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For decades, the Philippine Air Force hunted communist rebels and Islamist militants in the country’s forests and southern islands. Now, amid seemingly intractable tensions in the South China Sea, it is being reshaped into an armed service meant to defend one of Asia’s most contested maritime frontiers – even as analysts rank it the weakest air arm among Southeast Asia’s six largest militaries. “B...
Chinese artificial intelligence chipmaking champion Shanghai Biren Technology is raising HK$7 billion (US$892.5 million) to boost production of its graphics processing units (GPUs), joining a fierce domestic battle to capture Nvidia’s market share in the country amid a global AI boom. The company, which went public in Hong Kong in January, announced that it would issue 153 million new shares at HK...
Russian missiles and drones struck Kyiv early on Monday, killing at least 11 people and heavily damaging residential blocks, officials said, in an attack just a few days after the deadliest assault on the Ukrainian capital this year. The bombardment also comes ahead of a Nato summit in Turkey this week, where US President Donald Trump will meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to make a ren...
Russian missiles and drones struck Kyiv early on Monday, killing at least 11 people and heavily damaging residential blocks, officials said, in an attack just a few days after the deadliest assault on the Ukrainian capital this year. The bombardment also comes ahead of a Nato summit in Turkey this week, where US President Donald Trump will meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to make a ren...
Russia struck Ukraine’s Kyiv region with ballistic missiles on Monday, killing at least eight people and wounding dozens, authorities said, on the eve of a Nato summit in Turkey. The assault was the second on the capital and its surroundings in less than a week and came as both sides increased long-range attacks, underlining the growing reach of the war more than four years after Russia launched i...
Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has promised durian growers in Johor that he will raise their falling prices with his “good friend” Chinese Premier Li Qiang during a visit to Beijing next month, as a nationwide glut leaves farmers struggling to sell the famously pungent fruit at sustainable prices. Speaking during a political campaign stop in Johor, where a state election will be held on Sa...
Two PLA warships departed Hong Kong on Monday morning, concluding a high-profile five-day port call with a ceremony at the naval base on Stonecutters Island. Dozens of residents and visitors lined waterfront areas for a final glimpse of the guided-missile destroyer Nanning and the guided-missile frigate Hengyang as they sailed through Victoria Harbour and the Tathong Channel in eastern waters. Spe...
A 24-year-old man has died after he was reportedly struck by lightning in Singapore. The man was among a group of eight people, aged between 13 and 54, who were taken to hospital on Sunday afternoon, the police said on Monday. The police said they had received a call for help on Sunday at about 4.50pm from 131 Pasir Ris Road, just off Pasir Ris Beach. The incident reportedly involved a lightning s...
Australia signed a new defence alliance with Fiji on Monday, bolstering ties with its South Pacific island neighbour as it seeks to outmanoeuvre China in the region. The Ocean of Peace alliance elevates Fiji to one of Australia’s few treaty allies and binds each nation to come to the other’s “mutual defence”. China sent waves through the region in 2022 when it signed a secretive security pact with...
At least 65 students from 16 Hong Kong schools have achieved top marks in the International Baccalaureate (IB) programme, with one private independent institution reporting nine perfect scorers, its best result on record. The IB released the results on Monday for 209,607 students worldwide sitting the May 2026 examinations. Among them were 2,912 students from Hong Kong, marking an 11 per cent incr...
At least 65 students from 16 Hong Kong schools have achieved top marks in the International Baccalaureate (IB) programme, with one private independent institution reporting nine perfect scorers, its best result on record. The IB released the results on Monday for 209,607 students worldwide sitting the May 2026 examinations. Among them were 2,912 students from Hong Kong, marking an 11 per cent incr...
At least 63 students from 15 Hong Kong schools have achieved top marks in the International Baccalaureate (IB) programme, with one private independent institution reporting nine perfect scorers, its best result on record. With results released on Monday, Victoria Shanghai Academy said nine students attained the maximum 45 points, while another eight scored 44. The school’s average score was 39. Am...
At least 55 students from 13 Hong Kong schools have achieved top marks in the International Baccalaureate (IB) programme, with one private independent institution reporting nine perfect scorers, its best result on record. With results released on Monday, Victoria Shanghai Academy said nine students attained the maximum 45 points, while another nine scored 44. The school’s average score was 39. Pri...
A prefecture in western Japan is drawing attention for a unique bear management programme that uses microchips implanted in captured animals to estimate population levels and guide culling decisions, as rising sightings across the country fuel calls for more effective countermeasures. Hyogo prefecture says it is the first in Japan to use information gathered from microchipped bears to determine an...
As Hong Kong marks the 29th anniversary of its return to Chinese rule on July 1, the South China Morning Post talks to the city’s senior officials about the administration’s achievements so far and what may lie ahead. Hong Kong students should not be barred from using technology and electronic devices simply because they do not know how to use them responsibly, the city’s education minister has sa...
