US forces carried out a military exercise in waters close to disputed islands in the East China Sea in mid-February, ahead of a Quad meeting and a visit by top US officials to Japan, national broadcaster NHK reported on Thursday.The manoeuvres involv...

Beijing says it will “respond firmly and forcefully” if Canberra fails to reverse its decision to cancel two deals agreed between China and the Australian state of Victoria as relations between the two countries continue to simmer.“Australia sa...

Hong Kong’s unemployment rate dropped to 6.8 per cent in the first quarter of this year but was still hovering around a 17-year high, with the city’s labour chief warning the job market may still face challenges in the near term. The rolling fig...

Taiwan has begun to assess how it can reach zero emissions by 2050, President Tsai Ing-wen said on Thursday, after green groups criticised the government for not doing enough to fight climate change.Taiwan, though excluded from most international bod...

A driver of a KMB double-decker was arrested for dangerous driving after the vehicle knocked down a passer-by, crashed through a roadwork site and mounted a pavement in Hong Kong on Thursday.The double-decker, driven by a 63-year-old man, was leaving...

Australia and New Zealand on Thursday played down their differences on managing ties with China, even as Wellington’s top diplomat reiterated hesitancy about using a five-nation intelligence alliance to confront Beijing on human rights. Australian...

A freelance producer with Hong Kong’s public broadcaster has been convicted of providing false statements and fined HK$6,000 (US$773) over the making of a documentary critical of how police handled a mob attack at a railway station during 2019’s ...

A Hong Kong construction worker has been jailed for 32 months for molesting seven women under the pretext of helping them brush off insects he claimed were crawling on their bodies – a tactic he admitted using to assault more than 70 victims. Cheun...

The foreign ministers of China and Germany have underscored the need for Brussels to engage rather than isolate Beijing as sanctions over alleged labour abuses in Xinjiang cast a shadow over a landmark investment agreement with the EU.The call for co...

After more than 50 years of living with her partner, a Chinese lesbian woman in her late 70s faced a lawsuit from her partner’s family to return money, jewellery and even appliances that they shared.The ruling came despite the judge’s acknowledge...

Local tours in Hong Kong could resume early next month after the industry struck a deal with the government that no longer required sightseers to get vaccinated against the coronavirus, according to the city’s tourism lawmaker.But at least one publ...

An outspoken Hong Kong church leader known for his public criticism of the national security law and the ill-fated extradition bill that triggered the 2019 anti-government protests has resigned from his post and moved to Britain.Reverend Lo Hing-choi...

India recorded the world’s highest daily tally of 314,835 Covid-19 infections on Thursday as a second wave of the pandemic raised new fears about the ability of crumbling health services to cope.Hospitals across northern and western India including...

Despite American bans on key products and sanctions on major companies, Xinjiang’s direct exports to the United States more than doubled in the first quarter of 2021 - a trend that has baffled analysts.Exports from the western Chinese region surged...

Hong Kong and Singapore have delayed a planned Thursday announcement of the launch of a long-awaited travel bubble to next week, according to two people familiar with the matter.One of them said that as of Wednesday night, the understanding among par...

US President Joe Biden was preparing to formally acknowledge that the systematic killing and deportation of hundreds of thousands of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire in modern-day Turkey more than a century ago was genocide, according to US officials....

The United Nations is the ideal forum for Beijing and Washington to build the international political will to combat climate change, the UN envoy to China said, ahead of Thursday’s leaders’ summit on the issue. Siddharth Chatterjee, who became th...

Cathay Pacific Airways will close its Canadian pilot base, and is considering doing the same to ones in Australia and New Zealand, putting hundreds of jobs at risk, the Post has learned.The moves come as part of a review of the airline’s overseas c...

Hong Kong customs has arrested six people including a couple and their son on suspicion of laundering about HK$2.5 billion (US$322 million) through 59 bank accounts over two years, as officers investigate possible links to an even bigger criminal cas...

The Myanmar military’s crackdown on anti-coup protesters has displaced close to a quarter of a million people, according to a United Nations rights envoy.The junta has stepped up its use of lethal force to quash mass demonstrations against a Februa...

Indonesia’s long-held ambitions for creating a tech hub in the image of Silicon Valley appear to be taking shape, with work about to start on a multibillion-dollar project that will cover 888 hectares in West Java and be known as Algorithm Hill.The...

A missile launched from Syria struck southern Israel early Thursday, setting off air raid sirens near the country’s top-secret nuclear reactor, the Israeli military said. In response, it said it attacked the missile launcher and air-defence systems...

China’s total box office numbers for 2021 topped US$3 billion on the weekend as the industry continues its recovery from a coronavirus pandemic that placed immense pressure on the Chinese film industry. The box office numbers are nearly equal to t...

A doctor in the central Chinese city of Wuhan who was hailed as a hero in the fight against Covid-19 is locked in a drawn-out medical dispute over her claim that a private hospital’s negligence left her nearly blind in one eye. Ai Fen, director of ...

