When the ground tore open beneath the Philippines last week, Roldan Dante was working in a nearby town. By the time he could return, his home in Glan, Sarangani province, had collapsed. His wife and two young children were gone. “If only I had know...

A 6.7-magnitude earthquake shook part of central Indonesia’s Sulawesi island on Tuesday, causing scattered damage and rattling residents of a city devastated by a quake and tsunami eight years ago. The strong shaking sent people fleeing into open a...

“Overcapacity” has become the buzzword in Washington and Brussels. American and European policymakers insist China churns out far more steel, electric vehicles and green technology than it can absorb, flooding the world with subsidised goods. Yet...

China’s ruling Communist Party has announced a new branch of President Xi Jinping’s political thought, which stresses governing the party with discipline and unified leadership. During a national conference on party building on Monday, the concep...

Hong Kong’s privacy watchdog has launched a data privacy academy as part of efforts to align with the national strategy of developing the city into an international high-calibre talent hub. Announcing the news at the 30th Anniversary Privacy Protec...

Nisa Mohd did not send her daughter to boarding school unprepared. Before the now 17-year-old left for Melaka, her mother enrolled her in silat, the Malay martial art, and made one instruction clear: report any trouble immediately. She still watches ...

Disney opens Shanghai park, with eye to future By Mandy Zuo (Additional reporting by Nikki Sun) This article was first published on June 16, 2016 China represents “incredible potential” for Walt Disney, said company chairman Bob Iger ahead of the...

A poultry stall at a Hong Kong market has been disinfected after an environmental sample tested positive for the H9 bird flu virus, with shoppers remaining largely unfazed despite a recent infection involving a two-year-old boy. The affected stall, t...

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, one of Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin’s closest allies, said in an interview published on Monday that Russia and Ukraine must compromise to end the war that has raged for more than four years with no end in...

Radar-absorbing materials have long been associated with stealth fighters, cruise missiles and other high-end military platforms for which performance often comes at a high cost. But in China, some stealth coatings could be moving into large-scale in...

Alibaba Group Holding has launched its first suite of artificial intelligence models for robots, joining a global race to move AI out of chatbot windows and into the physical world. The Hangzhou-based tech giant on Tuesday introduced the Qwen Robot S...

China’s Miao ethnic group reveres trees, believing that they symbolise the life of humans; they also worship vegetation at important stages of life. The Miao people, whose population numbers over 10 million, inhabit central and southern China’s G...

Shipowners ⁠will not resume transit through ⁠the Strait of Hormuz for weeks until they are confident that the US-Iran deal is “material”, the CEO of Japan’s Mitsui O.S.K. Lines told the Financial Times in an interview published ‌on Tuesda...

The drones are grounded, tankers are reportedly moving again through the Strait of Hormuz and an electronically signed memorandum of understanding has formalised the pause. After 108 days, thousands dead and hundreds of billions of US dollars strippe...

Beijing’s point man on Hong Kong affairs began a two-day visit on Tuesday with inspections of key projects across the city, focusing on housing, technology and Northern Metropolis developments. Xia Baolong, director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affai...

Hong Kong may enter its summer flu season earlier than usual this year, with a peak likely to occur later this month, health authorities have said, urging unvaccinated residents to receive jabs for protection. Dr Edwin Tsui Lok-kin, controller of the...

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. Singapore PM Lawren...

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s first attendance at this week’s G7 summit aims to turn her rapport with Donald Trump into a bridge between the US president and the bloc’s leaders, as she seeks to cement her image as Japan’s “Iron Lady”. D...

Hong Kong’s anti-corruption watchdog has charged a former senior staff member of the Chinese University Medical Centre over alleged fraud. The Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) on Monday accused Lau Mun-cheung, 65, the former head an...

When Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT) held its 11th group wedding for doctoral students on May 31, each of the 187 newlywed couples was presented with a one-carat diamond ring, with the diamonds grown in the university’s laboratory. The gems we...

When Singaporean Kristen Chng watched Chinese indie film Dear You with his father in Suzhou last month, he was reminded of his grandfather’s journey of sweat and hardship after leaving his ancestral village in Guangdong province with little to his ...

The images were difficult to ignore. A viral video showed the body of a 35-year-old Indian seafarer on a vessel off Oman, with crew members using cold water bottles in a desperate attempt to slow the decomposition process. He had died last Thursday f...

Benjamin Netanyahu bet that his joint war alongside Donald Trump would topple Iran’s clerical rulers and bolster ⁠himself ahead of the election at home, as the architect of a US-Israeli alliance that would reshape the Middle East. Instead, Israel...

Many Hong Kong shoppers remain undaunted by a mainland Chinese investigation into the food safety practices of popular supermarket Sam’s Club in neighbouring Shenzhen, saying they will still shop for bargains – but more selectively. Despite repor...

Taiwan’s new website for mainland Chinese to securely report intelligence-related information has sparked debate over whether it is workable. The self-governed island’s National Security Bureau (NSB) on Sunday said it had established a “contact...

