The People’s Liberation Army has released fresh details of its tests of AI-enabled drone swarm warfare, saying a single soldier can control a swarm of more than 200 drones. In a defence news programme aired on Tuesday, Chinese state broadcaster CCT...

A woman from eastern China courageously battled bone cancer alone after her parents severed ties with her upon learning of her illness, prompting widespread reactions online. Xia Shiwei, 23, hailing from a village in Anhui province, fainted while tak...

A 60-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of slashing a family of three with a knife at their residential estate on Friday morning, with the Post learning that the victims and the suspect are neighbours. Police said they received a report at 7...

Dozens of South Koreans allegedly involved in online scams in Cambodia were returned to South Korea on Friday to face investigations in what was the largest group repatriation of Korean criminal suspects from abroad. The 73 South Korean suspects alle...

Thailand’s police have identified three children aged nine to 15 who are suspected of setting a homeless man on fire in Bangkok and filming their victim’s ordeal. The man, identified only as 51-year-old Karn, lives under the Ban Ma Bridge in Praw...

Life insurance sales in Hong Kong rose 56 per cent in the first nine months of last year to another record as affluent customers continued to buy policies in the city for wealth transfer, protection and medical needs. The industry wrote HK$264.5 bill...

Asian companies are feeling the impact of technology restrictions imposed by the US and China “more acutely” than American firms, and supplier diversification is topping the agenda for CEOs in the year ahead, a survey by The Conference Board has ...

Zhipu AI, known internationally as Z.ai, is restricting sign-ups for its new flagship artificial intelligence coding product, as existing users face performance issues amid a computing crunch that continues to beset Chinese AI firms. On Wednesday, th...

Indonesia has signed a new defence cooperation agreement with Bosnia and Herzegovina in a move that analysts say aligns with Jakarta’s goal to broaden security ties beyond its traditional Western partners. The pact was signed during a meeting betwe...

In the latest instalment of his exclusive series for the South China Morning Post, American theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek pays tribute to the mathematical beauty of Yang’s contributions. Read his previous articles here. Che...

A 5-year-old boy arriving home from preschool in Minnesota was taken by federal agents along with his father to a detention facility in Texas, school officials and the family’s lawyer said, making him the fourth student from his Minneapolis suburb ...

In a week marked by the first anniversary of Donald Trump’s second inauguration as US president and a Davos-based melodrama over his ambitions to own Greenland, it is perhaps timely to review this first year of Trump 2.0 and look into the second. F...

Thailand’s tourism authority has denied using artificial intelligence (AI) to produce a viral campaign image of Thai pop star Lalisa “Lisa” Manobal, after the highly polished visual became a lightning rod for online debate over the growing role...

Vietnam’s top leader To Lam was reappointed on ‍Friday as head of the ruling Communist Party for the next five years after an uninimous vote by its central committee, as he pledged to turbocharge growth in the export-reliant nation. In the one-pa...

The economic benefits of China’s abundant and cheap supply of electricity were recognised by US tech billionaire Elon Musk and other speakers at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday. As the United States and the European Unio...

China is moving forward with the initial public offering (IPO) plans of four private rocket makers this month, as Beijing pushes to build up its commercial space industry amid intensifying competition with Elon Musk’s SpaceX. The Shanghai Stock Exc...

Some tenants of a government-subsidised youth hostel in Hong Kong have raised concerns about potentially returning to shoebox homes and are scrambling to find alternatives after a private operator last week told them its lease was not extended. A res...

Two foreign nationals have become the first people in Malaysia to be charged under a new anti-littering law. Sultan Md, 28, a Bangladeshi, and Anita Lukman, 49, an Indonesian, were charged in the Sessions Court in Johor Bahru on Friday morning. Anita...

The Chinese navy and coastguard said on Friday that they rescued 17 Filipino crew members from a Singaporean-flagged cargo ship that had capsized near Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea. According to the China Coast Guard (CCG), the Maritime Se...

Shares of Labubu maker Pop Mart surged on Friday, extending this week’s gain to 23 per cent, after its CEO appeared in a high-profile state media interview and a newly launched product went viral amid growing investor appetite for consumer stocks. ...

Malaysia’s parliament has introduced new media-centre rules that ban doorstop interviews without permission and restrict access to key premises where lawmakers typically brief reporters, fuelling fears of a narrowing media space. Under the guidelin...

A radically different kind of chip created by Chinese researchers can now handle real-world data tasks, potentially reshaping artificial intelligence systems’ reliance on power-hungry digital processors, its developers said. Building on work report...

Mainland Chinese internet users were left in awe by the country’s Olympic champion, Quan Hongchan – not for her diving techniques this time, but for her new image, which prompted many to marvel that Quan has “really grown up.” On January 12, ...

Shifting policies under US President Donald Trump’s administration are expected to heighten market volatility in Hong Kong this year, the finance chief has said, but also expressed “cautious optimism” about the capital market. Explaining his up...

Multiple South Korean brands have pulled or quietly sidelined advertising campaigns featuring actor and K-pop star Cha Eun-woo amid allegations that he may have avoided 20 billion won (US$13 million) in taxes via a shell entity under his mother’s n...

