Singapore attracted S$11.8 billion (US$8.8 billion) in investment commitments last year, led by semiconductor manufacturers ramping up production to meet a global chip shortage and biotechnology firms chasing pandemic demand.Investments saw a 31 per ...

Human rights activists and some academics in China have had their WeChat messaging app accounts restricted in recent weeks, multiple people affected said, as Beijing cracks down on dissent before the Beijing Winter Olympics.China hopes to make next w...

Mired in lockdown party scandals, the fate of embattled UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson could be determined by two powerful institutions.One is the Metropolitan Police, which on Tuesday said was investigating “a number of events” in last two year...

The Hong Kong government plans to introduce a long-shelved national security bill to the city’s legislature in the second half of the year, the security chief has revealed.Secretary for Security Chris Tang Ping-keung disclosed the time frame when r...

Painstakingly, women of retirement age adorn sheet after sheet of yellow joss paper with gold and silver leaf and red paint to satisfy last orders for sacrificial cash offerings ahead of next month’s Lunar New Year festival.Taiwan’s Chen Kun-huei...

Lithuanian officials, seeking to defuse a row with Beijing, are discussing whether to ask their Taiwanese counterparts to modify the Chinese translation of the name of Taiwan’s de facto embassy in Vilnius, two sources told Reuters.The self-ruled is...

Former Hong Kong opposition lawmaker Lam Cheuk-ting has been jailed for four months for exposing a corruption investigation into a police commander on duty when a mob attacked protesters and commuters at Yuen Long MTR station on July 21, 2019.The 44-...

Fears over Covid-19 cross-infections among thousands of residents locked down at an Omicron-hit public housing estate in Hong Kong escalated on Wednesday as 58 more cases were reported there, while the city logged 107 new infections overall.Experts w...

The US Navy says it is working to recover a F-35C fighter jet after it fell into the South China Sea following a “landing mishap” on the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier on Monday.Seven sailors – including the pilot who ejected from the F-35C a...

Supermarket shelves are bare and restaurants can’t serve meals, but Sri Lanka’s economic crisis is a bonanza for used car dealers, with vehicle shortages pushing prices higher than a house in a nice area.The island nation of 22 million is on the ...

A proposed new screening regime for American outbound investment risks harming investment relations with China and making business more difficult for US multinationals in the world’s No 2 economy, a new report said on Wednesday.US lawmakers are poi...

When Muhammad Malik, 29, a Muslim bachelor from a Pakistani Punjabi family in Britain, went in search of his future wife, he chose to put up huge billboard ads on the streets of Birmingham and London.“Save me from an arranged marriage,” read the ...

Fears are growing for hundreds of children in a Syrian prison seized by Islamic State inmates, after almost a week of clashes with Kurdish-led fighters seeking to regain control of the facility.About 850 children were caught in the crossfire as Kurdi...

Question marks hang over a summit in China viewed as critical to protecting the Earth’s plant and animal life, with its planned date in doubt because of the pandemic.Chinese environment ministry spokesman Liu Youbin said on Monday that the second p...

A court has upheld the constitutionality of a controversial policy that limits gender status changes on Hong Kong identity cards to those who have undergone sex reassignment surgery.The Court of Appeal on Wednesday ruled against Henry Edward Tse and ...

Two years after Japan locked down its borders to block the coronavirus, some 150,000 foreign students still aren’t able to enter the country, left in limbo by a policy that has disrupted lives and caused headaches for universities and businesses.Th...

Nato is scrambling to beef up its eastern flank and Western governments have warned of crippling economic sanctions if Russia invades Ukraine, but watching Russian state TV provides little sense, for now at least, that war may be imminent.Russian sta...

Hong Kong’s realtors will increase the bonus cheques of their clerical staff this year, after 12 months of record property transactions that defied the city’s gloomy labour market and a resurgent Covid-19 outbreak.Midland Holdings Limited, Hong K...

Australia has blocked China’s request to establish a panel at the World Trade Organization (WTO) to arbitrate a dispute on anti-dumping duties imposed on Chinese goods, further straining ties between the two sides.Canberra rejected Beijing’s appe...

The mayor of San Francisco expressed despair over the increase in reported hate crimes against Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders last year, up an astonishing 567 from the previous year, according to preliminary figures released by the police depa...

This story has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by subscribing.Hong Kong’s Covid-19 situation took a worrying turn after Christmas celebrations last month, when the Omicro...

A Cantonese opera workshop for those with hearing disabilities has not only given Christie To Wing-sum a unique challenge, it has allowed her to reach out to Hong Kong residents previously cut off from the traditional art form.To, 28, and the Hong Ko...

Scientists and health officials around the world are keeping their eyes on a descendant of the Omicron variant that has been found in at least 40 countries.This version of the coronavirus, which scientists call BA. 2, is widely considered stealthier ...

Nobody would use the adjectives “lean” or “athletic” to describe China’s roly-poly giant pandas, even though they eat almost entirely bamboo for their entire lives.Despite subsisting on a low-fat, poor-quality diet, these animals are belove...

