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A cabinet secretary fretting about his daughter’s university choice might once have been considered a private family matter. In Donald Trump’s America, it has become official content. US transport secretary Sean Duffy recently appeared with his family in a road trip series carried on the department’s YouTube page. In one episode, his daughter, Paloma, said if she were admitted to Harvard Universit...
An adult male orangutan found struggling to breathe in a palm oil plantation on Indonesia’s Borneo died hours after being rescued, authorities said on Thursday. The orangutan, named Sampurna and believed to be around 20 years old, was found by residents on Sunday morning in Ketapang district, West Kalimantan, an area affected by wildfires. He was unable to stand and was struggling to breathe when ...
Mexico’s Foreign Affairs Secretary Roberto Velasco arrives in China on Sunday for his first official visit as his country navigates increasing US pressure to roll back Chinese trade ties. The two-day visit will take place at the invitation of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said in Beijing on Thursday. He said China expected the visit to be an opportunity to deepen ...
Mexico’s Foreign Affairs Secretary Roberto Velasco arrives in China on Sunday for his first official visit as his country navigates increasing US pressure to roll back Chinese trade ties. The two-day visit will take place at the invitation of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said in Beijing on Thursday. He said China expected the visit to be an opportunity to deepen ...
China’s military AI models trail their foreign equivalents in performance, concentrating on support functions rather than combat, according to a study by Chinese researchers. The findings appeared in a paper by researchers affiliated with the Armed Police Force Shandong Corps and the Engineering University of People’s Armed Police, published in the journal Defence Industry Conversion in China in J...
Gloria Steinem, the celebrated author and activist who became one of the most visible symbols and potent voices of the US women’s movement and a fierce advocate for feminist causes throughout her life, has died. She was 92. With her trademark streaked hair parted down the middle and large aviator glasses, Steinem, a co-founder of Ms Magazine, was a hugely recognisable presence wherever she went. A...
US business television network CNBC is closing its Hong Kong office and pulling the plug on several flagship international daily shows as part of a major operational overhaul across Asia and Europe. The decision was communicated to staff on Wednesday in an internal staff memo from the company’s executive management. According to the memo seen by the South China Morning Post, the broadcaster’s mana...
A wildlife expert and social media users have expressed concerns about the forceful approach used by a district councillor and two other men to free a trapped barking deer, warning they should have sought help from professionals. Tai Po district councillor Chan Siu-keen posted footage of the incident on social media on Wednesday, with the clip showing him and two other men freeing the animal, also...
Hong Kong’s market regulator has reclassified some of the city’s authorised funds with exposure to private market assets above a certain amount as complex products, raising the threshold for selling these products to retail investors. Funds with exposures to direct or indirect private market assets amounting to 50 per cent or more of their net asset value would be recategorised. The Securities and...
India is touting its locally manufactured AK-203 Sher assault rifle – an advanced version of Russia’s powerful Kalashnikov – as an important milestone for the “Make in India” initiative to reduce reliance on foreign-made weapon systems. The Sher, or Tiger, will replace the older, heavily criticised Indian National Small Arms System (INSAS) service rifles used by the Indian Army. Complaints about t...
Norway had seized a Russian ship in the Arctic to enforce a US$4.22 billion compensation claim won by Ukrainian energy firm Naftogaz over Moscow’s seizure of its assets when Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, officials said late on Wednesday. The vessel, the Professor Molchanov, was seized off the Norwegian Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, according to Covington, the US law firm representing Naftogaz. ...
When two of China’s leading AI pioneers went public in Hong Kong in January, they pitched investors on a shared promise: capturing the explosive demand for artificial intelligence at home and abroad. Their first-half earnings, however, suggest that narrative could be splintering into two different trajectories. While Beijing-based Z.ai, also known as Zhipu AI, is winning over market analysts on th...
Hong Kong police have arrested 21 men for possession of child pornography and upskirt images, with the arrestees including private tutors accused of surreptitiously filming their students during classes. Superintendent Wong Yick-lung of Kowloon East regional headquarters for crime said on Thursday that officers had uncovered a social media chat group containing child pornography, as well as upskir...
Inside a pre-war building in the heart of Hong Kong’s busy Wan Chai district, coffee, curios and Cantopop are now the fresh attractions breathing new energy into a historic pawn shop that closed its doors two years ago. As the nostalgic tunes of late Cantopop legend Leslie Cheung Kwok-wing spin on vinyl and fill the air, curious passers-by step indie to see the shop – located in the venerable tong...
One of the world’s most abundant rare earth elements could offer a comprehensive, long-lasting treatment for gout, a Chinese team has found. The extremely painful form of inflammatory arthritis has plagued humanity for millennia. “No other pain is more severe than this, not iron screws, nor cords, nor the wound of a dagger, nor burning fire” – that is how the ancient Greek physician Aretaeus descr...
