In his first policy speech on Friday, Japan’s new Prime Minister Fumio Kishida promised to strengthen pandemic management and health care in case of another coronavirus resurgence, and turn around the battered economy while bolstering the country�...

China’s stocks may break out from their sideways ambling of the previous quarter to advance in the final three months of 2021, as policymakers are likely to loosen monetary policies to mitigate any economic fallout from the nation’s power shortag...

A HK$120 million haul of crystal meth was found hidden inside five solar panels sent to Hong Kong from Mexico, customs officials said on Friday.The 180kg haul was the second air consignment of the drug airmailed into the city from Mexico in a month, ...

Alleged links to an anal acupuncturist and a Rasputin-like preacher could prove damaging for a conservative politician hoping to become South Korea’s next president.Yoon Seok-youl, the front-runner to represent the main opposition People Power Part...

The hit from China’s energy crunch is starting to ripple throughout the globe, hurting everyone from Toyota Motor to Australian sheep farmers and makers of cardboard boxes.Not only is the extreme electricity shortage in the world’s largest export...

Singapore’s government has been soliciting feedback on its tax regime, including having conversations around wealth taxes, as discourse grows around this potentially sensitive topic.While the government regularly consults various industry groups on...

Hong Kong’s 51-day streak without a local Covid-19 infection is over, after an airport worker was confirmed as being positive for the coronavirus, the Post has learned.It is uncertain if the local case could affect the continuing discussions on reo...

US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Thursday his talks with China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi in Switzerland on Wednesday avoided the acrimony of a meeting in March and that more were needed to avert conflict between the two countries...

Most people in Taiwan are not expecting an imminent war over the island despite high cross-strait tensions, surveys suggest – but it is a sentiment that risks complacency, according to analysts.On Monday, 56 People’s Liberation Army (PLA) fighter...

Chinese officials ordered more than 70 mines in Inner Mongolia to ramp up coal production by nearly 100 million tonnes as the country battles its worst power crunch and coal shortages in years.The move is the latest attempt by Chinese authorities to ...

A powerful magnitude 5.9 earthquake shook the Tokyo area of Japan on Thursday night, injuring more than 30 people, damaging underground water pipes and halting trains and undergrounds.Officials said there was no danger of a tsunami but traffic was di...

Australia’s assertion that it could not inform France of its top-secret talks with the United States and Britain to build nuclear submarines is “childish”, the French envoy to Canberra said on Friday.Australia walked away from a US$40 billion d...

Activity in China’s services sector returned to growth in September as a major coronavirus outbreak in the eastern province of Jiangsu receded, a private-sector survey showed on Friday, offering some support to a slowing economy.The Caixin/Markit s...

For an example of just how nuanced and multilayered China’s relationship is with Southeast Asian countries, one needs to look no farther than its ties with Malaysia.On some days, uninitiated commentators could be forgiven for thinking that Beijing ...

Start-up New Life Plastics (NLP) plans to process up to a quarter of Hong Kong’s waste plastic bottles through the city’s first advanced, large-scale professional recycling plant, converting them into materials safe to be reused as food and drink...

Most of the land earmarked to plug a shortfall of 3,000 hectares in space-starved Hong Kong over the next 30 years is unlikely to be available for at least a decade, with projects facing hurdles such as financing uncertainties and potential local obj...

Will she or won’t she? That was the question uppermost in many minds on Wednesday after Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor spent more than two hours mapping out her vision for Hong Kong.Political pundits pored over her 168-paragraph speech and a 202-page s...

After 17 months stranded overseas, Allison Bradwell is not getting her hopes up about Australia’s plans to reopen its international borders as vaccination rates hit key thresholds next month.The Sydney native, who lives in Kuala Lumpur with her hus...

A South Korean tycoon who was behind one of Metro Vancouver’s biggest property developments has lost a long court battle against extradition to his native country, where he faces multimillion-dollar fraud charges.Jung Myung-soo was led away in hand...

The European Union on Thursday won its battle at the UN Human Rights Council to create a new special rapporteur on Afghanistan, despite opposition from China, Russia and Pakistan.The rapporteur will be responsible for monitoring the rights situation ...

This is the fourth in a series of stories looking at China’s Xinjiang province and how the far-western region is coping economically under a series of US sanctions over alleged human rights violations and the widespread use of forced labour. Spend...

A US Navy attack submarine “struck an object while submerged” in international waters in the South China Sea, officials said on Thursday.They said there were no life-threatening injuries and the sub was still fully operational.In a brief statemen...

This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Betsy Woodruff Swan on politico.com on October 7, 2021.Former US president Donald Trump is directing a group of his former aides to ignore a subpoena from t...

China has imported US$30 million worth of Australian copper concentrate and increased purchases of cotton from the country amid international sanctions over Xinjiang, despite unofficially banning the products in November last year, Chinese trade data...

