Lithuania’s foreign minister on Thursday used his visit to Australia to double down on Vilnius’ move to stand up against Beijing, and to call for like-minded rules-based countries to counter growing “economic coercion” from nations like China...

China has banned beef imports from Lithuania in the latest sign of the escalating bilateral trade rift amid a blazing row over the Baltic state’s support of Taiwan, who labelled the move “unilateral” and “bullying”.The General Administratio...

Lawyers, doctors and bankers were among the 1,159 Hongkongers who fell victim to “naked-chat blackmail” scams and were conned out of nearly HK$14 million (US$1.8 million) last year, the highest losses incurred from this type of crime in the past ...

Nasa has expressed concern about SpaceX’s proposed second-generation Starlink constellation of 30,000 satellites, saying it could lead to a “significant increase” in potential collisions in low Earth orbit and interfere with science activities ...

Hong Kong police arrested another employee from a scandal-hit child protection group on Thursday for allegedly kicking a toddler, taking the total number of suspects in the case to 24.The female employee, 49, of the Hong Kong Society for the Protecti...

Indonesia signed a deal with France on Thursday to buy six Rafale warplanes as part of an anticipated total order of 42, as Paris bolsters military ties in the Asia-Pacific.The agreement was announced as Indonesian Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto m...

Arjun Kumar, 42, was making good money as a driver for a New Delhi couple who had employed him for years. But when Covid-19 struck two years ago, they let him go and, since then, he hasn’t found another steady job.“Everybody’s working from home...

Adding a tracking function to Hong Kong’s “Leave Home Safe” contact-tracing app would not violate data protection laws, the city’s privacy commissioner said on Thursday, under questioning from lawmakers pressing for the inclusion of such a fe...

California’s civil rights regulator said it’s suing Tesla Inc. for racial discrimination after finding widespread harassment of black workers at the electric car maker’s factory near San Francisco.The state’s Department of Fair Employment and...

Ten measures proposed by University of Hong Kong experts:- Divert all vaccination resources to people aged 65 or above, especially those in care homes- Daily rapid antigen tests for those providing critical services, such as care home and hospital st...

ASML Holdings, the world’s largest supplier of lithography machines used in manufacturing chips, has alleged that a Chinese company could be infringing on its intellectual property (IP) rights.The Dutch firm, which has a monopoly on advanced lithog...

China will not be pressured into raising the limit on the amount of money that can be held within its central bank digital currency even in the face of a financial crisis, according to the head of its e-CNY department within the central bank.Use of t...

Long waits for Covid-19 screening have become a moneymaking opportunity for some, as more and more Hongkongers find themselves consigned to hours-long queues by compulsory testing orders amid an exponential surge in cases.The city recorded 986 new in...

Even as America’s top diplomat visits the Pacific region seeking to counter China’s growing power and influence, the Washington ambassador of the tiny Marshall Islands said talks aimed at renewing agreements covering access for the United States ...

Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, in office now for 18 years, turned 70 on Thursday, an age that the city state’s political class has long viewed as a kind of self-imposed deadline the leader had given himself to hand over power.Yet the...

Assailants struck Libyan Prime Minister Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah’s car with bullets early on Thursday but he escaped unharmed, a source close to him said, amid intense factional wrangling over control of the government.The source said the incident hap...

China reported a dramatic fall in Covid-19 cases on Thursday, with just eight new infections – all but one in the southern city of Baise which has now seen 187 infections in the five days since its Omicron outbreak began.One person in Shenyang, in ...

A yacht named “Graceful” and said to belong to Russian President Vladimir Putin left port in Hamburg abruptly before finishing repairs, according to reports from German media.It is unclear what prompted the move, but the US$100 million yacht’s ...

She’s accused of laundering billions of dollars in stolen bitcoin with her husband, but her alleged crimes are likely to be overshadowed by an excruciating foray into rap music.Heather Morgan, also known - largely to herself - as “raunchy rapper�...

US President Joe Biden declared victory too early the last time that Covid-19 seemed to be ending in the United States. This time, he risks being late.The Democrat, elected on a promise to defeat the pandemic, finds himself in an increasingly tricky ...

A resumption of North Korea’s nuclear weapon or long-range missile tests would “instantly” send the peninsula back into crisis, outgoing South Korean President Moon Jae-in said this week, calling for measures to prevent that from happening.A re...

Sweden has scrapped almost all of its few pandemic restrictions and stopped most testing for Covid-19, even as the pressure on the health care systems remained high and some scientists begged for more patience in fighting the disease.Sweden’s gover...

This story has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by subscribing.Bookings for children aged five to 11 to receive the BioNTech vaccine opened in Hong Kong on Wednesday, as par...

Chinese vaccine developer Shanghai Zerun Biotechnology and its parent company Walvax will receive extra funding to advance the early stage clinical trials of a Covid-19 shot against all variants of concern, including Omicron.The Coalition for Epidemi...

New Zealand police on Thursday arrested more than 50 people and began forcefully removing hundreds of protesters camped outside its parliament building for the last three days to protest Covid-19 vaccine mandates and tough pandemic restrictions.Inspi...

