Sweden found itself in political uncertainty this week, as its parliamentary election on Sunday turned out to be extremely tight. With 95 per cent of the votes counted, the opposition left-wing bloc holds a three-seat lead over the governing right-wi...

At the beginning of August, when temperatures in Hong Kong hit highs not seen for at least 140 years, the Labour Department’s Heat Stress at Work Warning system remained at the amber level, the lowest of three tiers. The controversy that followed r...

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has cancelled a trip to the UN General Assembly next week as he faces mounting pressure at home during a string of difficult state elections. A government official, speaking on condition of anonymity because they coul...

The US Senate’s rejection of the Clarity Act – a landmark bill meant to regulate cryptocurrency market structure – has opened a window for Hong Kong to accelerate its digital asset ambitions, industry insiders say, even as the sector remains mi...

A Hong Kong court has ordered the winding-up of an engineering consultant behind a HK$336 million (US$42.8 million) renovation project at the fire-ravaged Wang Fuk Court over an unspecified debt. The High Court on Wednesday granted Tong Yiu-kwok’s ...

A Singapore family court rejected a 90-year-old man’s claim for spousal maintenance from his 89-year-old wife, noting that both of them are in the twilight of their lives. The court also noted that the man would receive more than S$2 million (US$1....

We have put together stories from our coverage on electric and new energy vehicles from the past two weeks to help you stay informed. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. Market squeeze: Tesla revives China ...

Israel’s defence minister said Wednesday it was only a matter of time before the country resumes full-scale war in Gaza and moves to force out its 2 million Palestinians. Israel Katz, who is known for outspoken remarks, was responding to criticism ...

China’s contributions and leadership were of considerable value to the revision of new International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standards for artificial intelligence, intelligent transport systems and cybersecurity, according to the glo...

China should strengthen its maritime militia to be an extra force to collect information and maintain a regular presence in the South China Sea, where it is coming into frequent conflict with the Philippines. That was the suggestion Wu Shicun, the fo...

A Hong Kong court has terminated a trial arising from a deadly shooting during a botched robbery three decades ago after the defendant died in custody earlier this week. The High Court on Wednesday discharged a seven-member jury presiding over the tr...

A Chinese boy with a remarkable talent for engaging customers at his family’s restaurant in central China has gone viral, drawing entertaining reactions from both domestic and international netizens. The four-and-a-half-year-old child gained overni...

Hong Kong has retained its status as Asia’s top financial hub for a fourth consecutive edition of the Global Financial Centres Index (GFCI), even as many of the world’s leading centres saw their scores slip slightly amid rising geopolitical headw...

A Malaysian city councillor has resigned over remarks he made about the Democratic Action Party (DAP) at the recent Umno general assembly. Permatang Pauh Umno division chief Mohd Zaidi Mohd Said’s resignation as a Seberang Perai city councillor too...

A South Korean crime lord convicted of murder in the Philippines reportedly planned to escape prison by strapping himself to a drone – until his own accomplice’s rehearsal footage gave the game away. Park Wang-yeol, 47, was sentenced in 2022 to 6...

An NBC local news helicopter crashed in the Chatsworth area of Los Angeles on Tuesday evening, killing three people, NBC said during a live television broadcast. NBC Los Angeles anchors on air identified the aircraft as their NewsChopper 4 helicopter...

Koukyo Yoneta, a fifth-generation Buddhist priest in a small town in Japan’s Hokkaido, was struggling to keep up with the maintenance needs of his century-old temple, so he chose a path that would have been unthinkable for his predecessors – rath...

The Saudi-led coalition battling Yemen’s Houthis accused the rebels on Wednesday of targeting Islam’s holy city Mecca, sparking outrage across the Muslim world and deepening the conflict roiling the region. Fresh fighting between the Iran-backed ...

Chinese researchers have developed the world’s smallest CT scanner, a portable device designed to produce images of tiny fossils and archaeological relics. Built by the Shandong province-based Rayim, the Xtomo-Cube is about the size of a desktop sp...

The leadership change in Okinawa could deal a quiet blow to Beijing’s attempts to leverage local opposition to remilitarisation and the US-Japan military alliance, according to analysts. They added that the shift would compel Chinese academics and ...

India and Russia are seeking to push one of Asia’s oldest defence relationships beyond arms sales and into a more technology-driven industrial partnership, analysts have said, with missile exports and fighter-jet offers emerging as early tests. Rus...

This live article is freely available to our registered users. Please log in or create an account. Hong Kong leader John Lee Ka-chiu has unveiled the city’s first five-year plan at the legislature, followed by his annual policy address. The highly ...

Chinese Defence Minister Dong Jun’s address to a defence gathering in Beijing on Wednesday carried a message for Washington but it was delivered in a notably softer, less critical tone, according to a retired senior colonel in the People’s Libera...

A Seoul court ordered Pyongyang on Wednesday to pay roughly US$32.5 million for blowing up in 2020 an office in North Korea that was intended to foster relations between the two Koreas, Yonhap news agency reported. The lawsuit over the destruction of...

Chinese Defence Minister Dong Jun gave a keynote speech to the Xiangshan Forum in Beijing on Wednesday, with just over a week until a summit in the United States between the presidents of the two countries. In his 20-minute address, Dong outlined Chi...