An enterprising 19-year-old student in China heads a start-up tech company and is also a philanthropist who donated 100,000 yuan (US$15,000) to sanitation workers at his school. Wei Siyuan graduated from Baoan Middle School in Shenzhen, southern Chin...

The custody of a Hong Kong couple’s four-year-old daughter remains in the balance after a Swedish court threw out their attempted appeal against the local social welfare administration’s application to transfer her legal guardianship to a foster ...

New homes that Hong Kong developers will launch in the coming days and weeks will serve as a crucial test of the impact of Beijing’s latest capital-control measures, amid signs of recovery in the city’s residential property market. “Seemingly, ...

North Korea’s latest spirited defence of its nuclear arsenal signals a strategy that goes beyond rejecting international calls to disarm and instead leans into mounting global superpower rivalry to legitimise its weapons build-up. The verbal offens...

Iranian Americans streamed into the Los Angeles stadium where Iran play their first match at the 2026 World Cup on Monday, with some calling for Iranians to band together and forget politics while others bore symbols protesting the government. The te...

Eight people died when a US B-52 bomber crashed and erupted into a catastrophic fire shortly after take-off at an air force base in California on Monday, officials said. The heavy bomber was on a routine testing mission with a mixture of military, go...

As trade tensions between Beijing and Brussels continue to rise, China’s firms in the European Union have been forced to walk a delicate tightrope: expanding their presence in the lucrative market while grappling with heightened regulatory hurdles ...

British prosecutors have charged with sanctions contravention offences the Indian captain of an interdicted alleged Russian shadow fleet vessel seized in the Channel, the National Crime Agency (NCA) said on Monday. It follows British armed forces on ...

Most Asian-American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) adults believe the United States used to be a great place for immigrants but no longer is, according to a survey released on Monday ahead of the 250th anniversary of American independence next month. �...

When it comes to the performance of real estate markets in the Asia-Pacific, Japan reigns supreme. Asia’s second largest economy is the deepest, most widely traded, and the safest market in the region. Last year, Japan accounted for 28 per cent of ...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday he was willing to meet Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in the United States, suggesting Putin would find such an offer “harder to refuse”. The Ukrainian leader said he made the proposal in ...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday said he intends to run in elections scheduled for later this year, as he faces domestic criticism over his wartime leadership. Netanyahu, 76, is Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, has led hi...

Argentina’s top central banker sat down with his Chinese counterpart in Shanghai, a quiet overture towards Beijing months after Buenos Aires moved to unwind a currency lifeline that Washington had pushed it to abandon. Santiago Bausili, president o...

California ⁠Governor Gavin Newsom on Monday accused US President Donald Trump of directing the Justice Department to undertake a politically motivated investigation of him and his wife. “Donald Trump isn’t just coming after me because of my mea...

A federal judge on Monday dismissed a lawsuit by Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, that accused rival Sam Altman’s OpenAI of stealing ‌trade secrets for chatbots. US District Judge Rita Lin in San Francisco, California, said xAI...

Hungary’s parliament approved a ⁠constitutional amendment ⁠on Monday that ⁠allows prime ministers to serve for a maximum of eight years, effectively barring former premier Viktor Orban from holding the role ‌again. Prime Minister Peter Magy...

US President Donald Trump announced plans on Monday for a major “rally” in Washington on the July 4 Independence Day, further imposing his political brand on celebrations of the United States’ 250th anniversary. The announcement comes a day aft...

A senior US official on Monday said that President Donald Trump and Vice-President J.D. Vance had signed the memorandum of understanding electronically with Iran to formally reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end the American blockade of Iranian ports. ...

[The content of this article has been produced by our advertising partner.] Last Tuesday (9 June), Hong Kong Metropolitan University (HKMU) held a groundbreaking ceremony for its new campus on a slope site at the junction of Sheung Shing Street and F...

The European Union’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, said on Monday that the bloc has verified reports that China’s military has been “training Russian military personnel to fight in Ukraine”, a development that could deepen tensions between the t...

A sample collected from a market in Hong Kong has tested positive for bird flu H9, days after a two-year-old boy who visited the venue contracted a mild strain of the infectious disease. But the Centre for Health Protection (CHP) said on Monday that ...

The US-Iran peace deal is likely to bring immediate relief but not yet reassurance for Asia, as leaders across the region watch whether the Strait of Hormuz reopens, oil prices ease and the agreement can withstand the nuclear talks and geopolitical d...

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and her Italian counterpart Giorgia Meloni agreed on Monday to deepen cooperation in advanced technologies such as semiconductors and strengthen supply chains for critical minerals to bolster economic security w...

As plunging oil prices signal broad market optimism following an initial deal between the United States and Iran, attention has turned to whether Chinese firms sanctioned for Iran-related business will see immediate relief, though analysts remain cau...

A Polish doctor has been taken into custody after 34 human fetuses were found buried in the garden of her former home, the authorities said on Monday. Magdalena H. – a 57-year-old medical pathologist with no previous criminal record – is suspecte...