Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu and his ministers will hold the first district consultation session to gather views on his coming policy address and the city’s inaugural five-year plan in Tuen Mun on Sunday. Only government-chosen reside...

Hangzhou Library, located in eastern China’s Zhejiang province, is affectionately dubbed “the warmest library” because it opens its doors to beggars and scavengers, even featuring a statue of one such individual. Notably, it was the first libra...

The total number of registered electors in Hong Kong’s geographical constituencies has dropped for a fifth consecutive year to 4.12 million, while the tally of newly registered voters climbed to its highest level since 2021. According to figures re...

Several major stress tests involving more than 10,000 people – including Hong Kong civil servants – will be carried out at the newly revamped Huanggang Port border crossing, as part of more than 100 exercises to be conducted in the coming months ...

The United ⁠Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) ⁠said on Saturday it had received reports of two maritime incidents off Oman, including one in which a tanker was struck by ‌an unknown projectile. In the first incident, a tanker was hit ab...

After a successful trial at a substation, China plans to expand the application of quantum technologies – including precision sensors and computer simulations – across its power grid to help prevent blackouts. During the 18-month trial in Hefei i...

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he wanted to “forgive” protesters who abused him during recent youth-led demonstrations that dealt a rare political setback to his government. The remarks came after the online Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) ...

The Chinese military held joint naval and air drills near Scarborough Shoal, a disputed reef in the South China Sea, on Saturday. The training exercise came after Beijing hit out at the Philippines for an “illegal” attempt to extend its seabed ri...

When a powerful earthquake jolted southern ⁠Japan this week, rattling ⁠homes and knocking out water and ⁠electricity, Tomoko Takaoka bundled up her beloved fluffy dogs and went in search of a safe place to stay. Unable to reach her parents, the...

High in the eastern Himalayas, where yak caravans once carried silk and salt between empires, a border crossing closed by suspicion six years ago is stirring back to life. The Nathu La Pass, a remote border trading post connecting India’s Sikkim st...

Changing the smoking culture at Hong Kong’s construction sites will “take time”, the labour commissioner has said after authorities completed 1,200 site inspections and issued 36 fixed penalty notices in the first two weeks of a smoking ban at ...

A political row is threatening to undermine Taiwan’s efforts to increase its stockpiles of military drones and has raised questions about the future of its domestic manufacturers. On Monday, lawmakers failed to agree on competing versions of a bill...

France and Italy bolstered border controls on Saturday after about 60,000 people crossed into Spain’s enclave in North Africa, sparking one of the largest migrant crises for the European Union in recent years. The migrants entered Ceuta from Morocc...

British trip-hop band Massive Attack has been barred from performing in Singapore after an investigation found two members unfurled a Palestinian flag during a concert, police said. Two band members who held the flag on stage during a concert on Wedn...

Russian strikes on Ukraine’s capital killed at least nine people and wounded more than a dozen others, local officials said on Saturday, after Kyiv’s mayor warned of a ballistic missile attack. It comes after the United Nations found June was the...

Lawmakers from Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) have launched a group aimed at promoting the rapidly growing trading card industry, seeing its potential as a globally competitive content sector. The group, consisting of some 20 lawmake...

A single canned ingredient imported from the Netherlands has quietly fuelled Hong Kong’s daily hustle for the past 85 years, evolving from a simple dairy product into part of the soul of local diner culture. For decades, the Black and White brand o...

Voters in Malaysia’s Negeri Sembilan headed to the polls on Saturday, the second election in the past month as political allies governing the country locked horns at state levels. Candidates from Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s Pakatan Harapan (PH...

As the Philippines hosted Southeast Asian foreign ministers in late July, the sea would not stay quiet. On July 20, Chinese and Philippine crews fought beside the BRP Sierra Madre with oars and batons; one Filipino sailor was reportedly injured while...

Playing strategic and role-playing mobile games has been a major leisure activity for Peter Lee* since he graduated in 2020, when social distancing measures during the Covid-19 pandemic left him with little to do outside working hours. Unlike console...

Sixteen years after being rescued from a river as a toddler, a young girl from eastern China earned a spot at the prestigious Peking University and shared this significant milestone with the man who saved her life. Yu Xianguo, 66, from Taizhou in Zhe...

As the People’s Liberation Army marks its 99th anniversary on August 1, one year from the deadline for its centenary goals, its evolution highlights the past, present and future of China’s military strategy. In the second part of a series, Gabrie...

Driven by a surge in visitors from across Asia and a blockbuster June stadium concert by K-pop juggernaut BTS, international tourism in South Korea’s southern port city of Busan shattered post-pandemic records during the first half of this year. Bu...

At a food fair in New Delhi, a vegetable exporter from the Philippines set out its wares: bags of dried moringa and lemongrass, bundles of taro leaves and a bowl of laing, the creamy coconut-milk stew made from them. The question Dry Tech Manufacturi...

The US Justice Department moved Friday to dismiss a criminal case charging a former Olympian with deliberately damaging the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Government lawyers said in a 20-page court filing that information provided since the indict...

