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We have put together stories from our coverage last weekend to help you stay informed about news across Asia and beyond. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. Flights and rail services resume across eastern China as Typhoon Bavi weakens Rail and air services began returning to normal across large areas of eastern China on Sunday as Typhoon Bavi weakened a...
A Tokyo ward has installed outdoor AI cameras with facial recognition capabilities to help locate missing children and elderly people, a move aimed at improving public safety but also raising privacy concerns in Japan. Arakawa ward installed 33 artificial intelligence-equipped security cameras on pylons along the main street and elsewhere near the JR Nippori Station in April to test whether the te...
Bridges are under water, cornfields are flooded and classes and work are cancelled in northeast China as Typhoon Bavi continues moving north, prompting several local governments to issue emergency alerts. On Monday, Shenyang, capital of the northeastern province of Liaoning, said all classes at junior high, primary schools and kindergartens were suspended for the day, along with construction work ...
Overseas capital has poured into China’s hard technology champions at an unprecedented pace, driving the market value of their mainland equity holdings to an all-time high by the end of this year’s second quarter. Global investors have increased their exposure to China’s advanced manufacturing and technology companies, helping push the northbound holdings under the mainland-Hong Kong Stock Connect...
South Korea’s navy said on Monday it had recovered the body of a sailor off the east coast, a day after the seaman disappeared near the de facto sea border between the two Koreas. Authorities launched a large search involving 10 ships and aircraft after the sailor failed to report for duty on Sunday morning while the vessel was on patrol near the Northern Limit Line, the de facto maritime border b...
Charities applying for this year’s round of funding from Operation Santa Claus (OSC) aim to tackle the root causes of Hong Kong’s problems and create a lasting impact that goes beyond the financial support period, organisers have said. OSC, one of Hong Kong’s most prominent annual charity fundraising campaigns, received 102 funding applications by its June 10 deadline. Senior manager Rachel Chow C...
For regular anglers in the Malaysian coastal town of Port Dickson, the sighting of a crocodile in the waters while they fish by the jetties is nothing new. “I have seen three crocodiles while fishing there,” Razman Fozi, 33, said. The beach holiday destination in Negeri Sembilan state has long been a preferred fishing spot for hobbyists, but increasingly frequent crocodile sightings in its waters ...
Yang Qi, a 13-year-old pupil who lives in a subdivided flat in Hong Kong with his parents, has spent years studying and playing on a piano that blocks part of the entrances to the kitchen and bathroom. He is among the pupils preparing for a charity concert in October at the Cultural Centre in Tsim Sha Tsui, which aims to raise funds to fight poverty, including by supporting children who lack the r...
The government has a lot on its plate right now, especially with public consultations under way for the chief executive’s last policy address of his current term and for the city’s first five-year plan. But there is an urgent matter it must address as soon as possible. The resignation of William Wong Kam-fai from the Legislative Council means there is a vacant seat for the Election Committee const...
South Korea’s foreigner-only casinos are gaining renewed momentum this year, triggered by a steady recovery in inbound tourism and expectations of a surge in Chinese group travel in the second half, according to a recent analysis by Shinhan Securities. Unlike other tourism segments that move with domestic consumption, casino performance is closely tied to inbound flows, making the pace of Chinese ...
The universe teems with planets, yet their origins and evolution remain among science’s most enduring mysteries. Theoretical astrophysicist Shigeru Ida of the Institute of Science Tokyo has spent more than four decades in this field – and is now bringing his expertise to China. Ida, a former president of the Astronomical Society of Japan, has led the Japanese Society for Origins of Life and Astrob...
A man in southwestern China has been detained after he skydived from the top of a high-rise building in a residential community. According to a statement by the police authority of Chenghua district in Sichuan province, the 23-year-old man, surnamed Ren, skydived from the top of a tall residential building at 11pm on June 30 in an effort to boost traffic to his social media account. He shared the ...
Hong Kong’s robust tutoring and exam drilling culture contributed to the exceptional performance of local students in the International Baccalaureate (IB) exams, principals have said, after the city surpassed the average global score by nearly 20 per cent. At least 73 students from 17 Hong Kong schools achieved perfect scores in the latest IB Diploma Programme this year, with official data showing...
Brokers expect HSBC Holdings, a staple in the portfolios of Hongkongers, to see a large increase in interest from both local and international investors, as the stock’s minimum trading unit is set to change as part of the stock exchange’s board-lot reform process. Investors have long sought the change for the stock – known as a “widow and orphan” stock, as it pays a high dividend while bearing low...
India’s free-trade agreement with the United Kingdom will take effect on Wednesday, offering businesses on both sides immediate tariff relief while giving New Delhi an early test of the concessions, compliance demands and implementation challenges it may face in future deals with other Western powers. UK exports in sectors such as luxury vehicles and spirits are expected to benefit, while Indian t...
