For decades, Umno was the party that defined power in Malaysia. Now, after years of scandal, defeat and uneasy coalition politics, it is turning to its birthplace of Johor to prove it can still win on its own terms. The southern state’s snap electi...

The Chinese authorities have praised the return of Tianya – which was one of the country’s most popular internet forums in the pre-algorithm, pre-short-video era – while cautioning that freedom of speech must be balanced with responsibility. Th...

Hong Kong Legislative Council president Starry Lee Wai-king has urged officials to respect lawmakers’ dissenting views amid a recent rise in government pushback, stressing that public policies “always have pros and cons”. Speaking at a media ga...

Hong Kong’s retail sales rose by 8.6 per cent year on year in April, extending the sector’s recovery for a 12th consecutive month, supported by continued growth in visitor arrivals and holiday spending. Provisional figures released by the Census ...

The surge of interest in Chinese humanoid robotics has raised a practical question for investors, corporate strategists and supply chain executives: who makes the parts? Reduction gears. Torque sensors. Precision bearings. Industrial software. The fu...

The arrest of Philippine Senator Jinggoy Estrada has deepened a stand-off in the Senate, leaving the chamber split between two 11-member blocs and raising the risk of a wider political crisis, analysts told This Week in Asia. They warned the stalemat...

A renowned artificial intelligence researcher who spearheaded foundational AI research for TikTok owner ByteDance has announced his departure from the company. The unexpected development comes as the firm is increasingly looking to monetise its core ...

A viral video showing a basketball coach forcing a pupil to slap himself in front of others at a Hong Kong school has sparked concern from a child protection group, which warned the act could cause physical injury and emotional harm. In a video circu...

Malaysia has urged Norway to help expedite a refund for the cancelled missile procurement deal, with Defence Minister Mohamed Khaled Nordin insisting that Oslo cannot absolve itself of responsibility. Khaled said he had recently met Norway’s defenc...

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr’s net satisfaction rating has hit an all-time low, with observers citing deep-seated economic anxieties as the main driver behind the slump – even as expanded media exposure has helped boost awareness of ...

Hong Kong authorities have arrested the parents of a baby without legal identity after they continued to refuse a DNA test for the infant’s birth registration on privacy grounds. The arrest on Tuesday followed an intervention by the city’s welfar...

A vehicle fire in the undersea tunnel of the Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macau Bridge caused major traffic disruption on Tuesday afternoon, prompting a partial closure of the key link between the three cities. The Transport Department said at 1.55pm that th...

The head of the World Health Organization on Monday concluded his visit to Democratic Republic of Congo by briefing the president on the response to the Ebola outbreak, which an aid agency warned was likely much larger than official figures show. The...

The waters off eastern Taiwan have become a new flashpoint after Tokyo and Manila announced formal negotiations to delimit the maritime boundary of the exclusive economic zones (EEZs) and continental shelf between Japan and the Philippines. On Monday...

A valiant official in China has been dubbed “Mud Buddha” after a photograph emerged of him covered in sludge while he was averting disaster by evacuating residents before a catastrophic landslide. From the evening of May 17 to the early morning o...

Hong Kong will relaunch direct flights with Almaty in Kazakhstan in the first quarter of next year, the city’s leader has revealed as he vowed to push for visa-free access to the Central Asian country for up to 30 days. Confirming a South China Mor...

Discrimination towards foreign residents in Japan has expanded from Koreans and Kurds to Muslims as their population is estimated to have nearly doubled in recent years, according to observers and community members. Misinformation and hate speech are...

Shares of Tencent Holdings surged 10 per cent on Tuesday, driven by investor optimism over reports that the Chinese tech giant is close to launching an artificial intelligence agent within its super app WeChat. Tencent was testing a prototype AI agen...

A top US general’s description of South Korea as a “dagger in the heart of Asia” aimed at China has laid bare the differences in how Washington and Seoul view their alliance and Beijing. US Forces Korea commander General Xavier Brunson made the...

A Taiwanese air force aircraft crashed during a training mission on Tuesday, killing two experienced pilots and prompting renewed scrutiny of the island’s ageing fleet of T-34 basic trainers. The T-34C aircraft went down at about 8.08am at Gangshan...

Russian drones and missiles pounded the Ukrainian capital Kyiv and other cities early on Tuesday, killing at least 11 people and wounding more than 100, authorities said, following days of warnings about Moscow’s plans for a major assault. Russia h...

We have selected seven stories from the SCMP’s coverage of Asia over the past week that resonated with our readers and shed light on topical issues. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. Russia’s military...

Hong Kong authorities should offer more timely and flexible urgent accommodation for residents uprooted by a new regulation aimed at eliminating the city’s notorious subdivided flats, lawmakers have urged. Their comments were made on Tuesday after ...

Denmark’s Social Democratic leader ⁠Mette Frederiksen said on Monday ⁠she has agreed to form a centre-left coalition government, maintaining her grip on power amid a crisis in ties with US President Donald Trump over the future of Greenland. Th...

Drone swarms and stealth submarines are playing a growing role in modern warfare, yet aircraft carriers remain a symbol of military might. That can be seen in China’s investment in the warships, as well as other countries including France, Turkey, ...

