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China and the US should strive for “normal stability with controllable disagreements” in their relations, a senior Chinese official has urged in the latest semi-official dialogue with Washington. During the talks on Tuesday, Liu Haixing, head of the Communist Party’s International Department, said the two countries should expand the “pie” of shared interests to achieve positive stability anchored ...
The Chinese Medicine Hospital of Hong Kong will launch 24-hour inpatient services in December, the first of its kind in the city, and charge patients HK$980 (US$125) per day for subsidised care, more than three times the fee at public hospitals. The city’s first dedicated traditional Chinese medicine hospital will also launch 10 additional special disease programmes within this year to help treat ...
Hong Kong’s tourism watchdog has suspended a jewellery shop from receiving tour groups for 30 days after finding it failed to stop a guide from coercing mainland Chinese visitors into making purchases. The Travel Industry Authority (TIA) said on Tuesday that Kaiser Jewellery International would be barred from receiving any inbound tour group visitors from Wednesday until September 24. “The authori...
Like many Kuwaitis, Ghanim Alsulaimani still vividly remembers Iraqi tanks rolling through his hometown when his small Gulf state faced extinction had US troops not liberated it from invasion. Now, decades later and six months into the US-Iran war, some are seeing those same American troops as more of a liability than an asset, as their presence has put Kuwait in Tehran’s line of fire. Since the M...
Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has urged the country’s filmmakers to think more freely, even as recent censorship battles show how tightly the state still controls what can reach the screen. Anwar said an industry forced to repeatedly seek official approval for individual scenes could not become more creative or competitive, calling for fewer restrictions on filmmakers at a time when Mala...
The usage of open-weight AI models from China hit a record high on a popular US web development platform, driven largely by DeepSeek’s latest lightweight model, as business demand for Anthropic’s cutting-edge Fable 5 stalls due to high costs. Open-weight models accounted for 54 per cent of token volume on Vercel’s AI Gateway on Tuesday, surpassing the 46 per cent consumed by proprietary models, ac...
The usage of open-weight AI models from China hit a record high on a popular US web development platform, driven largely by DeepSeek’s latest lightweight model, as business demand for Anthropic’s cutting-edge Fable 5 stalls due to high costs. Open-weight models accounted for 54 per cent of token volume on Vercel’s AI Gateway on Tuesday, surpassing the 46 per cent consumed by proprietary models, ac...
Chinese fighter jets have conducted combat training with their Egyptian counterparts in a joint exercise following a major Chinese air force deployment to the Middle East. The drill, which was launched on Saturday and is expected to continue until early next month, is part of the second China-Egypt “Eagles of Civilisation” joint air force training exercises, taking place against the backdrop of th...
A street food vendor in central China received widespread acclaim after discreetly slipping 100 yuan (US$15) into a takeaway order for a family whose child was undergoing chemotherapy. On August 17, Wang Xianhuang, an egg pancake vendor in Hefei, Anhui province, noticed a heartfelt note attached to a food delivery order that read, “For a child undergoing chemotherapy. Please do not include shredde...
A street food vendor in central China received widespread acclaim after discreetly slipping 100 yuan (US$15) into a takeaway order for a family whose child was undergoing chemotherapy. On August 17, Wang Xianhuang, an egg pancake vendor in Hefei, Anhui province, noticed a heartfelt note attached to a food delivery order that read, “For a child undergoing chemotherapy. Please do not include shredde...
A street food vendor in central China received widespread acclaim after discreetly slipping 100 yuan (US$15) into a takeaway order for a family whose child was undergoing chemotherapy. On August 17, Wang Xianhuang, an egg pancake vendor in Hefei, Anhui province, noticed a heartfelt note attached to a food delivery order that read, “For a child undergoing chemotherapy. Please do not include shredde...
A street food vendor in central China received widespread acclaim after discreetly slipping 100 yuan (US$15) into a takeaway order for a family whose child was undergoing chemotherapy. On August 17, Wang Xianhuang, an egg pancake vendor in Hefei, Anhui province, noticed a heartfelt note attached to a food delivery order that read, “For a child undergoing chemotherapy. Please do not include shredde...
Customers will face higher electricity bills next month as Hong Kong’s two power suppliers will raise fuel-related charges, with the firms blaming geopolitical tensions and volatility in international energy markets. As electricity costs rise, CLP Power and HK Electric have introduced rebate and relief schemes as grass-roots households face higher air-conditioning costs after a summer with an unus...
Hong Kong’s two electricity suppliers will raise fuel-related charges from next month, citing geopolitical tensions and volatility in international energy markets. As electricity costs rise, CLP Power and HK Electric have introduced rebate and relief schemes as grass-roots households face higher air-conditioning expenses after a summer with an unusually large number of very hot days. HK Electric, ...
A man who hid behind some plants to film a couple having extramarital sex at a rooftop garden in Singapore later used the video to threaten the woman while asking for sex and cash. When the police began investigating, the offender asked the woman to drop the case, even approaching her sister at a supermarket. Despite this ongoing investigation, the man targeted another couple having sex in a parke...