The United States and Iran each asserted Monday they controlled the Strait of Hormuz after a weekend of attacks stretching across the wider Middle East, further threatening any diplomacy to end the war. The attacks, sparked by Iran striking a container ship Sunday in the strait off the coast of Oman, again underlined that the waterway that once saw a fifth of the world’s traded crude oil and natur...
The United States and Iran each asserted Monday they controlled the Strait of Hormuz after a weekend of attacks stretching across the wider Middle East, further threatening any diplomacy to end the war. The attacks, sparked by Iran striking a container ship Sunday in the strait off the coast of Oman, again underlined that the waterway that once saw a fifth of the world’s traded crude oil and natur...
The United States launched several waves of strikes on Iran on Sunday over an Iranian attack on a container ship in the Strait of Hormuz that set it ablaze and left a crew member missing earlier in the weekend. Iran responded with attacks on Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan and Oman – the nation on the other side of the strait that Tehran has pressed to collaborate in managing shipping traffic. The ...
The US military said it has launched another round of strikes against Iran “to degrade their ability to attack commercial ships freely transiting the Strait of Hormuz”. The strikes, which took place overnight on Sunday into Monday, came after attacks by the US military on Sunday morning in response to an Iranian strike on a container ship in the critical waterway the day before. Iran responded to ...
Senator Mitch McConnell on Sunday revealed for the first time that a fall led to his hospitalisation, breaking the silence about his condition after weeks of mounting speculation about the Kentucky Republican’s health. McConnell, 84, said in a statement that he was “briefly unconscious” around the time he was first taken to the hospital and has undergone a battery of tests to try and determine wha...
US Senator Mitch McConnell on Sunday revealed for the first time that a fall led to his hospitalisation, breaking the silence about his condition after weeks of mounting speculation about the Kentucky Republican’s health. McConnell, 84, said in a statement that he has undergone a battery of tests as doctors try to determine what led to his fall. He explained the long silence about his condition by...
Some of Hong Kong’s largest developers, including Sun Hung Kai Properties (SHKP) and Wheelock Properties, are set to release new units in residential projects this month amid an expected cooling of price increases. SHKP, the city’s largest developer in terms of market capitalisation, released the price list for 120 units at its Garden Regency project in Kam Tin North in the New Territories on Tues...
Wu Shicun is the founding president of China’s National Institute for South China Sea Studies and chairman of the Huayang Centre for Maritime Cooperation and Ocean Governance. In this interview, the first in a series about the South China Sea dispute, he discusses ways Beijing can respond to rival claimants. This interview first appeared in SCMP Plus. For other interviews in the Open Questions ser...
Hong Kong needs to give some serious and creative thought as to how best we, as a community, are going to draw a line under the events of the 2019-20 protest movement. That this was a serious and sad episode in our history cannot be denied or avoided. Thousands of well-meaning ordinary individuals joined public demonstrations, many for the first time in their lives. Whatever the flaws of the gover...
German authorities have issued an arrest warrant for a 29-year-old man who is accused of holding a woman hostage in a Berlin supermarket for more than 11 hours over the weekend. The man was charged on Sunday with kidnapping for ransom, in conjunction with attempted aggravated extortion and dangerous bodily harm. The man allegedly took the female supermarket employee hostage and threatened her insi...
German authorities have issued an arrest warrant for a 29-year-old man who is accused of holding a woman hostage in a Berlin supermarket for more than 11 hours over the weekend. The man was charged on Sunday with kidnapping for ransom, in conjunction with attempted aggravated extortion and dangerous bodily harm. The man allegedly took the female supermarket employee hostage and threatened her insi...
A blaze that tore through a packed Bangkok bar has killed at least 27 people and left nearly two dozen more in critical condition, with distraught friends and relatives on Monday dreading finding loved ones among the victims of the deadliest blaze to hit Thailand’s capital in over a decade. Images shared on social media of the inferno, which erupted late on Sunday night, show flames shooting out f...
A blaze that tore through a packed Bangkok bar has killed at least 27 people and left nearly two dozen more in critical condition, with distraught friends and relatives dreading on Monday finding loved ones among the victims of the deadliest blaze to hit Thailand’s capital in over a decade. Images shared on social media of the inferno, which erupted late on Sunday night, show flames shooting out f...
A blaze that ripped through a packed Bangkok bar has killed at least 27 people and left nearly two dozen more in critical condition, with distraught relatives on Monday morning searching for loved ones among the dead from the worst fire to strike the Thai capital’s nightlife in over a decade. Images of the inferno shared on social media show flames shooting out from the entrance of the Na Ladprao ...
An explosive fire at a popular pub in Thailand’s capital Bangkok has killed 27 people, with another 22 injured in critical condition, officials said on Monday, in one of the deadliest such incidents in the tourism hub in recent years. “We have recovered 27 bodies, others are being sent to hospital,” said Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul, who visited the site of the fire that broke out just befo...
