Spitting rain and a cold weather warning kept some Hongkongers at home on Boxing Day, but the gloomy conditions were not enough to discourage shoppers from packing an annual food fair.The Hong Kong Food Festival, now in its 19th year, has logged thou...

The coronavirus that causes Covid-19, Sars-CoV-2, can spread within days from the airways to the heart, brain and almost every organ system in the body, where it may persist for months, a study found.In what they describe as the most comprehensive an...

Hong Kong confirmed nine new imported coronavirus cases on Sunday, among them a Cathay Pacific aircrew member whose positive test triggered a mandatory screening order for residents of the residential building where he lives in Tung Chung.Six of the ...

Hong Kong has seized more endangered timber this year, mainly prized sandalwood and rosewood, as international criminals switched to sending their illegal cargo through the city by air rather than sea.The change of tactics during the coronavirus pand...

A Chinese consulate in the United States has lodged a protest with an American airline after one of its China-bound flights returned to the US midway through the journey.“Several China-bound flights have been delayed or canceled recently, with one ...

“Like falling in love” is how Archbishop Desmond Tutu described voting in South Africa’s first democratic election in 1994, a remark that captured both his puckish humour and his profound emotions after decades fighting apartheid.Desmond Mpilo ...

The South China Morning Post film China’s Rebel City: The Hong Kong Protests has won Best Documentary Feature at the Cannes World Film Festival for the month of November.The documentary beat out two other finalists: Absolute Power: Nasdaq Exposed, ...

A 25-year-old motorcyclist riding on a probationary licence died after crashing headlong into a car on Hong Kong’s Shek O Road on Sunday, the latest in a string of accidents in the scenic area.A police source said the two vehicles caught fire after...

Stella Monica Hendrawan thought nothing of it when she took to Instagram to complain about a bad experience she’d had at a beauty clinic in Indonesia two years ago.In her post, the 26-year-old Chinese-Indonesian claimed the acne treatment she recei...

Hong Kong’s Social Welfare Department has been ordered to launch an internal investigation into an abuse case that saw three child care workers arrested last week, the minister who oversees it has said, warning those involved could be deregistered....

Spending months at sea is part of the job for Chinese crewmen like Geng, but as the coronavirus pandemic drastically alters the way people move around the world, the stretches away from home are getting longer and longer.After finishing a seven-month...

The climate crisis has put the end of oil onto the agenda, but achieving that is a colossal task given the world economy’s deep dependence on petroleum.“In 2021, several developments showed clearly that [the petroleum] industry doesn’t have a f...

The number of locally transmitted Covid-19 cases in China continues to rise as the northwestern city of Xian grapples with the latest cluster of cases.The National Health Commission reported 158 locally confirmed cases from Saturday, a sharp increase...

Covid-19 cases across the world have surged over the Christmas holiday period, with New Zealand’s cases more than doubling in the two days since Friday. On Sunday, the country reported 126 new infections in the community with 45 people hospitalised...

Hong Kong’s blueprint to develop a Northern Metropolis is a step in the right direction, but a recently retired senior official said planning officials can do much more to turn underused sites in the northern New Territories into business clusters ...

An acrimonious legal battle between descendants of one of India’s richest royal families – the former ruling dynasty of the princely state of Jaipur – over assets worth millions of US dollars has finally reached an end, thanks to an out-of-cour...

Researchers in China say they have achieved a world first by developing a machine that can charge people with crimes using artificial intelligence.The AI “prosecutor” can file a charge with more than 97 per cent accuracy based on a verbal descrip...

It’s no secret that South Korea loves its chicken: when fried and paired with beer it’s known as chimaek, which is hugely popular both at home and abroad, while roast chicken is thought to be the nation’s favourite festive takeaway dish – oft...

An international team of archaeologists and forensics experts have said they “strongly believe” that aircraft wreckage found at Tai Tam Country Park is from a US warplane that crashed during World War II.With the help of 250 volunteers over the c...

Taiwan’s main opposition party has stepped up plans to reopen its liaison office in Washington, as it seeks to rebuild US ties after a 13-year hiatus.The move from the Kuomintang, which is largely Beijing-friendly, comes at a time of rising tension...

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said China has been “playing” Western states against each other and that democracies should present a “united front” in response.“There’s been a bit of competition amongst friends because we’re cap...

An armed man has been arrested after breaking into the grounds of Windsor Castle in Berkshire, one of Queen Elizabeth’s main residences, on Christmas Day.Officers from Thames Valley Police (TVP) and the Metropolitan Police responded to a security b...

A total of three members of the K-pop superstar group BTS have now been infected with the coronavirus after returning from abroad, their management agency said.RM and Jin were diagnosed with Covid-19 on Saturday evening, the Big Hit Music agency said...

Queen Elizabeth in her Christmas Day message shared the pain she felt after the death of her husband as she encouraged people everywhere to celebrate with friends and family, despite the grief caused by a pandemic now stretching into its second year....

A mix of drought in Canada’s prairies and flooding on its Pacific coast have brought about crop production and shipping woes now leading to international shortages of fries and mustard.In Japan, for example, McDonald’s has been forced to ration f...

