China has highlighted the fair treatment of all market entities in its new five-year economic plan, as it tries to reconcile development of both private and state firms and fend off criticism from foreign governments.However, Beijing’s emphasis of ...

Russia said it has slowed access to Twitter, accusing it of failing to take down pornographic and other banned content, escalating a growing push against foreign social networks.Authorities will slow access to Twitter on all mobile devices and on hal...

A Hong Kong martial arts athlete was jailed for six months on Wednesday for taking part in an unlawful assembly during an anti-government protest outside the city’s legislature in 2019.Kwong Yuk-ming’s lawyer told Eastern Court his client believe...

China is rolling out changes to monitor judges, streamline court procedures and boost judicial credibility that could result in the world’s first AI-integrated legal system.Through ambitious technological efforts, such as using big data analytics a...

One of the most dramatic claims in Prince Harry and Meghan’s interview with Oprah Winfrey was the allegation that their son was denied a royal title, possibly because of his skin colour.Harry and Meghan’s son, seventh in line to the British thron...

Police have launched an investigation into the death of four dogs believed to have been poisoned at a temple in northern Hong Kong on Wednesday.Officers were deployed to the Wun Chuen Sin Koon temple in Ta Kwu Ling just after 9am, when the four adult...

Stalls at a livestock market in southern China were shut down for selling hundreds of cats and dogs after a pet owner traced a missing cat there.The Pengjiang district government in Jiangmen, in Guangdong province, shut down the stalls at the Yuanhui...

Chile has overtaken Israel as the country with the most people vaccinated against the coronavirus per 100 residents within the past seven days.“Today we have a new reason to be proud: Chile has taken first place in the global ranking of doses admin...

Singapore has launched a travel “bubble” business hotel that allows executives to have face-to-face meetings without risk of exposure to the coronavirus, in one of the world’s first such facilities.The hotel has meeting rooms outfitted with air...

Britain’s ambassador to China says she stands by her article in which she complained about Beijing’s restrictions on foreign media after being summoned by the Chinese foreign ministry to answer for it.Caroline Wilson said in the piece, which she ...

Hong Kong police made five arrests on Tuesday as they busted a “compensated dating” service that cheated 10 men and a 13-year-old boy out of HK$2.8 million (US$360,000) with offers of companionship or sex.The biggest victim in monetary terms lost...

Myanmar security forces surrounded the staff compound of striking railway workers opposed to the military junta on Wednesday as ousted lawmakers appointed an acting vice-president to take over the duties of detained politicians.In New York, the Unite...

Pressure from Hong Kong doctors and patients groups demanding greater protection for those prone to vaccine side effects continued to grow on Wednesday, even as a top government official urged residents to stick with the city’s coronavirus inoculat...

Social media users from across Asia have hit out at a former butler to the British royal family after he said on Twitter that people should not eat rice with their “hands or fingers”.Grant Harrold, a self-proclaimed “etiquette expert” who pre...

This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Christopher Cadelgo and Natasha Korecki on politico.com on March 9, 2021.US President Joe Biden spent the first months of his presidency hunkered down as he...

Cathay Pacific Airways on Wednesday revealed record losses of HK$21.6 billion (US$2.8 billion) in 2020, a year blighted by the Covid-19 pandemic – the worst crisis in commercial aviation history.The Hong Kong flag carrier’s annual financial perfo...

China should accelerate plans to build a hydropower plant on a river near its disputed border with India, a senior official said at a meeting on the sidelines of the National People’s Congress.A proposal to construct dams on the lower reaches of th...

US President Joe Biden will not be attaching his signature to the US$1,400 relief cheques that are expected to be mailed soon – a break with his predecessor who last year had “President Donald J. Trump” printed on the economic impact payments a...

Journalist and television presenter Piers Morgan left his high-profile breakfast slot with the broadcaster ITV on Tuesday after his long-running criticism of Prince Harry’s wife Meghan reached a crescendo over the couple’s interview with Oprah Wi...

China’s factory gate prices continued to rise in February, as producers passed on rising raw material prices, data released on Wednesday showed.The producer price index (PPI), which reflects the prices that factories charge wholesalers for their pr...

When design director Amarindra Rana walks along the bridge next to the International Finance Centre (IFC) in Central every day, he feels sad to see a near two-kilometre harbourfront left empty for almost 10 years. So he decided to try to do something...

Imagine if, every Sunday, a crowd sat at the intersection of Wall Street and Broadway in New York City. A passer-by could mistake the scene for a silent protest or a sit-down strike. The spectacle would be an embarrassment to the financial capital of...

Bosses of some Hong Kong companies are considering incentives for staff to take Covid-19 jabs after their industries were added to the list of priority groups for vaccination this week.Employers are pinning their hopes on the inoculation programme to...

At lunchtime on a recent weekday, Gu Zekun removed signboards at his small restaurant inside a Beijing shopping centre.After struggling for more than a year in the throes of the coronavirus pandemic, Gu had no choice but to shut down his roast duck r...

