Moving towards the endemic stage of Covid-19 under a “controlled transition” sooner rather than later would be the “safest” strategy for Hong Kong, according to public health experts from the University of Hong Kong (HKU).The latest recommend...

A concern group has accused frontline Hong Kong officials of misunderstanding a new tenancy control law covering subdivided flats, and of failing to intervene in cases of rule breaches affecting some of the city’s most vulnerable residents.The Alli...

Australia’s government on Tuesday launched “Space Command”, a new defence agency with echoes of the United States’ Space Force that has been tasked with securing the country’s place in an “already contested” cosmos.Defence Minister Pete...

A Hong Kong alliance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) has called on “hard-hearted” developers and big landlords to restore their “conscience” by offering rent cuts to help struggling tenants ride out the fifth wave of Covid-19 inf...

A martial arts instructor and his assistant are set to appear in court on Tuesday after being accused by national security police of leading an underground organisation that advocated Hong Kong independence and trained members in the use of weapons i...

Microsoft search engine Bing has been ordered by the Chinese government to suspend its auto-suggest function for seven days in accordance with local laws, according to the local website of the online service.This comes three months after Bing, the on...

Around 40 per cent of Taiwanese believe Japan would dispatch troops to help defend the island if mainland China attacked – more than those who think the United States would come to their assistance, according to a survey released on Tuesday.The two...

China will only consider adjusting its strict virus response after overall conditions change at home and overseas, according to China’s top Covid-19 strategy official.In an interview with state broadcaster CCTV on Monday, Liang Wannian, head of the...

When Iliana Martseniak’s family in Kharkiv first messaged her a month ago to tell her about Russia’s invasion of their homeland, she said she was “incredibly scared and completely devastated”.The 37-year-old has been in Bangkok for the past f...

The presidential bid of Philippine election front runner Ferdinand Marcos Jnr received a boost on Tuesday after incumbent leader Rodrigo Duterte’s political party endorsed his candidacy for the May 9 vote.The PDP-Laban party, which has not fielded ...

He survived the Nazi Buchenwald concentration camp during World War II. He survived the Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp in the same war. And the Bergen-Belsen camp.Last week, Boris Romanchenko, a 96-year-old Holocaust survivor, was killed when shel...

Last December, ride-hailing and delivery giant Grab made history with its back door listing on the Nasdaq stock exchange. It was the biggest US listing by a Southeast Asian firm and also the world’s largest special purpose acquisition company (SPAC...

Hong Kong confirmed more than 14,100 new coronavirus infections on Tuesday, while the government designated another 18 hotels as quarantine facilities for arrivals to the city after announcing it would begin easing stringent harsh pandemic-related en...

The pro-Kremlin Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda briefly published a high number of Russian soldiers thought to be killed in Ukraine, before deleting the information.An online report on Sunday citing the Ministry of Defence reported that 9,861 ...

Ukraine’s military said on Tuesday residents should brace for more indiscriminate Russian shelling of critical infrastructure, as US President Joe Biden issued one of his strongest warnings yet that Moscow is considering using chemical weapons.Russ...

Japan on Tuesday issued an emergency plea for citizens, businesses and local authorities to conserve energy, warning of potential blackouts after a massive earthquake idled several power plants and unseasonably cold weather boosted demand.As snow fel...

US President Joe Biden has been reluctantly drawn into closer ties with Saudi Arabia’s king-in-waiting, forced by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to rethink a stand-offish approach as the US struggles to curb soaring oil prices.The problem is Crown ...

China Evergrande Group said it would delay the release of its 2021 financial results due to ongoing audit work while it investigates banks’ seizure of its deposits at a unit, as the world’s most indebted developer overhauls a sprawling business w...

This story has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by subscribing.The Hong Kong government has announced a significant easing of tough pandemic-control measures from next month...

More than 70 Chinese officials have been sacked or disciplined over the past month as Covid-19 spreads across the country.The latest wave of Covid-19, driven by the more contagious Omicron virus, has resulted in more than 20,000 infections all over t...

No survivors have so far been found after China Eastern Airlines flight MU5735 crashed on Monday in southern China with 132 passengers and crew on board.Thousands of firefighters and police were searching the area after the Boeing 737-800 plane crash...

US Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson vowed to defend the “grand experiment of American democracy” as she launched a historic bid to be the first black woman on the nation’s highest judicial bench.President Joe Biden’s pick made the ...

Japan reacted angrily on Tuesday after Russia withdrew from peace treaty talks with Tokyo and froze joint economic projects related to the disputed Kuril Islands because of sanctions imposed by the Kishida administration over Moscow’s invasion of U...

Alibaba Group Holding, the Hangzhou-based e-commerce giant, upsized its share buy-back programme from US$15 billion to US$25 billion on Tuesday amid a plunge in its stock price. It is the largest buy-back in the tech giant’s history.The programme w...

Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor sought to perform a delicate balancing act on Monday by announcing the easing of restrictions on travellers in an attempt to stem an outflow of talent while stressing the city was not moving towards “livi...