Prominent US lawmakers have requested information from food delivery giant DoorDash on its use of Chinese artificial intelligence models after its co-founder disclosed that they had experimented with a model from Chinese start-up Moonshot AI, develop...

US Senator Steve Daines is expected to return to China for another round of talks ahead of President Xi Jinping’s planned September visit to Washington, according to people familiar with the preparations. The trip was intended to help finalise the ...

Chinese ⁠government buyers bought at least eight ⁠cargoes of US soybeans on Friday for shipment from US Gulf Coast terminals and six cargoes for shipment from Pacific Northwest ports in October and November, two US traders with knowledge of the d...

Who will win the next war? That is the question posed on the cover of the latest Foreign Affairs magazine which explores, among other things, the US-China military and technological rivalry. At its core is a clash of strategic philosophies between th...

Google rolled back a new feature on Friday that allowed Google Earth users to generate AI visualisations on top of the service’s satellite imagery, following a furious backlash from researchers and open-source intelligence experts about the potenti...

Chilean President Jose Antonio Kast received China’s ambassador to Santiago, Niu Qingbao, at the La Moneda Palace on Friday morning, in an encounter that lasted more than an hour and marked the first meeting between the two men since the right-wing...

Beijing hit back at the White House decision to add 43 Chinese companies to a blacklist that is meant to block imports allegedly made in Xinjiang using forced labour, describing them as a “classic act of economic coercion”. Friday’s sanctions w...

The US Marine Corps says the pilot of an F-35B stealth fighter is expected to live after ejecting from the jet before it crashed in California. The jet went down on Friday near the Miramar airbase in San Diego. “The pilot ejected, was transported t...

US President Donald Trump said on ⁠Friday that America has not agreed to Ukraine building Patriot missiles, but that talks are ongoing, adding that the US must be “very careful about letting somebody build them”. Trump said during a meeting wit...

Italy said on Friday it ⁠was suspending the EU’s ⁠border-free Schengen arrangements with Spain for one month in ⁠response to a mass influx of migrants into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta from neighbouring Morocco. Italy does not share a land bo...

A Sri Lanka court sentenced former police chief Pujith Jayasundara to death on Friday for failing to prevent the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings, which killed 279 people including 45 foreigners. In a majority decision, a three-judge bench ruled that the ...

The US-China tech rivalry has escalated into a deeper battle over undersea fibre-optic cables powering the global AI boom. As demand for cross-border data to power and train advanced systems intensifies, so does the high-stakes battle to control crit...

Hungary’s only nuclear power plant will shut down for the first time in its history due to record-low water levels on the Danube River, Prime Minister Péter Magyar said on Friday, adding that the plant may not come back online for several weeks as...

A group of 87 mainland Chinese families who came to Hong Kong under talent visa schemes has lost a legal bid to challenge the government’s policy changes that affected their children’s access to publicly funded university places as dependants. Hi...

Chinese tech investors are hearing warning bells after volatility in US tech stocks forced a fast-rising Wall Street hedge fund to clear its stock portfolio at a steep discount within a few days. “Don’t use leverage! Don’t use leverage! Don’t...

US President Donald Trump on Friday hailed a “great breakthrough” in the Middle East, saying that the Board of Peace – the body he created to oversee Gaza’s governance, security and reconstruction – will lead the process of disarming Hamas....

The European Union’s foreign affairs chief, Kaja Kallas, is expected to travel to China in the autumn for her first face-to-face meeting with Foreign Minister Wang Yi since a bruising encounter in Brussels last summer, according to multiple people ...

Police will not charge a prominent Hong Kong basketball coach filmed slapping a student two years ago, citing insufficient evidence. In a reply to the South China Morning Post on Friday, the force said it would not prosecute Yung Kam-wah, who was arr...

Vin Lors used to earn about US$20 a day working on construction sites in Bangkok, nearly twice what he now makes in Cambodia. After the border conflict between Thailand and Cambodia broke out last July, the 37-year-old and his wife decided to return ...

Hong Kong’s air safety watchdog has classified a tail strike involving a Cathay Pacific Airways passenger jet during an aborted landing at the city’s airport this month as “abnormal runway contact”, according to a preliminary report. The Air ...

Under new regulations, the Chinese government will soon be able to ban citizens from leaving the country if they violate export controls or rules on technology transfers. The measures were announced by the State Council, China’s cabinet, on Friday ...

Thousands flocked to the opening day of the annual Hong Kong Cat Expo despite Friday’s rainstorm warnings, splashing out on products ranging from pet companion robots to ginseng supplements. The three-day event, which has been held annually since 2...

Aeons before Hong Kong and Shenzhen became bustling metropolises separated by a border and checkpoints, the stretches of land where they would eventually arise were simply part of the same volcanic area in southeastern China. Fast forward to today, a...

In June 1958, as China’s Great Leap Forward campaign gained traction, state media began reporting astronomical agricultural yields, including claims from central Henan province of over 3,000 jin per mu – more than 22 tonnes per hectare. That mont...

In America today, many low-income workers and households can’t get adequate healthcare or pay for food. Depending on who you ask, medical costs are the number one cause or at least among the top causes of bankruptcy for families. This is despite th...