A South Korean woman who was deluged with thousands of prank calls and text messages after her phone number was highlighted as a key plot point in Netflix’s hit show Squid Game may soon get some relief.Netflix and local production company Siren Pic...

Merck on Wednesday announced it had entered into an agreement with Singapore to provide molnupiravir, an investigational antiviral drug to treat Covid-19, once it is authorised or approved.Molnupiravir is designed to introduce errors into the genetic...

Chinese diplomats have told officials from the Group of 20 nations that President Xi Jinping does not plan to attend a summit in Italy this month in person, according to four people familiar with the matter.The message was conveyed at a meeting of G2...

Beijing high schooler Chen Zhichu used to spend 30 minutes a day boosting actor Xiao Zhan online as one of a legion of superfans, before the practice fell foul of the government for promoting “unhealthy values”.State regulations last month banned...

The head of the aviation industry’s main lobbying group has “nudged” China towards reopening its borders, noting the strategic importance of the country’s huge air-travel market to airlines the world over struggling to recover from the impact...

The estranged younger brother of Singapore’s prime minister is selling his resort-style home amid a surge in demand for luxury properties in the city state.The two-story bungalow, a local term for the equivalent of a mansion, is on sale for S$16.8 ...

Countries must resolve disagreements in the coming days over details of new global rules to share tax revenues from the world’s biggest companies and set a minimum rate, or the talks could founder, French finance minister Bruno Le Maire said. Rais...

Mainland China will have the ability to mount a full-scale invasion of Taiwan by 2025, Taiwanese Defence Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng told the island’s legislature on Wednesday.Chiu warned of the risk of a cross-strait conflict as tensions mount in the ...

Fantasia Holdings Group, the debt-laden property developer founded by the niece of a former Chinese vice-president, has been downgraded to default or near default status by the three major credit rating companies after it missed a bond repayment this...

This article has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by subscribing.Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor delivered her last policy address on Wednesday morning with less...

When President Xi Jinping held a virtual summit in July with French President Emmanuel Macron and outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel, he pointed out that Africa was “the continent with the greatest development potential”.Xi proposed that th...

A US man is suing a psychic who said she could remove a curse on his marriage put there by a witch hired by his ex-girlfriend.Mauro Restrepo claims the clairvoyant had promised he would be happy again if he paid her US$5,100 to exorcise the spell.But...

US President Joe Biden said on Tuesday that he had spoken to Chinese President Xi Jinping about Taiwan and they agreed to abide by the Taiwan agreement, as tensions have ratcheted up between Taipei and Beijing.“I’ve spoken with Xi about Taiwan. W...

Former US president Donald Trump is no longer wealthy enough to make Forbes magazine's list of the 400 richest Americans.Trump is currently worth an estimated US$2.5 billion, leaving him US$400 million short of the cut-off to make this year’s list,...

K-pop superstar boy band BTS has raised US$3.6 million and generated millions of tweets during four years of teaming up with the UN children’s agency to fight violence, abuse and bullying and promote self-esteem in young people, according to the ag...

This blog has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by subscribing. Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor will deliver her last policy address on Wednesday morning with le...

The number of property deals taking place in Hong Kong is set to slide for a third month in October as buyers await clarity on housing policy amid rumours that Beijing is muscling in to control the local market.The overall number of transactions, inc...

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg addressed a recent series of negative stories about the company for the first time by saying accusations that it puts profit over user safety are “just not true”.“It’s difficult to see coverage that misrepresents ...

Genetic traces in the body of a teenager who died 7,000 years ago furnish the first clue that mixing between early humans in Indonesia and those from faraway Siberia took place much earlier than previously thought.Theories about early human migration...

Civil society groups in Malaysia have warned of growing racial and religious intolerance in Malaysia following two controversies on social media at the weekend, one involving a Muslim preacher and one involving a senior politician.In a viral TikTok v...

A rare plot of residential land coming up for auction in Repulse Bay is likely to attract the interest of developers as the luxury housing market improves amid an easing of the coronavirus pandemic, according to market observers.It is one of two parc...

In China, where a zero-tolerance approach is still being deployed against Covid-19, infection with the virus can mean not just physical suffering but also mental pain.A 38-year-old father surnamed Lin and his family were among the first patients in a...

Qizhala, chairman of the Tibet autonomous region in China’s mountainous west, has left Lhasa to take up a new job in Beijing, according to a source close to the government.His vacancy is expected to be filled by Lhasa Communist Party chief Yan Jinh...

The US State Department published on Tuesday the number of nuclear warheads the country stockpiles for the first time in four years, after former president Donald Trump placed a blackout on the data.As of September 30, 2020, the US military maintaine...

The Romanian government of liberal Prime Minister Florin Citu was ousted by a no-confidence vote among MPs on Tuesday, threatening fresh political instability in one of the EU’s poorest states.Former banker Citu had only been prime minister since D...

