whether three hours were en...
China has developed a world-first high-voltage synchronous condenser, reviving a century-old grid stabiliser technology to support the country’s rapid transition to renewable energy, according to a state media report. The state-run China Electric Power News said on April 10 that a 35-kilovolt direct-connection rotating machine developed by Dongfang Electric Machinery had successfully passed testin...
Rohingya refugee Rahila Begum spent two days adrift in the Andaman Sea this month, clinging to a wooden shard after her overcrowded boat capsized, one of the few survivors of a disaster that left 250 missing and feared dead. She was among the thousands of Rohingya Muslims who brave hunger and accidents on rickety boats each year to flee desperate conditions in camps in southeastern Bangladesh fo...
Despite China’s stronger-than-expected first-quarter economic growth, young jobseekers found little respite as March brought a rise in youth unemployment across urban areas, snapping six straight months of decline. The jobless rate for the 16-to-24 age group, excluding students, edged up to 16.9 per cent in March from 16.1 per cent in February, according to data released by the National Bureau of ...
This story has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by subscribing. Hong Kong labour authorities’ handling of Wang Fuk Court residents’ complaints and inspections at the renovation site were scrutinised by the independent committee on the 16th day of its evidential hearing. Officers from the Labour Department testified on Tuesd...
This story has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by subscribing. Hong Kong labour authorities’ handling of Wang Fuk Court residents’ complaints and inspections at the renovation site were scrutinised by the independent committee on the 16th day of its evidential hearing. Officers from the Labour Department testified on Tuesd...
This story has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by subscribing. Hong Kong labour authorities’ handling of Wang Fuk Court residents’ complaints and inspections at the renovation site before the estate was engulfed in an inferno last November will be scrutinised by the independent committee on the 16th day of its evidential h...
This story has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by subscribing. Hong Kong labour authorities’ handling of Wang Fuk Court residents’ complaints and inspections at the renovation site before the estate was engulfed in an inferno last November will be scrutinised by the independent committee on the 16th day of its evidential h...
The number of members from China’s leading scientific and engineering institutes in the top ranks of the Communist Party has doubled over the course of a decade, according to a new report. It said the number of academicians in the party’s 18th Central Committee, selected in 2012, stood at 15, accounting for around 3.5 per cent of the total membership. But when the 20th Central Committee started it...
Say “open source” and “China” and most people will think of its world-conquering artificial intelligence (AI) large language models. Its open-source computer chips are just as significant. These chips are based on the RISC-V architecture (pronounced risk-five). At last month’s Zhongguancun Forum science festival in Beijing, experts celebrated the establishment in China of a complete RISC-V ecosyst...
The Hong Kong government plans to launch a public consultation this quarter on the city’s first five-year plan aligned with national development, aiming to gather views on which policies the government should focus on in the coming years. Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu said on Tuesday that Hong Kong’s five-year plan would bring numerous benefits, including abundant development opportunities and ...
Victory Giant, a Chinese manufacturer of printed circuit boards (PCBs) for artificial intelligence and high-performance computing, rose by 57.23 per cent in its trading debut in Hong Kong on Tuesday, as investors rushed to tap into surging global demand for the hardware powering the AI infrastructure boom. Shares in the Guangdong-based company, a supplier to US chip leader Nvidia, opened at HK$330...
Victory Giant, a Chinese manufacturer of printed circuit boards (PCBs) for artificial intelligence and high-performance computing, rose by 57.23 per cent in its trading debut in Hong Kong on Tuesday, as investors rushed to tap into surging global demand for the hardware powering the AI infrastructure boom. Shares in the Guangdong-based company, a supplier to US chip leader Nvidia, opened at HK$330...
He was your friendly neighbourhood uncle, polite and pleasant. He even brought fruits and vegetables from his orchard for people in the area. So, when the 71-year-old Malaysian man was arrested for shooting three people dead, it came as a shock for many in Taman Kota Jaya, Johor. Hamzah Kamat, who runs a restaurant in front of the food court where the incident took place, said the man used to go t...
Twenty-two strategic enterprises have signed agreements with the Office for Attracting Strategic Enterprises (OASES) to open or expand operations in Hong Kong. The latest group marks the sixth cohort under the government’s flagship investment attraction initiative since its launch in 2022, bringing the total number of strategic partners to more than 120. The South China Morning Post looks at who t...
Reports of friction inside Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) suggest Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s biggest political challenge may now lie not with the opposition, but within her own party. Despite her strong public standing after February’s general election, reports have grown louder that Takaichi is clashing with the LDP’s influential old guard, notably former prime minister Taro A...
