The United States is likely to seriously consider Pakistan’s proposal for a new port in the Arabian Sea and use it to ship the South Asian country’s rare minerals, even as observers warn of commercial and geopolitical risks of investing in a vola...

When HSBC announced its plan to privatise Hang Seng Bank for US$13.6 billion at a 30 per cent premium, the markets responded with enthusiasm. Many interpreted the move as a confident bet on Hong Kong’s future. But beneath the strategic packaging li...

South Korean police plan to conduct a joint autopsy with Cambodian authorities on a Korean college student who was kidnapped and allegedly tortured to death, officials said on Sunday, amid rising concerns over similar crimes against Koreans in the So...

Construction is set to begin next month on a monumental railway linking Hotan in Xinjiang with Lhasa in Tibet – one of China’s most ambitious infrastructure projects to date. The 1,980km (1,230 miles) line has been dubbed one of the “projects o...

Singaporean singer Stefanie Sun Yanzi has donated more than 10 million yuan (US$1.4 million) to a charity fund in China over the past decade, winning admiration on social media. Top Chinese diva Han Hong revealed that the Lion City singer was behind ...

Chinese car dealers, once the beneficiaries of the country’s booming automotive market, are facing a bleak future as they fall victim to a brutal price war and a growing preference for e-commerce sales among manufacturers and shoppers. The industry...

Marina Mahathir readily acknowledges the privileges of her birth and says that being able to “get a foot in the door” only made her more determined to speak up for those who could not. The 68-year-old daughter of Malaysia’s former prime ministe...

Hong Kong’s finance chief will attend the annual meetings of the IMF and the World Bank in Washington for the first time since 2019, despite a dramatic re-escalation of trade tensions between the United States and China. Financial Secretary Paul Ch...

Scientists in China and the Netherlands say they have discovered how a single plant cell can regenerate into an entirely new plant by flipping two genetic switches. They said the findings could help scientists develop technologies to quickly regenera...

A young associate professor at a prestigious Chinese university has gone viral on social media after a video of her teaching generative artificial intelligence (AI) captivated viewers. She has also sparked an online discussion about her youthful appe...

The collapse of two bridges in the northern Philippines just months apart has cast a harsh spotlight on the country’s ageing infrastructure and stirred renewed scrutiny of corruption in public works projects. While officials have pinned the latest ...

The education ministry has asked the Malaysian Communications and Multi­media Commission (MCMC) to block the spread of videos ­related to the recent gang rape case involving students at a ­secondary school in Melaka state. Education Minister Fadhl...

Ian Watkins, the former frontman of the British rock band Lostprophets, was killed on Saturday in a prison attack in England, where he was serving a 29-year sentence for multiple sex crimes against children. Watkins, 48, pleaded guilty in November 20...

Hong Kong can expect fewer but stronger typhoons in the future, a former assistant director of the Observatory has warned, with storms lasting longer and potentially becoming even more destructive than in the past. Leung Wing-mo, a spokesman for the ...

At just 23, university student Bianca Sadhwani has become a familiar face on Hong Kong’s streets, her smile and kindness lighting up evenings as she hands out meals to the homeless alongside her father. The young volunteer, a finalist in this year�...

A helicopter that was coasting above a popular Southern California beach on Saturday suddenly lost control and began spiralling in mid-air, eventually losing altitude and slamming into a row of palms as stunned sunbathers and beachgoers looked on. Mu...

Senior Superintendent Raymond Suryanto Chin-chiu has been disposing of bombs in Hong Kong for 18 years, having cleared more than 1,000 explosives, from unexploded wartime bombs to smuggled fireworks. Yet he can never be 100 per cent sure of completin...

Kenya has converted its US dollar-denominated railway loans from China into the Chinese yuan, not only securing debt relief but also fitting into Beijing’s long-term goal of internationalising its currency. Analysts said the decision, announced by ...

More than 120,000 fans gathered in Shanghai on October 2 and 3 to attend one of China’s biggest expos for toys and garage kits – homemade resin model figures. The Wonder Festival, founded by a Japanese toy company and at first only staged in Japa...

Just weeks ago, securing US President Donald Trump’s attendance at this month’s Asean summit was seen by many as a diplomatic masterstroke by Malaysia’s leader. But the fanfare surrounding the notoriously fickle American president’s impending...

Ever since Hong Kong’s retail sector shook off 14 months of consecutive declines in May, analysts have been speculating whether the city’s landlords and developers can look forward to rental increases sooner rather than later. Hong Kong retailers...

Patriotic films in mainland China have long celebrated undercover agents of the Communist Party, their operations portrayed as pivotal to securing victory in the 1940s civil war against the Kuomintang and the founding of the People’s Republic. Less...

Global energy investment is projected to reach US$3.3 trillion this year, with some US$2.2 trillion directed towards clean technologies, double the amount flowing into fossil fuels. Yet beneath these impressive figures, a crisis of confidence is unfo...

The number of international first-year students at Hong Kong’s public universities remained below pre-pandemic levels in the last academic year despite the government doubling quotas for non-locals, with an admissions official saying Singapore has ...