It was a Friday when disaster struck, and all along Japan’s northeast coast, people were looking forward to the weekend. Office workers watched the clock, counting down the hours until the working week would be done – when, at 2.46pm, just as sch...

India plans to buy 30 armed drones from the US to boost its sea and land defences as tensions persist with neighbours China and Pakistan, according to officials with knowledge of the matter.The South Asian nation will approve next month the US$3 bill...

A Hong Kong court on Tuesday concluded a 15-year legal feud within the family of late billionaire Eric Hotung by awarding HK$1 to one of his sons who was not told about his interests in two trusts upon reaching the majority age of 21.Anthony Hotung t...

A court in China has ordered two TV drama series’ producers and a property company to pay a total of 400,000 yuan (US$63,000) to a woman for using her holiday villa to film scenes without obtaining her permission.The woman hired a property manageme...

Unable to match the pace of China’s military budget increases, the Pentagon needs to restructure and work more closely with allies to improve efficiency and otherwise counter Beijing’s growing assertiveness, the nation’s top Pacific naval comma...

Scammers have cheated more than 100 Hongkongers out of HK$2.2 million (US$283,000) since November through phishing text messages and emails purporting to be from Hongkong Post, while demand for delivery services during the coronavirus pandemic surged...

Chinese authorities’ treatment of Uygurs in China’s northwest meets every criteria of genocide under the United Nations’ Genocide Convention, said a group of experts in international law, war crimes and the Xinjiang region in a new analysis.Pub...

A first ever leaders’ meeting of the Quad group of countries on Friday plans to announce financing agreements to support an increase in manufacturing capacity for coronavirus vaccines in India, according to a senior US administration official.The f...

US President Joe Biden will hold first-ever joint talks on Friday with the leaders of Australia, India and Japan, boosting an emerging four-way alliance often cast as a bulwark against China.It will be one of the first summits, albeit in virtual form...

Mexico announced a huge bet on Covid-19 vaccines from China on Tuesday, without making public any information about their efficacy.Foreign Relations Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said the Mexican government has signed agreements for 12 million doses of th...

Amid a global review of supply chains, centred on reducing reliance on countries such as China, an Australian-listed critical commodities specialist and its German-based graphite partner have joined the 500-member European Battery Alliance to provide...

With US-China relations attracting much of the world’s attention after US President Joe Biden was sworn in, Britain is still earning its share of limelight for its playing hardball against China. Some British politicians have moved to concur with t...

The “first dogs” are in the dog house – for now.President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden’s pet pooches were sent back to their home in Delaware after one of them bit a White House guard, according to reports.But White House spokeswoman J...

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth on Tuesday responded to explosive racism claims from her grandson Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle, voicing deep concern and sympathising with their troubles with royal life.“The whole family is saddened to learn ...

Moscow and Beijing have taken their cooperation on lunar exploration one step further by signing an agreement to build an international research station on the moon.China and Russia’s national space agencies signed a memorandum of understanding on ...

China’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday it had summoned Britain’s ambassador to Beijing to lodge stern representations over an “inappropriate” article she wrote defending recent international media coverage on China.Caroline Wilson’s artic...

Enshi was an enigma during China’s coronavirus outbreak.The city in western Hubei province recorded six Covid-19 cases per 100,000 residents. Elsewhere in Hubei, infection rates were between two and 20 times higher. Scientists had no clue why the c...

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi said they would work together to realise a free and open Indo-Pacific during a 40-minute phone conversation on Tuesday.The two leaders agreed to boost cooperation bilater...

The biggest party in the European Parliament is set to adopt a hardline policy on China, including an investment treaty with Taiwan and a total ban on goods “produced in re-education camps”, according to a draft position document seen by the Sout...

“The East is rising while the West is declining” has become a common refrain for Chinese officials ahead of the Communist Party’s centenary this summer.It has also been a popular discussion point at the annual legislative sessions under way in ...

The White House has confirmed that Chinese and US diplomats are “directly engaged” in talks, in response to questions over an exclusive report in the South China Morning Post that plans are afoot for a senior level meeting in Alaska.“Of course ...

Targeted coronavirus lockdowns were expanded in the Philippine capital on Tuesday and nighttime curfews reintroduced in hotspots as authorities battle a resurgence in infections.The number of new daily cases has soared past 3,000 in recent days – t...

Countries around the world have a duty to prioritise gender equality among their policy mandates and overcome slow progress on the issue through greater “political will”, Singapore President Halimah Yacob told a South China Morning Post-sponsored...

The pace of electrification on China’s roads will accelerate, with three out of five new cars powered by battery packs by 2030, according to a forecast by UBS.The Swiss bank expects China to sell 6.6 million electric cars in 2025, about 25 per cent...

These are the issues that topped Tuesday’s agenda at the abridged annual sessions of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in Beijing:Backlash: US lawmakers condemn China’s plan to...

China’s military must be “prepared to respond” to complex and difficult situations as the country grapples with security challenges, President Xi Jinping said on Tuesday.Xi, who also heads the Central Military Commission, made the remarks at a ...