British pharmaceutical giant GSK has agreed to acquire a cancer drug from Chinese firm Chimagen Biosciences in a deal worth up to US$750 million, underscoring China’s emergence as a global player in biotechnology. GSK announced plans on Tuesday to ...

Former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte appeared in public for the first time on Wednesday since being transferred to the International Criminal Court 18 months ago to face murder charges related to his war on drugs. Duterte, 81, served as presid...

The first “China shock” was fairly easy to understand. Beginning in the 1990s, cheap Chinese goods poured into global markets, displacing large parts of lower-end manufacturing across the world. Now, China shock 2.0 seems to be under way, with Ch...

A woman from northern China has been reunited with her biological family after 26 years, with striking before-and-after images from her disappearance renewing public attention on the plight of human trafficking survivors. Sun Meihua, from Shandong pr...

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi retained many of her Liberal Democratic Party’s (LDP) executives on Wednesday, in her first reshuffle since taking the helm of the ruling party about a year ago. Takaichi kept the influential former prime mini...

Hong Kong’s leader will unveil two bold initiatives on housing and mediation in his policy address, the South China Morning Post has learned, with the government planning to boost home ownership rates among young couples and prioritise settling off...

This live article is freely available to our registered users. Please log in or create an account below. Beijing is hosting China’s most important annual defence conference, the Beijing Xiangshan Forum, bringing defence officials, former politician...

Singapore’s ministers are among the world’s highest paid, a system its leaders have defended as necessary to attract capable people into public service and reduce the temptation of corruption. Its latest salary review has once again put the spotl...

Southeast Asian investors have emerged as the largest non-local buyers of Hong Kong commercial property, led by Singapore-based capital, according to Savills. As of Tuesday, local and non-local investors – including those from mainland China – we...

Prime Minister Mark Carney pitched Canada as an investment haven on Tuesday at a gathering of global financial elite but conceded ties with the US remained crucial despite an escalating trade war. Carney convened the Canada Investment Summit as part ...

The US military said on Tuesday that it opened fire and destroyed two small Iranian boats this week that were trying to steal a drone ship in the waters off Iran, the latest back-and-forth fire in the stalemated war. Captain Tim Hawkins, US Central C...

The first vice-chairman of the nation’s top political advisory body is overseeing an 87-member committee of political and business heavyweights to arrange the state funeral for Hong Kong’s first chief executive, Tung Chee-hwa. A vigil will be hel...

The son of Hollywood icon Rob Reiner will not face the death penalty when he stands trial over the killings of his parents, Los Angeles County’s top prosecutor said on Tuesday. Nick Reiner, who turned 33 on Monday, was arrested in December 2025 aft...

Ed Sheeran’s tour of North and South America was plunged into chaos Tuesday when four of his supporting acts abruptly quit in solidarity with the rapper Macklemore, who was dropped for making pro-Palestinian comments on stage. Hours after Sheeran p...

When Chinese President Xi Jinping met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi last week on the sidelines of the Brics summit, another country loomed large in the background, even in its absence: the United States. After the meeting, both sid...

I remember 2011 well. Indonesia was chairing the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and I was serving as deputy foreign minister for Asean cooperation. I learned a great deal, although if I had to summarise the experience in one word, I would sa...

US President Donald Trump threatened Tuesday to keep the Kennedy Centre closed for good after a judge ruled his name cannot be added onto the famed arts institution’s facade. Trump said his hand-picked board voted “almost unanimously” to shut t...

Progressive US Senator Bernie ⁠Sanders and Steve Bannon, a close ally of President Donald Trump, both called on Tuesday for stronger oversight of artificial intelligence, uniting two political adversaries around concerns that the technology will ha...

Rail travel in large parts of the Netherlands ground to a standstill on Tuesday, after what authorities suspect were coordinated acts of sabotage with tubes attached to train tracks in multiple locations. Transport by train in most of the central and...

A Paris court on Tuesday awarded €1 (US$1.15) to Kim Kardashian for having been the victim of an armed robbery in the French capital in 2016, the amount of compensation she had asked for, according to a lawyer involved in the case. Kardashian has s...

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Tuesday confirmed that he will meet Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng this weekend for the final preparatory talks between the two sides, less than a week before Chinese President Xi Jinping travels to Washington f...

A Paris court on Tuesday sentenced a man to one year under house arrest with an ankle tag for sexually assaulting primary schoolchildren in his care. The sentence is the heaviest imposed since multiple allegations of sexual or physical violence emerg...

A Japanese court on Tuesday sentenced a 52-year-old man to five years in prison and fined him 1 million yen (US$6,500) for forcing a 12-year-old Thai girl to provide sexual services at his private-room massage parlour in Tokyo. The Tokyo District Cou...

Hong Kong’s finance chief has called on Cathay Pacific Airways to offer attractive fares and expand its route network, as China’s national development plan reinforces the city’s status as a global aviation hub. Speaking at Cathay’s 80th anniv...

Okinawa’s election on Sunday of a governor backed by Japan’s ruling party ended 12 years of local leadership opposed to the relocation of a US airbase and elements of Tokyo’s defence build-up plans. While experts say that Genta Koja’s victory...