The charred remains of more than 30 people, including women and children, were found in burnt-out vehicles in Myanmar on Saturday, a rebel group and a monitor said, accusing the junta of the attack.Myanmar has been in chaos since the February coup, w...

A fourth university in Hong Kong wants an artwork commemorating victims of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown removed, its student union has revealed, saying it has been asked by campus chiefs to take it away.City University student union said it ha...

The US Space Force celebrated its second anniversary this week while China closely watches its development.The eighth and youngest branch of the US armed services was established on December 20, 2019 to “help the United States deter aggression and ...

Nasa’s James Webb Space Telescope, a revolutionary instrument built to peer the farthest yet into the cosmos, was launched by rocket early Saturday from South America’s northeastern coast, opening a much anticipated new era of astronomical explor...

Air carriers scrapped more than 1,600 US flights for one of the busiest travel weekends of the year, stranding passengers during the Christmas holiday, as surging Covid-19 infections led to crippling air-crew shortages.The global tally of dropped fli...

Hong Kong police have seized a record haul of 1.2 tonnes of suspected ketamine worth an estimated HK$840 million (US$107.7 million), arresting four men in a swoop on a pier where the drugs were being unloaded from a speedboat.The four suspects, three...

China launched three warships, including two for export, on Thursday, as it expands its naval construction strength.The vessels – a 071E landing platform dock (LPD) and two Type 054 frigates – were launched at the Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding yar...

Australia celebrated Christmas amid a surge of Covid-19 cases, worse than at any stage of the pandemic, which forced states to reinstate mask mandates and other preventive measures. The Omicron strain is prevalent in some states and is estimated to r...

Many Chinese private companies rely on local patrons who serve as brokers between state officials and local communities in African countries to help them win contracts, according to London School of Economics scholars.A study on the patrons and Chine...

Three imported cases of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 were detected in Shenzhen on Friday, while the northwestern city of Xian continued its efforts to contain the country’s largest current outbreak.Three Omicron cases were among five positive ca...

Hong Kong police arrested 119 people for various offences and issued fines totalling more than HK$1.5 million (US$192,300) to hundreds of residents for breaching Covid-19 social-distancing rules in an overnight citywide sweep that began on Christmas ...

Hong Kong confirmed 25 imported Covid-19 cases on Saturday, triggering the most number of airline bans in a single day.Authorities announced they would stop Cathay Pacific flights from London, Korean Air services from Seoul and Emirates Airlines flig...

Xinjiang’s Communist Party chief Chen Quanguo is to leave his post, state news agency Xinhua reported on Saturday.Chen has been targeted by foreign sanctions over the crackdown targeting the Uygurs and other Muslim minorities in the region that he ...

When recently asked whether the US would come to Taiwan’s aid if China invaded, US President Joe Biden said: “Yes, we have a commitment to do that.”His response caused confusion in both Beijing and Washington, with China’s foreign ministry is...

The story of how Thailand’s largest Catholic community came to be in one of the country’s poorest provinces is an unlikely one.Tha Rae village in the rice-growing province of Sakon Nakhon, not far from the Laos border in northeastern Thailand, is...

Hundreds of thousands of people in the Philippines, Asia’s largest Roman Catholic nation, were marking Christmas on Saturday without homes, adequate food and water, electricity and mobile phone connections after a powerful typhoon left at least 375...

China’s securities watchdog has given tacit approval to a corporate structure that lets technology companies raise funds offshore, closing a two-decades-long regulatory loophole that has become a lightning rod in rising US-China tensions in capital...

A 26-year-old jobless man has been arrested over robbery at two convenience stores in Hong Kong by threatening staff at knifepoint and forcing a worker at one of the outlets to transfer HK$2,700 (US$346) to his e-wallet.Inspector Fu Ho-sing from the ...

Above the imposing main entrance of the first Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), which opened back in 1951, is the motto “Service to the Nation”. For years, as many graduates of the country’s elite network of engineering schools headed off f...

Until this week, Andrea Fessler had never heard of Ho Feng-shan, a Chinese diplomat who helped her father and grandparents survive World War II.As a consul general to Vienna, he defied his government and issued thousands of visas that enabled persecu...

This month marks the 130th anniversary of the birth of a Chinese intellectual and diplomat who played a key role in on of the major turning points in the Second World War – an event being commemorated in a new book.The biography details the life of...

China needs to do more to explain its system and values to the world, to avoid misunderstanding and mistrust in the West, according to the founder of a Beijing-based non-governmental think tank.In an interview on Talking Post with chief news editor Y...

Whether it was government shake-ups, social shifts or a looming dilemma, the significant issues that stood out in China in 2021 are almost guaranteed to remain in the spotlight 2022.Like much of the world, the Covid-19 pandemic is a shadow hanging ov...

This year will go down as a tough period for Chinese technology firms, as Beijing moved to exert control over the once-freewheeling sector. In the last of a four-part series, the South China Morning Post looks at the market fallout, the cost to inves...

TikTok’s 10,000 content moderators are exposed to a regular diet of child pornography, rapes, beheadings and animal mutilation, according to a lawsuit filed against the video-sharing platform and its parent, ByteDance Inc.It gets worse. Content mod...