In Singapore, regulators and financial institutions have in recent days come up with new ways to shield residents from phishing attacks.But the move came only after a series of high-level scams involving OCBC Bank users. In December alone, more than ...

The US House of Representatives on Tuesday finalised sweeping legislation meant to boost US competition with China.The 2,912-page bill, called the America Competes Act of 2022, includes billions of dollars for the US semiconductor industry; new provi...

Hong Kong’s election officials are still “awaiting further instructions from Beijing” on whether to announce the date of the nomination period for the chief executive election when they release on Thursday the much-anticipated guidelines for th...

Russia on Tuesday added jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny and a number of his allies to a list of “terrorists and extremists”, as authorities further clamp down on the opposition.Navalny and several allies, including key aide Lyubov Sobol, app...

Chinese President Xi Jinping has called on the country to fully understand the urgency and difficulty of achieving its climate targets.“Achieving the ‘double carbon’ target is not something we are told to do but something that we must do,” st...

An Iranian court has sentenced a French man to eight years in prison on spying charges, his family and Paris-based lawyer said Tuesday, arguing that Tehran was using him as a “hostage” in talks with the West.Benjamin Briere, 36, is the only Weste...

The United States warned Moscow on Tuesday of damaging sanctions, including measures personally targeting Vladimir Putin, as Russian combat troops massing around Ukraine launched new exercises.Tension appeared to be only increasing, with the White Ho...

Chinese scientists say they could be a step closer to developing a code-breaking machine, thanks to a recent breakthrough in quantum memory technology.A quantum computer can crack an encrypted message in hours, but it needs tens of millions of qubits...

A US man who was convicted last year of killing his wife and burying her body will face another trial this year on charges that he abused the couple’s young daughter.Joseph Elledge has pleaded not guilty to three felonies involving his daughter, wh...

A group of 35 lawmakers from the United Kingdom, the European Union and other countries have called on their nations to create blacklists to block investors from funding companies associated with alleged human rights abuses against Uygurs and other e...

Pfizer is enrolling healthy adults to test a reformulated Covid-19 vaccine that matches the hugely contagious Omicron variant, to see how it compares with the original shots.The company and its partner BioNTech announced the study on Tuesday.Covid-19...

British police said on Tuesday they had opened an investigation into possible Covid-19 lockdown breaches at Boris Johnson’s Downing Street office and residence, the latest blow to a prime minister facing growing calls to resign.Johnson is fighting ...

The European Union is moving forward with plans to outlaw goods made using forced labour, senior officials said, citing allegations of widespread uses of such practices in the Chinese region of Xinjiang.Testifying on Monday before the European Parlia...

The Biden administration has concluded that a global semiconductor shortage will persist until at least the second half of this year, promising long-term strain on a range of US businesses including car makers and the consumer electronics industry.US...

Hong Kong as a top aviation hub has become increasingly isolated during the pandemic while the rest of the world has started to open up to international travel, the head of a global airline association has warned.The director general of the Internati...

The United Kingdom said on Tuesday that it is conducting a review of anti-dumping measures on Chinese heavy steel plates first put in place nearly six years ago to determine whether to keep them in place.The Trade Remedies Authority (TRA), a new agen...

Twitter said governments around the world made requests to remove content from a record number of user accounts between January and June last year, in data to be released by the social media company on Tuesday.The platform said governments made 43,38...

World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is all but guaranteed a second term after a procedural vote on Tuesday made him the sole nominee for a leadership election in May.The first African leader of the UN health agency said h...

Moscow constantly updates Beijing on progress in security talks between the US and Russia, even though China is not related to the talks, the Russian envoy to Beijing said on Tuesday.“Russia has recently started talks and meetings with the United S...

China’s state-backed Blockchain Services Network (BSN) on Tuesday announced a soft launch of a nationwide infrastructure to support Chinese non-fungible tokens (NFTs), marking a key step towards creating a domestic industry that is separated from t...

President Xi Jinping has pledged US$500 million in aid to Central Asian nations, saying China will support them to “walk their own paths” and defend their sovereignty.Xi announced the aid on Tuesday during a virtual meeting with the leaders of Ka...

Chinese President Xi Jinping met International Olympic Committee chief Thomas Bach on Tuesday, the first foreign dignitary Xi has received since the Covid-19 pandemic erupted two years ago.The meeting at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse comes 10 days b...

An established liquid egg manufacturer in Hong Kong has received a government grant of HK$14.9 million (US$1.9 million) to set up a smart production line in Tai Po as part of one of the city’s largest re-industrialisation projects.The Innovation an...

Japan’s justice minister on Tuesday ordered the immigration agency to investigate violent workplace abuse allegedly suffered by a Vietnamese intern in a case that has heightened scrutiny of a state-sponsored training programme.A video appearing to ...

Indian actress Shilpa Shetty has been formally cleared of obscenity charges dating from when Hollywood star Richard Gere publicly kissed her at an Aids awareness event 15 years ago.The incident triggered a local firestorm at the time, with radical Hi...

Hong Kong’s employment opportunities have rebounded to exceed pre-pandemic levels last year, going by job advertisements, according to online platform JobsDB.Latest data by the employment services firm, released on Monday, showed the total number o...