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The assets managed by China’s private funds grew last month as those of its mutual funds shrank, with investors diversifying their portfolios amid a sell-off of semiconductor shares. The net assets under management (AUM) of domestic mutual funds shrank by 560 billion yuan (US$83.3 billion), or 1.4 per cent month on month, in July to 39.11 trillion yuan, according to data released by the Asset Mana...
Tokyo is experimenting with a radically faster way of buying new weapons – picking a domestically built interceptor drone less than three months after launching the procurement process. Analysts say this shift could help Japan respond more quickly to China’s expanding military capabilities. The defence ministry’s Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Agency (ATLA) announced on Tuesday that it had ...
A proper kitchen, a washing machine and a table where children can do their homework – these are some of the bare necessities that people expect for their homes. But for many families living in subdivided flats in Hong Kong, that is unfortunately not the reality. People in subdivided flats – dwellings created by dividing an existing flat into several smaller units, usually around 50 to 100 sq ft e...
Singapore’s new rules for messaging platforms mark a significant shift in the country’s fight against scams, placing greater responsibility on digital services to help stop fraudsters before they reach potential victims, as the government seeks stronger penalties for non-compliance. Analysts said the requirements could reduce the number of people exposed to scams and offer a potential model for ot...
Rescue teams struggled to reach the site of a massive Himalayan mudslide and flash flood on the China-Nepal border on Thursday as the toll from the disaster rose to 362 dead, with more than 1,000 missing. As of Thursday afternoon, three people were confirmed dead and 558 missing on the Chinese side, with 359 dead and at least 667 missing in Nepal. “Nearly 100” Chinese nationals were missing on the...
At least 292 people have been killed and more than 1,000 are missing after a massive Himalayan mudslide and flash flood struck the Gyirong Port area along the China-Nepal border on Wednesday. As of Thursday afternoon, three people were confirmed dead and 558 missing on the Chinese side, with 289 dead and more than 644 missing in Nepal. “Nearly 100” Chinese nationals were missing on the Nepalese si...
At least 180 people have been killed and more than 800 are missing after a massive Himalayan mudslide and flash flood struck the Gyirong Port area along the China-Nepal border on Wednesday. As of Thursday afternoon, three people are confirmed dead and 265 missing on the Chinese side, with 177 dead and over 644 missing in Nepal. The Nepali prime minister’s office said 484 tourists were missing, i...
A massive mudslide and flash flood struck the Gyirong Port area along the China-Nepal border on Wednesday, leaving at least 160 people dead and more than 1,000 missing across both sides of the divide. According to the latest official update from the Shigatse municipal government press conference on Thursday morning, three people have been confirmed dead and 558 remain missing on the Chinese side. ...
Sumo chiefs are planning measures to beat Japan’s increasingly punishing summer heat, including avoiding venues that do not have air conditioning and lightening the load on weary wrestlers. Japan sweltered through its hottest summer on record last year and parts of the country have hit 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in recent days. Hakata ward in the southwestern city of Fukuoka on We...
Singaporean police raided the local office of iron ore trader Radiant World last week and questioned some of the firm’s employees, according to people familiar with the matter, part of an investigation into the company’s transactions after some counterparties raised concerns about allegedly falsified documents. Several major commodity traders have cut ties with the company amid concerns that it pr...
Chinese biopharmaceutical firm Akeso announced on Wednesday that its immunotherapy drug had outperformed AstraZeneca’s Imfinzi in a head-to-head phase-three trial for biliary tract cancer. The result represents another breakthrough for Akeso’s ivonescimab – which has already been licensed by the US firm Summit Therapeutics in a multibillion-dollar deal – as China’s biopharma industry increasingly ...
Hong Kong has widened its lead over Singapore as Asia’s most international city, buoyed by gains in innovation and ideas, but still trails in attracting technology investment, a leading business chamber study has found. The Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce’s annual Asian Cities Internationality Index, released on Thursday, ranked Hong Kong first among 11 Asian cities with 74.6 out of 100 poin...
Billions of yen from a higher departure tax that Japan plans to use to support tourism are being channelled into projects that critics say offer limited direct benefit to travellers, including measures to prevent bear attacks and eradicate an invasive beetle. The Japanese government expects to raise 130 billion yen (US$817.7 million) in the 2026 financial year from the International Tourist Tax, a...
In 1984, Ha Tae-jun, then 24, spotted a notice recruiting for a special unit at the Military Manpower Administration office in central Seoul’s Yongsan district. The notice was scrawled on the wall in marker, with little explanation. Ha applied, and his life was changed forever – training as a South Korean operative for covert missions into North Korea. “About a month after submitting background ch...
On a Saturday evening, Causeway Bay crackles with its famous retail energy, yet by 9 o’clock the streets begin their nightly death. There is nowhere magnetic to spill into – no late-night jazz den, immersive dinner theatre or playhouse humming with an experimental musical. Nearby, the 40,000-seat Hong Kong Stadium squats in silence while the catering rooms of the Happy Valley racecourse sit largel...