China’s top civilian aircraft manufacturer is reassessing geopolitical risks to its supply chains – particularly for jet engines sourced from foreign firms – according to a source at the planemaker, as deliveries of its flagship C919 passenger jet appear to be late or delayed this year. The Shanghai-based Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac) is facing external and internal constraints,...
There is a tendency to portray the global artificial intelligence (AI) landscape as consisting of two bitter rivals – China and the United States. The remaining 80 per cent of the world’s population, by virtue of their supposed dearth of scale, research and other critical overheads, are purportedly followers with no agency. The reality is more complex. The emerging global AI order is neither unipo...
A nine-year-old boy in rural China who relies on his 73-year-old grandfather and brings him meat from his school canteen because he fears the old man might die without it has touched millions of internet users in the country. The boy, who is nicknamed Zichen, is a primary school pupil who lives in a village in Taikang county, central Henan province. His story has been viewed 46 million times on so...
Hong Kong health authorities are investigating a third measles case involving an aircraft maintenance worker at the airport, saying his infection is epidemiologically linked to those of two colleagues. The Centre for Health Protection said on Monday night that the latest patient, a 37-year-old man, likely contracted the disease at his workplace. It said all three cases worked for the same company ...
As the clock ticks down to the end of a two-week ceasefire between the US and Iran, all eyes are on whether they can return to the negotiating table in Pakistan, while the stand-off in the Strait of Hormuz continues. These are the main takeaways from what happened overnight. What did Trump say? US President Donald Trump defended his war against Iran in a series of social media posts. He said he wo...
Hong Kong’s major retailers are using aggressive tactics such as direct sourcing and leveraging massive economies of scale to avoid raising prices despite surging logistics costs arising from the war in the Middle East. But their resilience is being seriously tested for certain goods, with a leading cosmetics chain warning that shipping and airfreight costs have already surged by up to 15 per cent...
Iran’s firing on two Indian-flagged oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz has raised fresh questions about how far Tehran can protect even friendly shipping as the conflict pushes closer to maritime chaos. The attack, which took place on Saturday, has been especially awkward for Iran because New Delhi is not an adversary and still maintains working ties with Tehran, including renewed oil purchases i...
Another Democrat is exiting the crowded contest for California governor. Betty Yee – a former state controller – announced on Monday she was suspending her campaign, just over a week after fellow Democrat and former US congressman Eric Swalwell left the race following sexual assault allegations that he denies. Yee, who was born in San Francisco to Chinese immigrant parents, was vying to be the fir...
Another Democrat is exiting the crowded contest for California governor. Betty Yee – a former state controller – announced on Monday she was suspending her campaign, just over a week after fellow Democrat and former US congressman Eric Swalwell left the race following sexual assault allegations that he denies. Yee, who was born in San Francisco to Chinese immigrant parents, was vying to be the fir...
European consumers, spooked by rising oil prices due to the Middle East conflict, rushed to buy battery-powered cars last month, with Chinese electric vehicle (EV) brands poised to reap the benefits and give their global expansion a boost. Battery EV (BEV) registrations, a proxy for retail sales, climbed 51 per cent month on month in March, topping 224,000 units across 15 key European Union (EU) m...
The United States and Iran each warned they were ready for war as the clock ticked down Tuesday on a ceasefire, with uncertainty on talks that US President Donald Trump had announced would resume in Pakistan. The White House said Vice-President J.D. Vance was ready to fly back to the Pakistani capital Islamabad, which was preparing for a second round of talks on ending the war that has engulfed th...
The United States and Iran on Monday each warned they were ready for war as the clock ticked on a ceasefire, with uncertainty on talks that US President Donald Trump had announced would resume in Pakistan. The White House said Vice-President J.D. Vance was ready to fly back to the Pakistani capital Islamabad, which was visibly preparing for a second round of talks on ending the war that has engulf...
The United States and Iran on Monday each warned they were ready for war as the clock ticked on a ceasefire, with uncertainty on talks that US President Donald Trump had announced would resume in Pakistan. The White House said Vice-President J.D. Vance was ready to fly back to the Pakistani capital Islamabad, which was visibly preparing for a second round of talks on ending the war that has engulf...
As the US-Israel war on Iran raises global concerns about energy security, a new report has found that the clean power sector is rapidly gaining ground and emerging as a solution for nations looking to reduce their reliance on oil and gas imports. The world passed a significant turning point in 2025 as clean power generation rose faster than global demand for electricity, preventing an increase in...