If one word could capture the essence of Hong Kong, it would be resilience. Just two years ago, much of the international community had written off Hong Kong. A widely circulated newspaper commentary carried the headline: “It pains me to say Hong Kong is over”. Though the writer later changed his opinion, the piece captured the pessimism about the city’s future as a global hub. Hong Kong’s dramati...
A Shanghai restaurant has captured attention on mainland Chinese social media for launching a special dish of stir-fried tomato and scrambled eggs at an exorbitant price of 520 yuan (US$75), triggering a heated discussion. The dish itself is among the most common, affordable household food items in the country, containing ordinary ingredients – tomatoes and eggs. But the dish served at Jinlong Dab...
The South Korean won was stable against the dollar after inching higher as the currency began its first day of 24-hour trading, marking a milestone in Seoul’s push to open its financial markets to global investors. The won eased 0.1 per cent to 1,531.40 against the US dollar, after rising as much as 0.2 per cent when it started trading at 6am. Other major currency pairs were little changed. The la...
Three months after moving from China to Japan, Alisa Lin has yet to buy a single drink from Mixue – the Chinese ice cream and tea giant – despite being a frequent customer back home, where a cup costs under five yuan (73 US cents) during promotions. “It’s not a very popular brand here. Only one of my friends in Japan has ever bought it,” Lin said, adding that value for money was the main considera...
Part of a network of more than 20 artificial fish ponds in Hong Kong’s Northern Metropolis development occupies government land without permission, with a green group warning that materials used at the site also threaten the area’s ecology. The ponds are near the Mai Po Nature Reserve and the Inner Deep Bay wetlands, which have been designated as internationally important under the Ramsar Conventi...
In the Philippine capital, 85 pesos (US$1.40) is barely enough to buy a meal for one, let alone a family of five. Yet that modest sum, roughly the price of 1½kg of premium imported rice, is the largest single wage increase ever approved for Metro Manila’s minimum-wage earners. The government called it “historic”. Labour groups called it an insult. The increase, to be rolled out in two stages, was ...
In the Philippine capital, 85 pesos (US$1.40) is barely enough to buy a meal for one, let alone a family of five. Yet that modest sum, roughly the price of 1½kg of premium imported rice, is the largest single wage increase ever approved for Metro Manila’s minimum-wage earners. The government called it “historic”. Labour groups called it an insult. The increase, to be rolled out in two stages, was ...
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that some Christian villages in southern Lebanon had “asked to be annexed to Israel” so that they could be protected from Hezbollah militants. Lebanon was drawn into the wider war in the Middle East on March 2 when Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel in retaliation for the killing of Iran’s supreme leader in US-Israeli strikes. Israel responde...
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that some Christian villages in southern Lebanon had asked to be annexed by Israel so that they could be protected from Hezbollah militants. Lebanon was drawn into the wider war in the Middle East on March 2 when Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel in retaliation for the killing of Iran’s supreme leader in US-Israeli strikes. Israel responded ...
As Hong Kong marks the 29th anniversary of its return to Chinese rule on July 1, the South China Morning Post talks to the city’s senior officials about the administration’s achievements so far and what may lie ahead. The first tender for the university town in Hong Kong’s Northern Metropolis will be launched in two months, with successful bidders to be announced after the site formation of the pl...
Wu Xinbo is the dean of the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai and a leading Chinese researcher on the US. In this interview, he analyses how shifts in US foreign policy are changing the relationship between the two countries. This interview first appeared in SCMP Plus. For other interviews in the Open Questions series, click here. As the United States celebrates it...
Venezuela’s interim president said on Sunday the country would not descend into social unrest after the twin earthquakes which killed more than 3,300 people and left thousands more missing. One of Latin America’s worst earthquake disasters, the June 24 shocks collapsed scores of buildings, leaving thousands homeless, especially in the coastal La Guaira area north of the capital Caracas. “There wil...
Venezuela’s interim president said on Sunday the country would not descend into social unrest after the twin earthquakes which killed more than 3,000 people and left thousands more missing. One of Latin America’s worst earthquake disasters, the June 24 shocks collapsed scores of buildings, leaving thousands homeless, especially in the coastal La Guaira area north of the capital Caracas. “There wil...
It’s unfortunate for Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu that his speech on July 1 marking the 29th anniversary of the handover and highlighting his government’s achievements may have been overshadowed by the outcry over an anti-drug video – or at least what was intended as one. The Correctional Services Department released the video, generated by artificial intelligence (AI), on June 26 be...
Burglars stole millions of euros’ worth of jewellery from the museum of French luxury glassmaker Lalique in a daring early-morning raid on Sunday, just months after a stunning gem robbery at the Louvre in Paris. A gang of masked thieves broke into the museum in Wingen-sur-Moder in northeastern France at around 5.30am local time, forcing a door before heading for the jewellery room and smashing ope...
