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The US military launched air strikes on Sunday targeting Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard to retaliate for the killing of American troops in Jordan, further widening the crossfire between the nations as they fight over the Strait of Hormuz. The strikes, now part of a weeklong campaign that has seen Iran strike US-allied countries across the Middle East, come as an interim deal seeking to fi...
Hong Kong’s lawmakers have embarked on an unprecedented week-long study visit to Beijing, with the Legislative Council’s president saying the trip would help their work of ensuring the city better aligns with national development. Starry Lee Wai-king on Sunday highlighted the significance of the trip, which marks the first time the entire legislature has travelled to the capital for such a “nation...
Smaller, family-run businesses in mainland China are embracing advanced artificial intelligence (AI) more readily than large enterprises, while market agility and steady power supplies will determine the winners of the global AI race, industry leaders have said at a forum in Indonesia. Panel speakers at the inaugural Nusa Dua Forum in Bali, organised on Friday by the South China Morning Post and I...
India is stepping up engagement with Indo-Pacific middle powers as uncertainty grows over the future of US security commitments in Asia, with analysts saying New Delhi is building a web of partnerships that allows countries with different strategic interests to cooperate without joining a formal alliance. Prime Minister Narendra Modi went on a six-day diplomatic tour of the Indo-Pacific from July ...
Hong Kong students can benefit from taking a gap year after taking the university entrance exam but should set clear goals for their future, education sector experts have said, pointing to the increasing value of applicants with experience outside the classroom. NGOs and experts said that setting aside a year for internships, volunteer work or exchange programmes would enable students to understan...
Meite Siaka wears many hats. By day, he is a senior tax official, a lecturer at the National School of Administration and deputy mayor of Kani in northern Ivory Coast. But outside government, he serves as the founding president of the Ivorian Federation of Chinese Martial Arts (FIAMC), a group he established in 2008. He also works as a master and instructor, running several martial arts clubs. Now...
A long-discussed plan for an Asean power grid is gaining steam, according to investors and Indonesian policymakers gathered in Bali, as surging demand from AI and data centres, as well as the region’s energy transition, fuels optimism over the initiative. On Friday, representatives from sovereign wealth funds, institutional capital and family principals converged on the St Regis Bali Resort for th...
Asia’s only dedicated exorcism centre – designed to train not only Philippine priests but clergy from across the region – sits just off a busy thoroughfare in Metro Manila. Inside, neatly made-up rooms for visiting priests line warmly lit halls that lead to a chapel where the 400-year-old ritual takes place. Holy relics employed in the proceedings line one wall, another features a one-way mirror t...
BNP Paribas, France’s largest lender and the second-largest in Europe, has found that an increasing number of wealthy European clients are seeking to establish family offices in Hong Kong to capitalise on growing opportunities in the region, according to a banker from the lender. A growing number of wealthy mainland clients were also looking to invest in Europe, said Lemuel Lee, head of wealth man...
Malaysia’s anti-corruption agency has opened an investigation into losses tied to state pension fund Kumpulan Wang Persaraan Diperbadankan’s investment in failed Indonesian agritech start-up eFishery. A team was formed on Friday to “study and examine the issue thoroughly,” Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission Chief Commissioner Abdul Halim Aman said in a statement on Saturday. “The investigation w...
Official support and collaboration with private capital are critical for sovereign wealth funds to succeed, the head of Hong Kong’s government-owned investment vehicle has said, as she spelled out strategies needed to deliver high returns. At the inaugural Nusa Dua Forum organised by the South China Morning Post and Indonesia’s sovereign wealth fund Danantara in Bali on Friday, Hong Kong Investmen...
Artificial intelligence (AI) is driving unprecedented demand for computing, placing photonic chips at the centre of the race to develop next-generation AI hardware. By transmitting data with light rather than electricity, photonic technologies are widely seen as a way to overcome bandwidth and power constraints. However, translating that potential into mass-producible hardware can be bottlenecked ...
Hong Kong has embarked on the path of drawing up its first five-year plan – a significant moment in its history. Hong Kong’s first five-year plan should be more than a local economic blueprint. Properly conceived, it should define how the city contributes to China’s national development while preserving the global connections that make Hong Kong uniquely valuable. Success will depend on three mutu...
A man in eastern China was stunned to discover that his family’s battered dining table was in fact a Qing dynasty (1644–1912) honour board commemorating an ancestor’s success in the imperial examinations. Xu, a villager in Anhui province, shared the unusual story in an online video on July 12, which subsequently went viral on mainland social media. The footage shows a dark-red wooden table scarred...
Tears, anger and exhaustion marked the conclusion of an inquiry into the deadly fire at Hong Kong’s Wang Fuk Court, as survivors condemned government departments for passing the buck and demanded accountability. Residents have reacted to the conclusion of an inquiry into the deadly fire at Hong Kong’s Wang Fuk Court with tears of anger and exhaustion, as survivors condemned government departments ...
