ByteDance has bolstered its controversial video-generation model Seedance 2.0 with “advanced” watermarking and intellectual property (IP) protection guardrails ahead of its global roll-out, the TikTok owner has said. The much-anticipated internat...

Beijing-based high-school teacher Jiang Xueqin may not seem like an obvious candidate for a geopolitical “prophet”. Dressed casually in a polo shirt, the greying Chinese-Canadian looks unassuming. But through his hugely popular Predictive History...

At least one of the world’s largest LNG plants remained closed on Sunday after a cyclone knocked out power to thousands of people in Western Australia. The outages were restricting already stretched fuel supplies caused by the war in the Middle Eas...

In January, a top Chinese AI researcher told an industry summit in Beijing there was less than a 20 per cent chance of any Chinese company surpassing a leading US artificial intelligence firm in the next three to five years. The remark by Lin Junyang...

As the country with the world’s largest cohort of billionaires, China is no stranger to wealthy elites engaging in luxurious leisure activities, but one common pastime in the West does not seem to have attracted a commensurate level of interest acr...

Dedicated laws to streamline statutory procedures for Hong Kong’s Northern Metropolis could speed up some projects by about one year, the development chief has said. Secretary for Development Bernadette Linn Hon-ho also revealed on Sunday that the ...

Hongkongers Oscar and Stella Chan, a couple in their late 60s, have little interest in moving into a traditional residential care home. The retired civil servants rent a flat in Ma On Shan in the New Territories and, while they acknowledge that agein...

Hong Kong authorities are closely monitoring rising tensions in the Middle East and the resulting volatility in global oil prices, although the immediate impact on the city’s economy remains limited, the finance chief has said. Financial Secretary ...

As they fled an Iranian missile strike, some Israelis with Android phones received a text offering a link to real-time information about bomb shelters. But instead of a helpful app, the link downloaded spyware giving hackers access to the device’s ...

A Hong Kong dancer left paralysed after being struck by a giant screen at a concert by popular boy band Mirror has for the first time shown himself moving independently in a wheelchair in a social media video since the accident 3½ years ago. Dancer ...

Chinese secondary schoolteachers have introduced a new way of motivating pupils by awarding them “digital pets” that they can adopt online. The move has gained widespread attention and support. Recently, primary and secondary schoolteachers acros...

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un oversaw a test of a high-thrust solid-fuel engine for intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) capable of reaching targets around the globe, touting the development as elevating the country’s “strategic military...

Four people have been injured in a multi-vehicle collision in Hong Kong’s Kowloon City after a van mounted a pavement and crashed into a wall. Police received a report at 8.34am on Sunday that a driver of a van travelling along Prince Edward Road W...

No fast-food chain has ever meant quite what Jollibee means to Filipinos. Forget McDonald’s and KFC, Jollibee – with its sweet spaghetti and crispy Chickenjoy – is something else entirely: a cultural anchor for a diaspora scattered across every...

This article was first published on March 30, 2011 by Danny Mok ‘Student Prince’ dies after heart problem Former actor Alan Tang Kwong-wing, known as the “Student Prince”, has died at home. He was 62. The family said he was checked by a famil...

Air passengers departing from Hong Kong have said they were unaware of a new rule limiting the number of power banks they could carry to two, with few reminder signs visible at the airport on the first day of its enforcement on Sunday. The concerns w...

For most people, ants are unwelcome guests at a picnic, but international demand for the insects is driving a new black market in East Africa, where it could threaten ant populations and the broader environment. In early March, 27-year-old Chinese na...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday that his country had “undoubtedly changed the geopolitical situation” in the Middle East with a series of decade-long defence agreements with Gulf states being hit with Iranian drones and mi...

Israel’s avowed goal in the Middle East war is to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Yet the double standard associated with this is hardly sustainable in the long run. The worst-kept secret in the world of nuclear politics is that Israel...

From a law lecture hall to Barbie and later the glitzy ballroom of Bridgerton, Malaysian-born actor Yong Zheng Xi is quietly carving out a place for himself on the international stage. He appeared in the period drama as Lord Barnaby, a role that mark...

Chinese researchers have introduced a new methodology for evaluating medical and life science journals worldwide that does not rely on the “impact factor” traditionally used in the academic world. Experts view this as part of China’s broader ef...

Young, naive and now sleeping rough on a plastic sheet outside their embassy in Phnom Penh, Indonesians Abdul* and Hafiz* are among the expendable human resources of Southeast Asia’s scam trade. After a year-long tumble through Cambodia’s vortex ...

The official transcript of a public hearing into Hong Kong’s deadliest blaze in decades has wrongly recorded several key details, the South China Morning Post has found, prompting an academic to urge that future proceedings be live-streamed to stre...

Using only a childhood photograph, a woman in central China found her younger brother who had been lured away with a piece of bread more than three decades ago. Li Lin, 44, from Xiantao in Hubei province, was separated from her brother, Li Xin, in ch...

A proposal to scrap a ban on tall buildings in Kyoto to make way for towers and tourism infrastructure has drawn criticism that the move would fundamentally damage the skyline of Japan’s historic capital. A panel advising the city government sugges...