A nanny at a high-end baby care facility is under investigation for allegedly abusing a 28-day-old boy, leaving his thigh bone fractured.The municipal government of Shiyan, Hubei province, central China, is attaching high importance to the case after...

US President Joe Biden said on Monday that India was an exception among Washington’s allies with its “shaky” response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.Biden lauded the US-led alliance, including Nato, the European Union and key Asian partners...

International funds and local investors are snapping up hotels in Hong Kong with the intention of converting them for long-term leasing and student accommodation as the outlook for the city’s tourism industry remains uncertain.In the past, hotel ow...

The most expensive seat for the Indonesian MotoGP tournament in Lombok was not one of the 15 million rupiah (US$1,046) VIP Premier Class tickets being sold by the organiser; it was a 3.5 metre tall rickety platform built by a local woodworker.It took...

The Biden administration on Monday expanded existing US travel bans against Chinese officials whom it accuses of repressing ethnic and religious minorities.The State Department said it is barring those targeted from travelling to the United States du...

Congress should provide the US$22.5 billion President Joe Biden wants for continuing the battle against Covid-19 without cutting other programmes to pay for it, senior administration officials said on Monday.And if Republicans continue to insist that...

More than 100,000 Hongkongers are seeking new lives in Britain under a special scheme that promises citizenship for many residents of the former colony. The departures, which follow in the wake of a deep shift in the city’s political landscape, hav...

Instead of waiting for the groom to pick her up at her home, as is customary in mainland China, a bride dressed in red hurried to the groom’s home, carrying her bridal necessities on her way to get married to her man stuck in lockdown.On March 21, ...

US President Joe Biden’s administration has tapped former officials that served under Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump to lobby Congress to pass legislation aimed at giving the US a competitive edge against China, particularly in advanced technol...

The crash of flight MU5735 on Monday could raise a safety alarm in China where aviation authorities had just marked a record safety milestone.In all, 132 people were on board the China Eastern Airlines’ Boeing 737-800 airliner that went down near W...

Dozens of well-known leaders in Jamaica including professors and politicians are demanding an apology and slavery reparations as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge prepare for a trip to the former British colony.The group is rejecting the visit of Pri...

A Chinese-led international study has found a link between strong El Niño events and rises in levels in China of the air pollutant ozone.The study, published last month in the quarterly, peer-reviewed journal Environmental Research Letters, found th...

The chilling video captured a scene rarely recorded: a commercial airliner in a near-vertical nosedive, hurtling toward the ground at hundreds of kilometres an hour.The footage of what appeared to be flight MU5735’s final few moments was shared wid...

European Union countries on Monday accused Russia’s military of committing war crimes in Ukraine, but appeared unlikely to target the country’s energy sector with sanctions soon despite a clamour across Europe for those responsible for attacks on...

A superyacht linked to Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich docked in the Turkish tourist resort of Marmaris on Tuesday, a port source said, a day after another of his yachts arrived in nearby Bodrum, also in the county’s southwest.The Eclipse, whi...

China’s chances of joining one of the world’s largest free trade areas could be hurt by its refusal to engage Australia on a ministerial level, Canberra’s top trade official said on Monday.Australian trade minister Dan Tehan provided insights i...

A people-smuggler who fled Britain after 39 Vietnamese nationals were found dead in the back of a truck has been jailed for nearly four years.Dragos Stefan Damian, 28, was extradited from Italy to face a British court following the investigation into...

Covid-19 is again surging in western Europe due to a “perfect storm” of governments lifting restrictions, waning immunity and the more contagious BA. 2 Omicron subvariant, experts said on Monday.After more than a month of falling cases across muc...

Andy Warhol’s iconic sage-blue background portrait of Marilyn Monroe is tipped to sell for a record-breaking US$200 million at auction in the spring, Christie’s announced on Monday.The auction house said it expects Warhol’s 1964 Shot Sage Blue ...

A veteran British Conservative MP was “assassinated” by a “committed, fanatical, radicalised Islamist terrorist” who stabbed him to death in a church building while meeting with his constituents, a court in Essex has heard.Sir David Amess was...

A British-Iranian charity worker held in Tehran for six years said on Monday that the UK government could have helped free her earlier, and called for all “unjustly detained” prisoners in Iran to be released.Speaking publicly for the first time s...

About 500 medical staff from mainland China have started working at full capacity at one of Hong Kong’s coronavirus treatment centres as of Monday after becoming accustomed to the local systems and procedures.City officials said authorities also ai...

Countries scrambling to replace Russian oil, gas and coal supplies with any available alternative may fuel the world’s “mutually assured destruction” through climate change, the head of the United Nations warned on Monday.UN Secretary-General A...

Hong Kong conservationist groups have urged authorities to withdraw several proposed amendments to land-use regulations, warning it would limit public participation and cause “irreversible” damage to the local environment.The package of six amend...