A production blunder at a factory in eastern China has turned toy ponies into viral crying-faced horses which have become popular mascots for the Year of the Horse. In January, a netizen shared a picture of a pony with a crying face and the retailer,...

The summit between South Korea and Japan has exposed a growing divergence in how the two neighbours are responding to a more volatile regional order, as supply chains harden into strategic tools and great-power rivalry sharpens, analysts have said. D...

Hong Kong activist investor David Webb, who has died aged 60, has been remembered for his integrity, courage and rigour as a “true pioneer” of the city’s corporate governance. Tributes have poured in online for Webb, who died in Hong Kong on Tu...

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, is the ideological arm of Tehran’s military, answering to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and stands accused by Western countries of orchestrating and perpetrating the crackdown on protest...

A worker was killed and two others injured after three gas cylinders fell from height and struck them at a construction site in Tsuen Wan on Wednesday afternoon. Police received a report at about 1.34pm that the cylinders fell as they were being hois...

An advocacy group representing Filipino victims of wartime sexual slavery by Japanese soldiers will renew its decades-old demand for a formal state apology and reparations as Japan’s foreign minister visits the Philippines this week. The group, Lil...

A bit more than a week after the United States abducted former Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro in a raid on Caracas, US President Donald Trump is threatening military action against Iran, which is seeing a massive wave of anti-government protests. Y...

For years, Beijing attempted to trade flats for microchips, a bold effort to rewire the economy. But 2025 showed that a hi-tech superstructure cannot be built on the crumbling foundation of a middle-class balance sheet. Now, in the opening 2026 issue...

The valuation expansion that elevated Chinese stocks to world-leading gains last year will continue to galvanize equity financing by artificial intelligence companies in 2026 after a slew of eye-popping listings by key players, according to analysts....

A visit by the Philippines’ foreign minister to Myanmar has raised concerns over how Asean will be perceived under Manila’s chairmanship this year, with critics arguing it risks appearing as tacit support for the junta amid an election widely con...

Chinese tourist numbers are recovering across Asia after a pandemic-era contraction, buoyed by the expansion of visa-free policies and a stronger yuan. But one thing has not returned: the spending sprees that used to boost duty-free retailers around ...

The head of Iran’s judiciary signalled on Wednesday there would be fast trials and executions ahead for those detained in nationwide protests despite a warning from US President Donald Trump. The comments from Iran’s judiciary chief Gholamhossein...

We have put together stories from our coverage on science from the past two weeks to help you stay informed. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. China builds a record-breaking hypergravity machine to compre...

A Hong Kong man who claimed to be the reincarnation of a late Thai king has been sentenced to life imprisonment for the gruesome murder of an elderly man four years ago. The High Court on Wednesday sentenced 35-year-old Mang Yat-lam to mandatory life...

A 78-year-old Hongkonger has died after a fire broke out at a public housing estate in Kwai Chung. Police said they received a report at 12.41pm on Wednesday that a fire had broken out at Cho Yiu Chuen estate’s Kai Him Lau block. The blaze was exti...

A HK$5 million (US$641,000) plan to install crash barriers in Hong Kong’s bustling Causeway Bay shopping district is expected to improve pedestrian safety, but could also worsen congestion and restrict access for delivery workers and wheelchair use...

South Korea’s exports of food and agriculture-related products, referred to as “K-food Plus”, hit a record annual high of US$13.62 billion in 2025. The country’s Agriculture Ministry also reported on Monday that Korean ramyeon or instant nood...

Chinese short-video platform Kuaishou Technology is pitching its debut offshore bond sale to professional investors, joining a wave of domestic tech companies raising funds in the global debt market. The Beijing-based company, which is offering senio...

The man who was caught on video pumping subsidised RON95 fuel into his Singapore-registered car in Johor was on Wednesday fined 9,000 ringgit (US$2,217) for obstructing the registration number of his vehicle. Malaysian Long Sa Kow, who is a Singapore...

As China pushes to take the global lead in building space-based solar power stations, a new study warns that powerful lasers beaming energy back to Earth could pose serious risks to other satellites in the increasingly crowded low-Earth orbit. If the...

An entrepreneur in China has come under fire for promising to gift a car to every member of a city’s football team if they won an important competition, then reneging on her promise when they did. While many people criticised the woman, the local f...

Four migrants died while in custody of US immigration authorities over the first 10 days of ‍2026, according to government press releases, a loss of life that followed record detention deaths last year under US President Donald Trump. The deaths in...

A crane at a China-backed high-speed railway project in Thailand collapsed and derailed a passenger train on Wednesday, killing at least 25 people and injuring dozens, local authorities said. The accident occurred in the Sikhio district of Nakhon Rat...

Washington’s Middle East allies are bracing for what they fear could be “catastrophic” consequences if the United States moves militarily against Iran – a possibility US President Donald Trump again dangled this week by promising Iranian prot...

Beijing should exercise “strategic patience” in managing its maritime disputes, with provocations to be expected from the Philippines in the South China Sea and Japan in the East China Sea, according to a leading Chinese analyst. Hu Bo, director ...