Indonesia’s Danantara must outlive political administrations to prove its worth to investors and most importantly to the people, according to the sovereign wealth fund’s chief investment officer. Pandu Sjahrir said the fund was focused on the demutualisation of Jakarta’s stock market and to support the establishment of the first financial centre in Bali to boost investor confidence. “Investment is...
On a clear summer morning at Mount Fuji’s fifth-station trailhead, the crowds look more beach ready than alpine prepared with canvas slip-ons, bare legs and lightweight jackets. Above them, Japan’s most famous peak rises to 3,776 metres (12,389 feet) and into sub-zero temperatures, even in July. For Tatsuo Nanai, a veteran climber and until recently secretary general of the Fuji‑san Club, the scen...
Influencer brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate, whose social media empire promoting wealth, male dominance and misogyny has made them among the world’s most polarising internet personalities, were arrested on Saturday in Miami as British authorities sought their extradition on rape and sex trafficking charges. The brothers were taken into custody by the US Marshals Service on a sealed warrant, agency...
Prominent Cuban dissident artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara flew to exile on Saturday in the United States after serving a five-year sentence on the island, as Washington urged Havana to release more than 700 political prisoners. Otero Alcantara, designated a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International, was sentenced to five years in prison in 2022 for insulting national symbols, contempt and...
For years, aerial drones frequently buzzed above the Huangpu River in Shanghai, capturing breathtaking views of one of China’s most iconic central business districts and the lights of thousands of homes. But the spectacular aerial photos that once defined one of the world’s largest commercial drone markets have now been heavily restricted along this picturesque stretch of the river, reflecting a n...
The recent resignation of Keir Starmer as Britain’s prime minister has reignited a debate over the United Kingdom’s post-Brexit identity – and talk of rejoining the European Union. Over the past decade, has Britain’s decision to exit the EU returned the UK to its splendid isolation – or merely a splendid squalor? It may seem a far-fetched idea but what if the UK were to become a special sovereignt...
Former Apollo Global Management Chief Executive Officer Leon Black told Congress he paid US$21 million to a woman he accused of blackmailing and extorting him. The billionaire investor said during a June 26 interview with the US House Oversight Committee that he paid the money to the woman, with whom he had had an affair, after she demanded US$100 million because he “ruined her life”. Black’s appe...
In Iran war news with major US political implications, two US soldiers were killed and several wounded by an Iranian drone, the Pentagon announced on Saturday. The tragedy, the first US combat deaths in months, came as US President Donald Trump has tried to downplay or distract attention from the hugely unpopular war that he started in late February, as his polling numbers tank four months in adva...
Israeli Environmental Protection Minister Idit Silman has reclassified crocodiles from wild animals to “captive-bred wildlife”, a move that clears the way for the reptiles to be used for security purposes, including to deter prison escapes. Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir – who reportedly proposed in December surrounding a prison for Palestinian detainees with crocodiles, a la...
The Canadian military was preparing on Saturday to evacuate a remote community of 600 people threatened by forest wildfires that have spread, choking smoke across a broad swathe of the United States. Federal Emergencies Minister Eleanor Olszewski said late on Friday that the armed forces would use aircraft to evacuate the inhabitants of Fort Hope in sparsely populated northwestern Ontario, where s...
An independent committee examining the causes of Hong Kong’s deadly Wang Fuk Court blaze will delay submitting its final report to late October, a month later than expected, as more time is needed to review documents, the South China Morning Post has learned. A source confirmed to the SCMP on Saturday that the judge-led panel’s final report was likely to be submitted to Chief Executive John Lee Ka...
The global AI race is no longer just about chips or models. Increasingly, it is also about data – namely, the language resources that feed and train them. Beijing has identified that layer as a new strategic frontier, accelerating the buildout of a national ecosystem of Chinese-language data for artificial intelligence (AI). The push covers everything from foundational text corpora and high-qualit...
Greater global cooperation and development-focused AI regulations are urgently needed to prevent a widening digital divide, scholars and international figures said at China’s premier AI conference on Saturday. The message aligned with a broader pitch on display at the annual World AI Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai, where Beijing is courting the Global South with an artificial intelligence package c...
Chinese social media accounts are profiting by hinting at the downfall of corrupt officials ahead of formal announcements, state media has warned, highlighting a “grey market” around Beijing’s anti-corruption campaign. The trend had created a new challenge for Chinese law enforcement, state-run journal Banyuetan reported on Friday. One tactic involves posting an official’s resume as a coded signal...
Authorities in India’s capital Delhi moved social activist Sonam Wangchuk to hospital against his will on Saturday, after his condition worsened on the 21st day of a hunger strike launched to demand the resignation of the federal education minister. Wangchuk, 59, had been fasting since June 28 in solidarity with India’s youth Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), which is demanding Education Minister Dharm...