The trend of wearing disposable clothing while travelling gained popularity among Chinese internet users this summer, drawing criticism for its environmental impact. The term “disposable clothing” recently had gone viral on social media, with its hashtag accumulating 6.8 million views and 135,000 discussions on one platform. People shared their experiences of wearing disposable clothing on their t...
Hong Kong’s food and beverage (F&B) operators, both new and existing players, signed leases for 155,000 sq ft of new floor space in the second quarter of this year, a record high for the sector and more than double the amount registered in the first quarter, according to property consultancy CBRE. In the first half of the year, they snapped up 230,000 sq ft of new space, CBRE data showed. However,...
Washington is considering using Japanese, South Korean or Turkish frigate designs to expand the country’s naval fleet as the American shipbuilding industry struggles to meet demand, according to US media reports. The move comes after President Donald Trump signed a National Security Presidential Memorandum on August 13 calling for the use of foreign shipbuilding capacity and investment. However, t...
Rajendra Lama’s phone has barely stopped buzzing. In between coordinating rescue operations for flood survivors with the Nepal Mountaineering Association and running his travel company, he spends his days communicating with anxious tour groups, trying to persuade them not to cancel their trips. “We have a crisis in one part of the country, but we’re open elsewhere and are not affected by the flood...
European Union and Chinese officials have been holding talks in Beijing ahead of the bloc’s October deadline for seeing “tangible results” in efforts to curb a trade deficit running at €1 billion-plus (US$1.2 billion) per day. Denis Redonnet, the EU’s top trade enforcer, has led the European delegation, the South China Morning Post reported on Wednesday. The official has recently become the bloc’s...
Bangladesh’s potential entry into a defence pact with Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan could give Dhaka fresh leverage in its dealings with India, but observers warn the move risks fracturing its long-standing strategic neutrality and alarming a hawkish New Delhi. Foreign Minister Khalilur Rahman told parliament on August 27 that Bangladesh was considering joining the Mecca pact, a security frame...
South Korean police are pushing for an indictment of music tycoon Bang Si-hyuk, the chairman of the agency behind K-pop supergroup BTS, over alleged investor fraud. The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency referred Bang to the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors’ Office on Thursday, asking him to be indicted on a charge of violating the Capital Markets Act, according to the police agency and the prose...
Former Hong Kong lawmaker William Wong Kam-fai, who allegedly drove and crashed his vehicle while in an intoxicated state two months ago, will appear in court next week to face four criminal charges, including dangerous driving. Police on Thursday confirmed that Wong was set to appear in Sha Tin Court next Wednesday morning to face four charges: driving under the influence of alcohol, dangerous dr...
More than 75 per cent of homeowners at the only block spared the worst of last November’s deadly fire at Wang Fuk Court have agreed to sell their flats to the Hong Kong government, with authorities to press ahead with acquisition procedures. The Housing Bureau said on Thursday that 75.8 per cent of the flats at the estate’s Wang Chi House, or 188 households, had signed sales and purchase agreement...
Hong Kong film actor and director Louis Koo Tin-lok and his production company have been sued for more than HK$149 million (US$19 million) for allegedly failing to repay a loan from an offshore firm seven years ago. The latest lawsuit compounded the legal troubles of the 55-year-old artist, who was sued by a business partner two years ago for allegedly defaulting on the repayment of a HK$8.3 milli...
US tech titans including Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Tesla’s Elon Musk are pressing global powers to curb artificial intelligence regulations, warning that strict guard rails risk suffocating innovation as the US and China compete in an intensifying technological arms race. Speaking at a G20 meeting alongside US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, on Wednesday, Huang ...
The potential deployment of an American army specialist unit capable of integrated operations across domains, including cyberspace, to South Korea could further reorient the US military’s role on the peninsula from deterring North Korea towards containing China, analysts say. Recent reports that the Pentagon is considering moving elements of the Second Multi-Domain Task Force (MDTF), currently dep...
A Malaysian royal’s plan to sell a tract of land in the heart of Singapore faces a complication: a tax bill that may exceed US$1 billion. A levy known as a land betterment charge has emerged as a sticking point in negotiations between some prospective buyers and the current owner, the eldest son of Malaysia’s billionaire king, according to people familiar with the matter. The owner wants any buyer...
People’s Bank of China Governor Pan Gongsheng rejected criticism of China over global trade imbalances at the G20 finance meeting in Asheville, North Carolina. Below is the statement released by the Chinese central bank summarising the speech.
China has fired back at critics of its trade imbalances at a Group of 20 gathering, with the central bank firmly denying that Beijing deliberately pursues trade surpluses, while also vowing that it would not weaponise the yuan to boost exports. In the face of concerns over export reliance, People’s Bank of China governor Pan Gongsheng said the country remained committed to expanding domestic deman...