The US Senate approved legislation to temporarily raise the federal government’s US$28.4 trillion debt limit and avoid the risk of a historic default this month, but put off until early December a decision on a longer-lasting remedy.The Senate vote...

A US federal judge has refused to lift trade restrictions on a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based textile company Esquel Group, which had been placed on the Commerce Department’s “entity list” for its activities in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous regi...

Last year’s Chinese lunar mission brought back the youngest rocks ever found on the moon, international researchers have found.An analysis of the basaltic volcanic rocks collected by the Chang’e-5 probe last December concluded that they had been ...

Britain will scrap tough Covid-19 quarantine requirements for 47 destinations including South Africa and Thailand on Monday and make it easier for people to arrive from countries including India and Turkey in the latest relaxation of the rules.Britai...

This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Quint Forgey on politico.com on October 7, 2021.Two lawmakers on US national security committees – one a House Democrat, the other a Senate Republican –...

Officials from the US, Japan and Australia touted their joint efforts to support infrastructure projects in developing countries around the world as a transparent and non-predatory substitute to Chinese-funded projects, during a virtual think tank pa...

Just days after US President Joe Biden hosted Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the White House and said the two countries were “destined to be stronger, closer and tighter”, what might be the first signs of that new relationship have come i...

A report by the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Democratic majority details Donald Trump’s extraordinary effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election that he lost, with the Justice Department brought to the brink of chaos and top officials ther...

Countries that have for months tightly controlled the spread of Covid-19 are one by one relaxing restrictions, as vaccination rates rise and governments seek to ease economic burdens.But China, which pioneered controlling Covid-19 with lockdown order...

Hong Kong has recorded a marginal rise in the number of overseas companies operating locally, with a hefty influx of mainland Chinese firms more than offsetting the number of other foreign businesses jumping ship.As of June 1, there were 9,049 overse...

Pfizer Inc and BioNTech have asked US regulators to approve emergency use of their Covid-19 vaccine for children aged five to 11, Pfizer said in a tweet on Thursday.The US Food and Drug Administration has set a date of October 26 for its panel of out...

About a month after Beijing restricted kids to playing video games only three hours a week, the tougher rules have been put to the test by “Golden Week”, a seven-day holiday following China’s National Day. And the results have been mixed.Kids h...

“I will fight. We will fight.” With these words, Leni Robredo formally announced she would run for president in next year’s Philippine election.“I am a mother, not only of three children but of the entire country [and I see] my beloved countr...

A row between France and the US over a pact that saw Australia scrap a submarine deal with Paris must not drive Nato allies apart, the alliance’s chief said on Thursday.“This agreement is not directed against Europe or Nato, and there is broad ag...

The US Central Intelligence Agency announced the formation of a new “China Mission Centre” on Thursday, the latest sign of a deepening struggle with the country despite Washington’s assertions that it is not seeking a “new Cold War” with Be...

Hong Kong customs officers have arrested three people and seized HK$16 million (US$2.1 million) worth of cocaine in the department’s latest major narcotics bust.The department on Thursday revealed that its officers intercepted a 24-year-old woman d...

Hong Kong’s ambitious plans to develop new technology clusters near the border will take 10 to 15 years to come to fruition, the city’s innovation chief has said, with a feasibility study for the proposed San Tin Technopole due to start next year...

A former SS guard, now 100 years old, hobbled into a German courtroom on a walking frame on Thursday to face charges of helping to send more than 3,000 people to their deaths in a Nazi concentration camp during second world war.Prosecutors say Josef ...

Chinese media coverage of this week’s high-level meeting with US officials struck a much more positive note, highlighting the possibility of “mutual gains”, than it did after the previous meeting in March.The talks in Zurich between US National...

After becoming a global pop culture sensation, the South Korean Netflix show Squid Game is on track to become the US-based streamer’s biggest hit, even in China, where the show has not been officially released because of Beijing’s strict content ...

Singapore’s Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan on Thursday said the Aukus defence alliance highlights Australia’s decision to align closer with its traditional ally the United States, and the pact could have potential benefits for peace and sta...

This story has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by subscribing.A worker died and three others were rescued by emergency personnel after massive scaffolding around a high-ris...

Tanzanian-born novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah, whose work touches on colonialism and refugee life, on Thursday won the Nobel Literature Prize, the Swedish Academy said.Gurnah, who grew up on the island of Zanzibar but came to England as a refugee at the ...

On August 13 last year, the organisers of Shanghai’s long-running LGBT pride festival abruptly announced the event was being cancelled indefinitely without explanation. The news came as a shock to many as the event had run successfully, albeit quie...

Seven opposition activists and former lawmakers have pleaded guilty to unauthorised assembly charges arising from a rally against Hong Kong’s national security law last year.The seven entered a formal plea at the District Court on Thursday for thei...