New Zealand Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters rebuked the country’s new Reserve Bank governor, Anna Breman, for wading into US domestic politics after she signed a statement with other global central bankers backing Federal Reserve Chair Jero...

Ugandan authorities shut down internet access nationwide on Tuesday, two days ahead of elections in which President Yoweri Museveni has overseen a crackdown on the opposition as he seeks to extend his 40-year rule. The 81-year-old leader, who once sa...

China’s exports soared to record highs in 2025, defying trade tensions with Washington as Beijing’s diversification strategy successfully mitigated a decline in US-bound shipments. However, that resilience could face a new test this year, analyst...

Surging mainland Chinese investment in Hong Kong’s commercial real estate sector has helped set the stage for a “measured recovery” in 2026, according to Colliers. Investment from the mainland rose to the highest level in five years in the last...

This story has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by subscribing. Get faster notifications on the latest updates by downloading our app. Hong Kong’s new Legislative Council ...

When prosecutors in South Korea demanded the death penalty for ex-president Yoon Suk-yeol, he shook his head in disbelief and let out a contemptuous laugh – a moment that encapsulated his defiant posture throughout nine months of hearings. Yoon sta...

US President Donald Trump raised his ‌middle finger and appeared to direct profanity towards a factory worker who expressed ‍criticism of his handling of the Jeffrey Epstein controversy at a Michigan auto plant on Tuesday, video circulating onlin...

Vincent Wei led fellow Singaporean farmers around an empty Malaysian plot, laying out plans for a greenhouse and rows of leafy vegetables. What he pitched was not just space for crops but a lifeline for growers struggling to make ends meet in a city ...

India plans to lift long-standing restrictions on Chinese companies bidding for government contracts, a move officials say is aimed at easing shortages and project delays as relations with Beijing show tentative signs of stabilising. The proposal, fi...

Chinese artificial intelligence firm DeepSeek continues to keep the world guessing on when its next major release – the much-anticipated updates to its V3 and R1 models – will be launched, according to analysts, amid its recent publication of tec...

Some people wonder whether China could carry out a sophisticated state-sponsored kidnapping like the US capture of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and his wife. And it’s not just that; there is state terrorism like remote assassinations by dron...

China’s top counter-espionage agency has warned that overseas entities are attempting to steal the country’s geographic data through covert mapping operations that threaten national security. Foreign “anti-China hostile forces” have been depl...

A Chinese teenager has been sentenced to six years in prison after he exploited a loophole in an online shopping platform’s refund policy to make thousands of fraudulent claims. The 17-year-old made 11,900 bogus refund applications without returnin...

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung played drums together on Tuesday after their summit talks in Nara, the capital of her home prefecture, in a surprise event showcasing their amicable personal relationship...

The number of registered births in Hong Kong plunged to a record low of 31,714 in 2025, despite a range of government incentives to encourage families to have more children, ending two years of growth, the Post has learned. The figure was also well b...

A former mayor who quit her job amid a scandal over an alleged affair with a married subordinate has staged a political comeback in Japan, in a result analysts say shows how attitudes towards women in public life are shifting. Akira Ogawa, 43, was re...

Authorities plan to spend HK$5 million (US$641,025) to install safety bollards near the popular Sogo department store in Causeway Bay as a precautionary measure against potential vehicle-ramming attacks targeting pedestrians in one of Hong Kong’s b...

The US has officially green-lighted Nvidia to sell its H200 artificial intelligence chips in China, as the Trump administration seeks to strike a balance between curtailing China’s AI progress and maintaining American AI firms’ global market shar...

Australia’s former prime minister and a prominent China scholar, Kevin Rudd, will step down as ambassador to the United States a year ahead of schedule, a move some analysts say underscores a fundamental shift in how Canberra must navigate a Washin...

Roughly half a dozen federal prosecutors in Minnesota have resigned and several supervisors in the criminal section of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division have given notice of their departures amid turmoil over the federal investigation ...

Near the end of last year, thousands of European travellers saw their holiday plans unravel after a prolonged power outage in the Eurotunnel – the underwater train passage linking Britain and France – caused by a fault in the overhead supply. For...

Enrolment at Harvard for Chinese students rose in the autumn from a year earlier, even as the Donald Trump administration moved to rein in visas for them and limit foreign enrolment and funding at the prestigious university. The number of students fr...

In 2025, India approved a number of major defence packages, together worth US$30 billion. Such rapid procurement approvals are relatively rare by Indian standards. However, what they signal to the region will depend less on such announcements and mor...

Greenland would choose to remain Danish over a US takeover, its leader said on Tuesday, ahead of crunch White House talks on the future of the Arctic island which President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened. Trump has been talking up the idea of...

Former US president Bill Clinton and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton said Tuesday that they will refuse to comply with a congressional subpoena to testify in a House committee’s investigation of Jeffrey Epstein. The Clintons, in a letter ...