A woman in central China who accepted a betrothal gift of 200,000 yuan (US$28,000) and later regretted the engagement agreed to return the money. However, her already shocked husband-to-be was then doubly taken aback when the woman asked him to deduc...

Pang Kok Meng, 65, lives with his 91-year-old mother in a public housing flat in Geylang, a township in central Singapore. For more than a decade, he has been feuding with a neighbour living one floor below. “Whenever there’s a little noise – i...

As China drafts its 15th five-year plan – the next entry in a line of expansive blueprints that have set the tone for the country’s development over more than seven decades – we examine how these documents inform and reflect high-level policy p...

Firefights broke out along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border late on Saturday, with the Afghan Taliban attacking Pakistani posts, according to security officials from both countries, following a Pakistani air strike in Kabul this week. Pakistani securi...

In a global first, China has launched a cutting-edge commercial underwater data centre in Hainan. The facility has the potential to upgrade digital service offerings, increase Beijing’s share of global internet traffic and serve as a magnet for for...

Actress Diane Keaton, known for her Oscar-winning performance in 1977’s Annie Hall and her role in The Godfather films, has died at the age of 79. Details were not immediately available and Keaton’s loved ones have asked for privacy, a family spo...

US special envoy Steve Witkoff on Saturday lauded US President Donald Trump’s efforts to secure a Gaza ceasefire in a speech at a rally in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square, with hundreds of thousands attending. “We all owe a debt of deep gratitude to...

US President Donald Trump said on Saturday that he has directed the Defence Department to use “all available funds” to ensure American troops are paid on Wednesday despite the government shutdown. Trump said in a social media post that he was act...

Former US president Joe Biden is undergoing radiation and hormone therapy to fight prostate cancer that was revealed in May, a spokesperson said on Saturday. “As part of a treatment plan for prostate cancer, President Biden is currently undergoing ...

Japanese summers had lengthened by about three weeks over the 42 years from 1982 to 2023, a university research group said on Saturday. The Mie University group said that due to climate change, the number of days classified as summer has increased ea...

Chinese airlines could face ticket sale disruptions and higher costs if Washington follows through on a Trump administration proposal to bar them from using Russian airspace on US routes, analysts said – though they were divided over the plan’s f...

Competition is expected across all three types of constituencies in Hong Kong’s coming Legislative Council election as several veterans will not seek another term and new blood is being “encouraged” to run in only the second poll held since Bei...

Beijing has named a senior editor of the English-language China Daily newspaper as a deputy director of the central government’s liaison office in Hong Kong, confirming an earlier Post report. The State Council announced Sun Shangwu’s new role on...

The survival of Europe’s wild pollinators is increasingly at risk, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said on Saturday as it declared dozens of bee and butterfly species as threatened. Almost all flowering plants in Europe de...

Hong Kong businesses have braced themselves for additional US tariffs, but experts are urging companies to develop alternative strategies due to proposed export controls on American-made critical software, warning of a “painful” adjustment. Indus...

International agencies were preparing on Saturday to pour aid into Gaza, hopeful that a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas will allow them to put an end to the famine haunting parts of the territory. But optimism was marked with caution. The fragile ...

China’s electronic warfare (EW) force successfully tricked a foreign spy plane during a South China Sea operation, a Chinese military magazine recently revealed. In the incident, a false radar signature generated by a Chinese military vehicle-mount...

Vilma Lagnayo woke up on Saturday to a sobering reality – her family home of five years in the quiet coastal town of Manay in southern Philippines was gone. The 56-year-old recalled that minutes before an offshore magnitude 7.4 quake hit at 9.43am ...

A top university in Hong Kong has said it rejected “several hundred” admission applications over suspicions they used fraudulent qualifications and stepped up its vetting process with the help of technology such as artificial intelligence. The ca...

Hong Kong police are pursuing four suspects believed to be linked to bags of butchered wild boar carcasses left in Tseung Kwan O on Friday night. Police received a report at 8.59pm and observed four suspects who fled when officers arrived to carry ou...

As China rapidly advances in artificial intelligence to boost economic growth and transform industries, some scientists are working to unleash the technology’s potential to promote social good. Su Jionglong, deputy dean of the School of AI and Adva...

A Chinese man has been left shocked after discovering that his recently deceased elderly mother had spent nearly 480,000 yuan (US$67,000) of her life savings on more than 20 cosmetic procedures over a three-year period. The case came to light when th...

Police in the mainland Chinese province closest to Taiwan issued a reward notice on Saturday for information leading to the capture of Taiwanese military officers accused of inciting secession. The move comes a day after Taiwanese leader William Lai ...

Amid all the artificial intelligence-induced euphoria – or irrational exuberance – in stock markets and despite the unease caused by rising bond yields and falling prices, relatively little attention has been paid to the rising price of gold. The...

In the wake of a landmark ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, the world’s oil traders are watching the Middle East with a rare sense of cautious optimism, as hopes for lasting peace begin to chip away at the recent risk premium attached to glo...

A food stall operator in China has seen his business boom after he cosplayed as a famous actor who played an ancient emperor. The vendor, known as Ye, sells fried stinky tofu on a snack street in Wuhan, central Hubei province. He bears a striking res...