As one of the biggest targets of wartime looting in centuries past, China is now positioning itself as a global pioneer in repatriating lost cultural artefacts. In this article, the second in a two-part series, Xinlu Liang looks at how China is wield...

On March 1, after Israel and the United States initiated attacks against Iran, Amazon Web Services reported drone strikes against data centre facilities in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. The strikes caused structural damage to the company’s ...

The amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli has arrived in the Middle East, US Central Command said on Saturday, as speculation soared about the possible deployment of US ground troops in Iran. The ship arrived in the region on Friday, CENTCOM said in a ...

A huge shipment of KitKat chocolate bars has been stolen in Europe, the brand said, warning that the heist risked causing shortages in stores right before Easter. KitKat, owned by Swiss food giant Nestlé, confirmed in a statement on Saturday that �...

All passengers departing from Hong Kong International Airport are now prohibited from carrying more than two power banks, effective immediately, the Airport Authority announced on Saturday night. Citing new rules from the International Civil Aviation...

French police stopped an apparent bomb attack outside a US bank in Paris early on Saturday when they arrested a man about to set off a homemade explosive device, officials and sources close to the case said. The incident occurred around 3.30am in fro...

A probe has been launched into a serious medical incident in which a six‑year‑old boy’s heart stopped for about 16 minutes at Hong Kong Children’s Hospital after his breathing tube came loose from the ventilator. The hospital on Saturday said...

As the US-Israeli war on Iran enters its second month, another major shipping lane is at risk of closure but the chances of a prolonged conflict remain slim, according to Chinese analysts. The assessment came on Saturday as Iran-backed Houthi rebels ...

Huge crowds rallied on Saturday against US President Donald Trump from coast to coast, venting their fury over what they see as his authoritarian style of governing, his hardline immigration policies and the war with Iran. It is the third time in les...

Hong Kong railway experts have called for tougher penalties and stronger public education to prevent the misuse of emergency exits on trains following a recent incident on the MTR East Rail line that caused more than two hours of disruption during ev...

A Hongkonger has been rescued from Myanmar and transferred to Thailand after being held captive and forced to do illegal work, in an ordeal he described as a “horror movie”. The Security Bureau on Saturday said its dedicated task force had earlie...

Citing security concerns, Beijing will significantly restrict drone sales, storage and transport after tightening regulation of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the Chinese capital’s airspace, according to state media. Beijing has banned the sale...

Hong Kong authorities seized 1,600 litres (423 gallons) of diesel from an illegal fuel station in Sai Wan on Saturday as part of a continuing crackdown on illicit fuel sales, amid rising oil prices driven by conflicts in the Middle East. Officers fro...

The threat to employment posed by artificial intelligence was not a “robot apocalypse” that would steal jobs, but “algorithmic collusion” that could quietly erode wages and workplace safety, Ekkehard Ernst, the International Labour Organizati...

Francois Penz, former head of the department of architecture at the University of Cambridge and a pioneer in the interdisciplinary field of architecture and film, has joined Nanjing University on a full-time basis. The school of architecture and urba...

While walking along China’s roads, it is not uncommon to see leftover herbs scattered on the surface. This is not some random dumping problem, it is in fact Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) leftovers deliberately poured out by the people who cook...

Singapore has seized over 830kg (1,800 lbs) of Asian pangolin scales hidden in a shipment bound for Cambodia, authorities said on Saturday, calling it the largest haul of its kind discovered in the city state. Falsely declared as “dried fish skin�...

Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong has met Hong Kong political heavyweights and business leaders – including former Chief Justice Andrew Li Kwok-nang and Richard Li Tzar-kai, the son of tycoon Li Ka-shing – in what he described as a “short ...

Hong Kong customs has seized about 20 million illicit cigarettes with an estimated market value of HK$92 million (US$11.46 million) from a cargo vessel during a joint anti-smuggling operation with authorities in mainland China. The cigarettes would h...

Construction has begun on a major data centre in the Northern Metropolis, with Hong Kong’s innovation and technology minister saying the project will supercharge the city’s computing power and drive the national artificial intelligence (AI) push....

The law of unintended consequences, a theory popularised by American sociologist Robert K Merton, has rarely been more applicable to any situation than to US President Donald Trump’s war with Iran. Those consequences will be far greater than genera...

A prominent Chinese political scientist has cautioned Southeast Asian countries against leveraging China-US tensions for short-term benefits, saying this strategy could backfire. Speaking on the sidelines of the Boao Forum for Asia on Friday, Zheng Y...

Hong Kong authorities have insisted that a three-hour time limit is sufficient for residents of the fire-ravaged Wang Fuk Court to retrieve their belongings, with discretion to be exercised for those requesting a second entry. Deputy Chief Secretary ...

Hong Kong police are searching for a driver who fled the scene after crashing a car into a barricade and hitting a bus on Saturday. The force said it received a report at about 9.20am that a car had crashed into a roadside railing along Pui To Road i...

A month after the US and Israel launched the war with Iran, nothing seems to be going according to President Donald Trump’s plan for a conflict lasting four to six weeks. Despite the assassinations of most of the Islamic Republic’s political and ...