US President Donald Trump withdrew on Thursday an invitation for Canada to join ‌his Board of Peace initiative aimed at resolving global conflicts. Trump’s about-face follows Canadian Prime ‍Minister Mark Carney’s speech at the World Economic...

Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the settlement in Ukraine with US President Donald Trump’s envoys during marathon overnight talks, and the Kremlin insisted that the territorial issue needs to be resolved to reach a peace deal. The Kremli...

We have selected seven stories from this week’s news across Hong Kong, mainland China, the wider Asia region and beyond that resonated with our readers and shed light on topical issues. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please conside...

The first confirmed deployment of a PLA drone within Taiwan’s claimed airspace is the latest example of Beijing’s “salami-slicing” strategy towards the self-ruled island, analysts say. One observer noted it was also meant to test, wear down a...

California Governor Gavin Newsom on Thursday said he was not surprised the Trump administration blocked his appearance at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland the day before, saying it was another example of the US president trying to stifle disse...

US President Donald ‌Trump said on Thursday that the United States has an “armada” heading towards Iran but hoped he would not have to use it, as ‍he renewed warnings to Tehran against killing protesters or restarting its nuclear programme. U...

Tim Leissner, the former Goldman Sachs banker who admitted his role in one of the largest financial frauds in history, is seeking a presidential pardon before he surrenders to a federal prison in the US. Leissner filed his pardon application to the U...

Major international marques, from Tesla to Volkswagen, continued to lose market share in mainland China, as consumers increasingly favoured new domestic electric vehicle (EV) models equipped with hi-tech features. But in 2026, foreign carmakers are e...

TikTok and its Chinese owner ByteDance have officially established a venture to transfer parts of its US business to a consortium of mostly US investors, effectively securing the platform’s future for its 170 million American users. The company mad...

Hong Kong’s anti-corruption watchdog has arrested 14 people, including a senior manager of a listed cleaning services company, on suspicion of bribery over the awarding of various contracts to subcontractors, and seized watches valued at over HK$10...

In the predawn cold of a northern Seoul neighbourhood, hundreds of people line the street in padded coats, stamping their feet to keep warm. Adults, students and young children wait patiently for the same thing: a Dubai chewy cookie. Known in Korean ...

The recent drama surrounding US action in Venezuela, its renewed interest in Greenland and tariff threats on governments that object, along with comments on Cuba, Colombia and Mexico, appear disjointed – part diplomacy, part law enforcement, part p...

Photographs of fresh bruising on Donald Trump’s hand raised eyebrows on Thursday, but the 79-year-old US president dismissed renewed speculation over his health, saying he had simply hit a table. Trump has been seen with frequent bruising on his ri...

Neurologist Sun Bomin’s mother led him to believe that Alzheimer’s disease might not be incurable after all. On January 21, Sun released a short video on China’s Yitiao.tv platform and an article detailing what he said was the world’s first e...

A 59-year-old woman in China has given birth to a baby boy and in the process realised her dream of having another child because her daughter lives abroad, making her and her husband feel lonely. On January 9, the infant was born via caesarean sectio...

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr said on Thursday that he was recovering from a condition in the digestive system and assured the public that it is not life-threatening. His office released a video where Marcos said he was diagnosed with div...

Since taking the helm of the owners’ corporation at her Hong Kong housing estate 12 years ago, Chan Wai-ling has received numerous reports of falling concrete, water leakage and other problems that should have been fixed during multimillion-dollar ...

As Chinese biotech and pharmaceutical firms gain importance on the global stage, foreign investors from sovereign wealth funds to industry players are securing strategic stakes in their future success. International institutional investors have built...

China will closely monitor developments in Greenland as it seeks to become an important player in Arctic affairs. Still, Beijing is unlikely to respond with any major action in the near future to counter US President Donald Trump’s bid to annex the...

The Philippines’ first natural gas discovery in more than a decade has raised hopes of reviving the fossil fuel’s role in the nation’s energy mix and uncovering further resources near the ageing Malampaya field, as Manila seeks to cut dependenc...

One year after President Donald Trump ordered the US to withdraw from the World Health Organization, the process was formally completed on Thursday, though the nation is leaving behind unpaid debt of roughly US$260 million. All funding to the health ...

The Trump administration is allowing ‌China to purchase Venezuelan oil but not at “unfair, undercut” prices at which ‍Caracas sold the crude before the US removed President Nicolas Maduro, a US official said on Thursday. While the oil will be...

Ongoing tariff wars and a dependence on China are two of the top emerging risks for the global defence sector, according to a report released this week by the UK-based consultancy WTW (Willis Towers Watson). The defence sector is facing several new c...

China’s government is likely to set this year’s economic growth target in a range between 4.5 per cent and 5 per cent, according to three sources briefed on the matter. Such a target would indicate a tolerance for a modest deceleration from last ...

The United States’ abrupt withdrawal earlier this month from dozens of international institutions, including the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, was more than another episode of diplomatic retrenchment. It was a reminder that the post-wa...