Li Dong is busy these days decorating his new barbecue restaurant in a northern Pearl River Delta community that is rumbling back to life two years after Samsung closed its smartphone factory that had operated there for almost three decades.The South...

The administration of US President Joe Biden will seek out public comment on whether to reinstate any of the Trump-era exclusions to tariffs on Chinese goods that had expired at the end of last year and the beginning of 2021, it announced on Tuesday....

A group of 45 Western countries demanded at the global toxic arms watchdog on Tuesday that Russia provide urgent answers about the poisoning of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.Moscow now has 10 days to respond to the questions posed by the EU and count...

Archaeologists in Jerusalem have found what they believe to be an ancient lavatory they estimate being around 2,700 years old.The unassuming little privy was once part of a magnificent royal estate from the 7th century BC, Israel's Antiquities Author...

The White House confirmed on Tuesday that US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan will meet with China’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, in Europe this week, as the two sides seek to reduce the soaring tensions between them.Sullivan and Yang will mee...

The US nuclear power regulator last month suspended the shipment of radioactive materials and a hydrogen isotope used in reactors to China’s largest state-owned nuclear company, CGN, reflecting Washington’s concerns about the country’s build-up...

This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Alexandra S. Levine and Claire Rafford on politico.com on October 5, 2021.Whistle-blower Frances Haugen came to the Senate on Tuesday with a message about F...

Chinese scientists say they have developed a camera to quickly detect defects on solar panels in daylight, unlike existing systems that require the panels to be moved into the shade or checked at night for damage.Wu Sheng, from Nanjing University of ...

Social workers convicted of a national security offence will be struck off under proposed legislative amendments put forward by the Hong Kong government.Pro-establishment lawmakers have been pressing for tighter control over social workers, who have ...

Military commanders from China and India are expected to hold a 13th round of talks on their border dispute by the middle of this month – but in the run-up to the dialogue, the nuclear-armed neighbours have ramped up deployments along their 3,488km...

In their first talks on China for a full year, leaders of the European Union’s 27 member states discussed the need to “rebalance” the bloc’s relationship with Beijing, according to an EU official who was present.They talked about the need for...

Microsoft released Windows 11 on Tuesday but many personal computer users in China found themselves unable to switch to the latest version of the operating system as their devices lack a critical component called a trusted platform module (TPM) chip....

Two activists who disappeared last month in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou had been detained by police, a family member was told by authorities.However, Guangzhou police refused to disclose what charges high-profile women’s rights campai...

Prosecutors grilled by Hong Kong’s top court have conceded no lacuna in the law existed that required invoking a legal principle to go after culprits who contributed to unlawful assemblies and riots without being present at the scene.The Court of F...

More than 70 per cent of young doctors in Hong Kong suffer from work-related burnout while one-fifth have depression, a survey by the city’s medical specialist training institution has found.The Hong Kong Academy of Medicine published the findings ...

A group of French senators including a former defence minister will visit Taiwan this week, the island’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday, with the visit coming at a time of soaring tensions between Taipei and Beijing and despite China’s oppositi...

Top respiratory disease expert Zhong Nanshan has got people wondering if China is about to ease its tough stand on border restrictions.In an interview with Southern People Weekly magazine over the weekend, he listed the prerequisites for reopening: 8...

Hong Kong authorities have seized a record 1,700 tonnes of frozen meat worth HK$500 million (US$64 million) that may have been destined for mainland China, according to police.The haul, comprising mainly frozen beef and some offal, was found in 68 sh...

China has called on developed countries to shoulder “more [of the] financial burden” at the United Nations, while blaming “one major contributor” for not paying its dues, in an apparent reference to the US.“Despite repeated calls by most me...

French Catholic clergy sexually abused some 216,000 minors from 1950 to 2020, a “massive phenomenon” that was covered up for decades by a “veil of silence”, an independent commission said on Tuesday.The commission’s two and a half year inve...

China’s infamous dancing grannies gather at all hours of the day, often first thing in the morning or when the neighbourhood begins to sleep.The groups of mostly older women, dancing in unison to Chinese music, are simultaneously a valuable social ...

A year after a proposal to waive intellectual property rights for Covid-19 vaccines was put forward its future remains unclear, with a handful of nations again blocking its path at a World Trade Organization meeting on Monday.India and South Africa s...

Three scientists won the Nobel Prize for physics on Tuesday for work that found order in seeming disorder, helping to explain and predict complex forces of nature, including expanding our understanding of climate change.Syukuro Manabe, originally fro...

China ordered its banks to ramp up funding to coal and energy companies, another step in its efforts to ease a power crunch and ensure supplies this winter.Banks and other financial institutions should prioritise lending to qualified mines and power ...

New Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida wasted no time in indicating his position on key security issues on his first full day in the job, speaking with President Joe Biden on Tuesday morning and obtaining the US leader’s commitment to step in if...