Japan is slipping towards a banana shortage crisis, the latest disruption linked to the Middle East conflict. The reason: the country ships in the tropical fruit while it is still green, then ripens it in rooms filled with ethylene before bunches rea...

As Hong Kong sent its first astronaut into space, leading industry experts at the Global Prosperity Summit 2026 (GPS 2026) said the city was well positioned to be a facilitator of aerospace development by tapping into emerging opportunities in the ae...

To head off a public health crisis, China is stepping up efforts to find new treatments for Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease. As its population ages, the country already has more cases of these neurodegenerative diseases than anywhere ...

Hong Kong education authorities have apologised and launched a review after parents received SMS notifications of their children’s primary school allocations a day ahead of the official announcement, stressing that the results to be released on Wed...

Asia’s fuel needs may take priority over the strategic risks of relying on oil from heavily sanctioned Russia, according to experts. Currently, there is little political appetite to treat the surge of Moscow’s crude flowing eastward through a “...

For decades, Asia’s ambitions in outer space were closely associated with scientific discovery, technological prestige and national symbolism. Space programmes were designed to demonstrate engineering capability, economic modernisation and geopolit...

Taiwan’s navy will support patrols around the Taipei-controlled Dongsha Islands after mainland Chinese coastguard activity near the South China Sea atoll surged over the past year. The activity has fuelled concerns in Taipei that Beijing is using t...

A boy in eastern China who survived catastrophic burns is battling daily pain on the badminton court, determined to become a champion like his idol Lin Dan. Xuanxuan, 12, from Jinan in Shandong province, was asleep with his family when a fire tore th...

A lack of direct flights has been a bugbear to Hong Kong and Kazakhstan forging closer ties but with the city’s leader now in Astana and hints of incentives on the table, hopes are rising for a breakthrough. It is understood that a Hong Kong-based ...

Japan’s patience with Britain as a defence partner is being tested after reports that funding shortfalls in London could delay a next-generation fighter jet that both countries are developing with Italy. The Global Combat Air Programme, or GCAP, is...

Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren and Andy Kim on Monday slammed the Trump administration for potentially allowing advanced American AI chips to ‌be sent to overseas units of Chinese firms, and called on Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to test...

China’s top diplomat said on Monday that Beijing and Brasilia should “jointly repel external challenges”, as the two countries opened a high-level strategic dialogue in Beijing. Foreign Minister Wang Yi made the remark during a visit by his Bra...

“You have absolutely no idea of what you’re talking about. The whole point of Pax Silica is to partner with countries who are good at doing different things because everyone wins from a secure supply chain,” wrote US Undersecretary of State for...

US President Donald Trump’s nearly US$1.8 billion fund to compensate victims of alleged government “weaponisation” has been put on hold after the White House faced fierce opposition from Republicans in Congress, three sources familiar with the ...

China’s SAIC Motor plans to set ⁠up a car ⁠factory in Spain’s ⁠northwestern region of Galicia that would be its first production facility in the European Union, the regional government said on Monday. Galicia’s leader Alfonso Rueda said h...

The US decision to classify two Brazilian gangs as terrorist organisations is a political one aimed at boosting an ally of US President Donald Trump, the son of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, politicians and analysts say. The gangs join e...

US President Donald Trump has suffered a partial legal setback in his push to exclude transgender people from the military. The Trump administration may not remove the plaintiffs who brought the case from active military service, a federal appeals co...

The US State Department plans to drastically slash the number of US embassies and consulates in Africa that can process visas for foreigners seeking to go to the United States. The almost 50 US embassies and consulates that are processing visa applic...

The Chinese and US militaries held working group talks on maritime military safety in Hawaii on Thursday and Friday, both sides have announced, in the latest effort by the two geopolitical rivals to keep military-to-military communication channels op...

Efforts to negotiate an end to war in the Middle East appeared in limbo on Tuesday, after Iran-linked media reported that Tehran had suspended contact with Washington over Israel’s expanding offensive in Lebanon, even as US President Donald Trump i...

US rapper Travis Scott angered fans in Istanbul after a performance that barely lasted 20 minutes, with the audience booing as he left the stage early on Monday, footage on social media showed. On his first tour of Turkey, the 35-year-old hip-hop sta...

A UK court on Monday jailed a British Sikh man for life for killing a university student in a case that sparked anger after police handcuffed the dying victim following a false claim of racial abuse. A judge at Southampton Crown Court sentenced Vickr...

Reporters and the public will be allowed to attend a key coming hearing for the man accused of killing Charlie Kirk, after a Utah judge on Monday denied a defence request to restrict access. Tyler Robinson’s defence team had asked Judge Tony Graf t...

[The content of this article has been produced by our advertising partner.] A foul-smelling river in Tuen Mun, mountains of parcel packaging and the waning proficiency of Cantonese among young people have become the inspiration behind a series of stu...

Hong Kong leader John Lee Ka-chiu held talks with Kazakhstan’s president on Monday at the start of his visit to Central Asia, highlighting the city’s role as a “superconnector” bridging businesses with global markets, as his delegation sealed...