A man in Taiwan who used a robot vacuum cleaner to gather evidence of his wife’s affair won a civil lawsuit but was subsequently sentenced to prison for invading her privacy. A recently released court ruling, reported by local media, disclosed that the man, whose identity remains confidential, got married in 2021. The couple lived with his parents and only visited their holiday home during holiday...
Hong Kong’s weather forecaster cancelled its rainstorm warnings on Thursday, following spells of heavy rain that led to the suspension of morning and whole-day schools, with afternoon classes allowed to proceed. The Observatory issued the red signal – the middle level in a three-tier system – at 5.05am, and soon after also sent out a special landslip advisory for Po Toi Island due to heavy rain. T...
Hong Kong’s weather forecaster cancelled all rainstorm warnings on Thursday, following spells of heavy rain that led to the suspension of morning and whole-day schools, with afternoon classes allowed to proceed. The Observatory earlier issued the red signal – the middle level in a three-tier system – at 5.05am, and soon after also sent out a special landslip advisory warning for Po Toi Island due ...
Hong Kong’s weather forecaster cancelled all rainstorm warnings on Thursday, following a morning of heavy rain that led to the suspension of morning and whole-day schools, with afternoon classes allowed to proceed. The Observatory earlier issued the red signal – the middle level in a three-tier system – at 5.05am, and soon after also issued a Special Landslip Advisory warning of potential landslid...
Hong Kong’s weather forecaster has downgraded the red rainstorm warning to amber, while education authorities announced that all morning and whole-day schools were suspended. The Observatory earlier issued the red signal – the middle level in a three-tier system – at 5.05am, and soon after also issued a Special Landslip Advisory warning of potential landslides in Po Toi Island due to heavy rain. T...
Hong Kong’s weather forecaster issued a red rainstorm warning on Thursday morning, while education authorities announced that all morning and whole-day schools were suspended. The Observatory issued the red signal – the middle level in a three-tier system – at 5.05am, and soon after also issued a Special Landslip Advisory warning of potential landslides in Po Toi Island due to heavy rain. The Educ...
China has launched the world’s first 100-kilowatt (kW) floating solar farm built with bamboo frames, offering a more environmentally friendly approach to offshore energy. The floating solar platform, named Jilin-2, is made of composite bamboo tubes and pipes. It has been deployed at a demonstration base off the coast of Yantai in the eastern province of Shandong. It will supply power to an integra...
Yung, an elderly Hong Kong resident, has spent hours hanging out at a neighbourhood shopping centre in Kwai Chung all summer. But he has not been going there to shop, instead taking refuge from the sweltering heat in the mall’s soothing air-conditioned arcade. The retiree, who lives in a 100 sq ft subdivided flat with his wife, is reluctant to use the air conditioner for long periods to avoid a he...
British insurer Prudential announced a US$300 million share buy-back, to be completed by December, as it reported an 8 per cent increase in new business profit for the first half of the year. The buy-back and slower profit growth came amid market concerns over a potential pullback in mainland Chinese visitors to Hong Kong that could test the performance of insurers in one of their largest markets....
On a farm up in the hills of South Korea’s Jeju Island, investigators this week uncovered what a mother had spent three months fearing they would not find: the body of her daughter. Jang Mi-ran, 37, vanished without a trace in May. Police records would later show her case had been quietly closed without anyone ever verifying if she was alive. It was the second such discovery in a matter of days. T...
Colombia’s new hard-right government wants to use prison ships adrift at sea to lock up people it considers highly dangerous criminals, a defence ministry source said on Wednesday. President Abelardo de la Espriella took office earlier this month, vowing to come down hard on armed groups in Colombia, the world’s largest cocaine producer. The US-backed millionaire campaigned on a pledge to bomb gue...
Another two Chinese robotics start-ups have confirmed plans to launch initial public offerings in Hong Kong as early as next year, boosting the city’s role as a prime fundraising hub for China’s fast-growing technology sector. The two Hangzhou-based firms – both founded by former executives at Alibaba Group Holding – are part of a wave of Chinese embodied artificial intelligence start-ups looking ...
Cooperation between the United States and China is required to manage the unprecedented societal impacts of rapidly advancing artificial intelligence (AI) technology, Bill Gates wrote in a new essay published on Wednesday. The call to action comes as the billionaire philanthropist and tech titan warns that AI is ushering in “one of the most turbulent times in human history”, which could either bec...
The South China Morning Post has launched a major data project diving into President Xi Jinping’s signature anti-graft campaign. In the third part of a series accompanying the data project, William Zheng looks at the relationship between rich regional resources and corruption. Beneath the desolate Gobi Desert and sparsely populated mountains of China’s less developed regions lie abundant mineral r...