Navigating disputes between neighbours is a part of adulthood the world over, and sometimes the bickering can spiral out of control and transform into full-blown feuds.This appears to be the case in Nanjing, in Jiangsu province in eastern China, wher...

Several of Hong Kong’s biggest brokers and banks have shut their branches, as the financial hub hunkers down for the toughest social-distancing rules yet to combat a fresh wave of Covid-19 outbreaks that sent daily infections into four digits for t...

Hong Kong is shortlisting hotels to place asymptomatic Covid-19 patients as public treatment facilities reach capacity, preferring such isolation to having them stay at home which is deemed riskier in densely populated areas, the Post has learned.Hom...

Phase Scientific International (PSI), the Hong Kong start-up that edged out established mainland Chinese peers to win US approval for a Covid-19 rapid antigen test (RAT) kit, owes its success to its US roots and experience in the field, according to ...

The China-Asean code of conduct for the disputed South China Sea is unlikely to be concluded by the end of this year, according to a panel of Southeast Asian experts at a forum on Wednesday.Their comments follow remarks from a Chinese military advise...

Canadian police threatened on Wednesday to arrest trucker-led protesters who have shut down central Ottawa and disrupted cross-border trade in anger at Covid-19 health rules, as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau lambasted the movement as “unacceptable�...

Venezuela’s most wanted criminal was among five people killed in a police and military operation, Interior Minister Remigio Ceballos said on Wednesday.Carlos Luis Revette, known as “El Koki”, was the head of one of the most dangerous criminal o...

Hu Yuchen, a migrant worker from Jiangxi who works in Shanghai as a delivery man, said he usually has only half a day off per month.Hu says he originally had a 200,000 yuan (US$31,400) debt to pay, meaning he had no option but to toil all day and eve...

A man was arrested after he was accused of raping a woman on a United Airlines flight.In a statement, London’s Metropolitan Police said it arrested a 40-year-old man when the plane landed at London’s Heathrow Airport on January 31 after a 40-year...

SpaceX’s newest fleet of satellites is tumbling out of orbit after being struck by a solar storm.Up to 40 of the 49 small satellites launched last week have either re-entered the atmosphere and burned up, or are on the verge of doing so, the compan...

Boris Johnson came under renewed pressure over parties held in his Downing Street office during the pandemic, after the UK police said they would contact more than 50 people over the gatherings and a potentially damaging new photo emerged showing the...

Scientists in Britain announced Wednesday they had smashed a previous record for generating fusion energy, hailing it as a “milestone” on the path towards cheap, clean power and a cooler planet.Nuclear fusion is the same process that the sun uses...

The Ukraine crisis has degenerated into a melodrama with potentially devastating global geopolitical consequences. Ukraine wants to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) as a safe bet against any potential Russian aggression.The United S...

Hong Kong on Wednesday hit back at a press freedom coalition of overseas countries for its “erroneous” comments that the city’s independent media was being suppressed, saying the industry remained “as vibrant as ever”.The government said it...

The pioneering team at an all-women, rural news organisation in northern India say they are ecstatic after a documentary film on their crusading reporting, especially around the hardships faced by lower caste communities, won an Oscar nomination on T...

Chinese researchers say they have achieved a record data streaming speed using a revolutionary technology that could help China take the lead in the global race for next-gen wireless communication, or 6G.Using vortex millimetre waves, a form of extre...

China put forth its “best efforts” to meet commitments it made in the phase-one trade deal with the United States over the past two years, despite falling well short of targets, according to Chinese experts who are now calling for substantive neg...

Forest rangers in Western Thailand are searching a remote jungle on the Myanmar border hoping to rescue a wild tiger with a missing leg from an area where poachers have recently been operating.Staff from the wildlife protection organisation Freeland ...

Japan and the Philippines plan to hold their first ministerial security talks online later this month, apparently aimed at bolstering cooperation in countering China’s increasing maritime assertiveness in the South and East China seas, diplomatic s...

A judge in London has ruled that a US$500 million lawsuit by exiled Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui against UBS over a 2015 margin call can proceed in Britain.The Swiss investment bank had sought to dismiss the case on jurisdictional grounds, but High...

Recent US and European moves on the Iran nuclear issue were “a positive step” towards seeking a resolution, China said, as it called on Tehran to fulfil its end of the bargain.This came as representatives from Iran and other signatories to the st...

Residents of Hong Kong’s Discovery Bay complained about unclear instructions and the risk of Covid-19 infection at specimen collection stations on Wednesday, as more than 20,000 people faced a compulsory testing order.The government had ordered the...

A project on the technical framework for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) led by Tencent Holdings, with the involvement of Ant Group and others, has been approved by a United Nations specialised agency, which the company says makes it the world’s first U...

The wife of South Korea’s ruling party presidential candidate apologised on Wednesday over allegations that she took advantage of public servants and spent government money during her husband’s term as a provincial governor.Controversy involving ...

China spent a record 2.79 trillion yuan (US$441.3 billion) on research and development last year, an increase of more than 14 per cent over 2020 – when nationwide lockdowns to contain the coronavirus pandemic saw the country post its lowest GDP gro...