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s crackdown on corruption is picking up pace even after more than a decade of investigations, according to a South China Morning Post deep dive. There were 65 probes into civilian officials of vice-ministerial grade or above last year versus just 19 in 2013, when Xi took office, the research shows. The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), China’s top an...
Hong Kong exports surged by 50.7 per cent year on year in July, driven by “impressive growth” in artificial intelligence-related electronic products, with the government expecting the robust demand to continue supporting trade development despite geopolitical risks. Provisional figures released by the Census and Statistics Department on Tuesday showed that the value of exports jumped to HK$672.5 b...
China’s muted response to North Korea’s latest missile launch, which came soon after top diplomat Wang Yi’s visit to Seoul, underscores how Beijing is prioritising Pyongyang’s stability over near‑term denuclearisation, according to analysts. North Korea started launching more than 10 short-range ballistic missiles just hours after Wang concluded his two-day visit on Thursday, the foreign minister’...
The Philippines has cut its official poverty rate to below 10 per cent for the first time, a milestone officials hailed as proof that millions of Filipinos are climbing the economic ladder. Yet for families like Vhan Castro’s, there is a big difference between being officially counted as middle class and actually feeling financially secure. The 34-year-old earns an average of 40,000 pesos (US$650)...
A Hong Kong court has acquitted a government statistician accused of loitering near a girls’ school and outside a classroom to photograph a pupil, ruling that his conduct did not pose an actual threat despite leaving the girl feeling unsafe. Eastern Court Magistrate Kestrel Lam Tsz-hong on Tuesday found 59-year-old Patrick Lam Win-hon not guilty of one count of loitering causing concern, despite a...
South Korea is preparing to overhaul the rules governing technical qualification exams after five candidates were caught using AI-powered smart glasses to cheat in just over two months. The five cases, reported between May and June, were disclosed in data submitted to the Human Resources Development Service of Korea by opposition politician Kim So-hee, according to a report by The Korea Herald on ...
A coalition may call itself a commitment. It still has to say what that commitment is. The Trump administration is reportedly preparing to send a letter to dozens of countries, pressing them to choose sides in the US-China artificial intelligence race. Those that join Beijing’s proposed AI cooperation framework would be excluded from the US-led AI coalition. “To be part of everything is to be part...
The Philippines plans to expand its unmanned capabilities, including through development and acquisition of drones as part of efforts to modernise its military, its defence chief said on Tuesday. US defence ally the Philippines also planned to acquire additional guided-missile corvettes and other major defence assets to strengthen its external defence capabilities, Defence Secretary Gilberto T...
Israel’s escalating campaign to stop Syria rebuilding its military with Turkish help looks set to backfire, after Damascus signalled it was considering joining the new mutual-defence pact formed by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Securing a Washington-mediated security deal with Israel was still Damascus’ top priority, Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani reportedly told Roman Gofman, the ...
Three domestic helpers in Hong Kong have been sacked and issued warning letters after providing their employers’ personal data without consent to secure loans, resulting in the households being harassed by debt collectors. Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data Ada Chung Lai-ling said on Tuesday that, in each of the three cases, the names, phone numbers and addresses of employers were originally o...
South Korean carmaker Hyundai Motor and the union representing its workers have reached a tentative deal on wages and bonuses, both sides said on Tuesday after a rare full-day strike. Around 40,000 employees of a roughly 73,000-strong domestic workforce at the country’s largest carmaker walked off the job on Friday, according to union figures, in the first such action for a decade. The union said ...
Xiaomi’s long-term push into proprietary silicon is laying the groundwork for complex artificial intelligence workloads on smartphones and cars, analysts say, as the Chinese tech giant doubles down on self-developed chips despite an earnings slump and soaring component costs. On Monday it unveiled its flagship Xring O3 3-nanometre AI processor for smartphones, which is scheduled to debut in Septem...
Xiaomi’s long-term push into proprietary silicon is laying the groundwork for complex artificial intelligence workloads on smartphones and cars, analysts say, as the Chinese tech giant doubles down on self-developed chips despite an earnings slump and soaring component costs. On Monday it unveiled its flagship Xring O3 3-nanometre AI processor for smartphones, which is scheduled to debut in Septem...
We have selected seven stories from the SCMP’s coverage of Asia over the past week that resonated with our readers and shed light on topical issues. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. Islamic university sacks professor who claimed Malays could fly A Malaysian Islamic university has formally distanced itself from an academic whose viral claims about anci...
For months, Masoumeh Zakeri has endlessly replayed the last night she spent with her nine-year-old daughter before she was killed in a strike on her school during the opening hours of the US-Israel war with Iran. Motahreh excitedly talked about coming holidays, planned weddings and the clothes she wanted to buy. She had a Ramadan pre-fast meal shortly before dawn and then Zakeri tucked her into be...