Hong Kong cannot afford to miss the opportunities offered by the Greater Bay Area development and must re-establish the city’s lost position as the business centre for overseas Chinese, leading businessman Victor Fung Kwok-king has told the Post. T...

Nasa’s Perseverance rover keeps making history.The six-wheeled robot has converted some carbon dioxide from the Martian atmosphere into oxygen, the first time this has happened on another planet, the space agency said Wednesday.“This is a critica...

After rebuking Japan last week over its plan to discharge contaminated water from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant into the ocean and threatening to petition an international court, South Korea’s Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong seemed to strike ...

Hong Kong’s secondary schools are preparing to hold university entrance exams this week amid Covid-19 pandemic restrictions, with at least two students set to take the tests at government quarantine facilities under new arrangements.Some students a...

US President Joe Biden thinks “the bar is too high” for convicting violent police officers and will use his speech to Congress next week to push for reform, a spokeswoman said on Wednesday.“He believes the bar for convicting officers is too hig...

Rising unemployment has been roiling Hong Kong’s economy since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. Recently, Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung Kin-chung revealed that about 35,500 young people were jobless between December last year and February t...

On the eve of the US-led Leaders Summit on Climate, we take a look at China’s climate ambitions and what the West’s expectations are. This series by the South China Morning Post looks at what we can expect from Thursday’s meeting.It’s now of...

Police arrested nearly 1,500 people on Wednesday during a day of demonstrations throughout Russia calling for freedom for imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny, whose health reportedly is in severe decline after three weeks of hunger striking, ...

More aid to Africa and Latin America, greater funding for technology industries and a more robust US development bank were among the initiatives added on Wednesday to a landmark bill intended to improve the US’ ability to compete with China.“The ...

Huawei Technologies executive Meng Wanzhou has won an application to adjourn her Canadian extradition case for more than three months in light of new evidence being provided by the bank HSBC, throwing the schedule for the already-marathon case into d...

A Chinese drone maker says it has manufactured a prototype unmanned stealth aircraft that it claims could rival the B-21 Raider being developed for the US Air Force.Zhongtian Feilong Intelligent Technology, based in Xian, said in a statement on its W...

A car bomb blast ripped through a luxury hotel’s parking area in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta on Wednesday, killing four people and wounding 11, officials said.China’s ambassador to Pakistan was staying at the hotel, but was not ther...

Relations between China and Australia have become fraught over the past year after Canberra pushed for an international probe into the origin of the coronavirus without diplomatic consultations beforehand, and Beijing eventually responded with a nu...

Russia is ready to start building its own space station with the aim of launching it into orbit by 2030 if President Vladimir Putin gives the go-ahead, the head of its Roscosmos space agency said on Wednesday.The project would mark a new chapter for ...

A bipartisan group of US lawmakers on Wednesday introduced legislation calling for US$100 billion in government spending over five years on basic and advanced technology research and science in the face of rising competitive pressure from China.The m...

Last week, just days after the Biden administration placed China atop its list of global threats, the US Senate confirmed Wendy Sherman, a long-time diplomat who has negotiated with US adversaries like Iran and North Korea, as the No 2 official in th...

A US government commission on Wednesday urged the Biden administration to not send officials to the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, citing religious persecution including China’s repression of Uygurs, which Washington has labelled genocide.Preside...

A new generation of nuclear power facilities that China is developing could produce large amounts of plutonium that could be used to make nuclear weapons, the head of the US Strategic Command warned lawmakers this week.China is developing fast breede...

The Biden administration hopes China will unveil further measures to combat the climate crisis at the US-hosted climate summit this week, said a senior administration official on Wednesday. Chinese President Xi Jinping is among an expected roster of ...

Hong Kong medical experts have called for better monitoring of the mental well-being of teenagers confined at home during the Covid-19 pandemic after two boys needed medical treatment for inserting foreign objects into themselves. According to the la...

South Korean President Moon Jae-in urged US President Joe Biden to open up talks with North Korea on its nuclear weapons and build on the groundbreaking talks his predecessor Donald Trump held with Pyongyang.In an interview with The New York Times pu...

Hong Kong’s private residential market will see more small flats in the next three years, accounting for more than 40 per cent of new homes for sale, according to a think tank. Our Hong Kong Foundation (OHKF), set up by former chief executive Tung...

Chad faced an uncertain future on Wednesday as the son of slain leader Idriss Deby took power in what the opposition called a coup and Western allies that rely on the country’s military might pleaded for stability.Deby had ruled the impoverished de...

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga on Tuesday downplayed the possibility of getting militarily involved in the Taiwan issue after angering Beijing with a call for “peace and stability” across the strait.Suga made the call with US President Jo...

New Yorker Fred Teng has a simple message.With thousands of hate crimes against Asian-Americans reported amid the coronavirus pandemic, the president of the not-for-profit America China Public Affairs Institute wants to make one thing clear.“We jus...