South China Morning Post

The Himalayas are approaching a tipping point as glaciers melt faster than a decade ago, threatening water security as the region approaches “peak water” by mid-century, according to a study released this month. The findings come after the collapse of a Himalayan glacier in late August along the ...

Hong Kong shoppers may have saved less than they expected – or nothing at all – through supermarkets’ “buy-one-get-one-free” and bulk-buy promotions, the city’s consumer watchdog has warned, urging residents to compare unit prices instead of relying on promotional labels. The Consumer Council on ...

A woman convicted of using a forged reference letter to gain admission to a Hong Kong doctoral programme has been spared jail and ordered to perform 160 hours of community service. Fanling Magistrate Kenneth Chan Ping-chau said on Monday that he had decided to “make an exception” for 31-year-old ...

Every spring, mason Mohammad Ghulam Sarwar boards a train to Indian Kashmir, seeking higher wages despite the risk of being targeted by militants in the disputed Himalayan region. Sarwar, 25, is one of an estimated half a million migrant workers who stream into the Himalayan region each year, for...

Two top executives at Japanese nuclear plant operator Chubu Electric Power would step down following a quake data-tampering scandal, the company said in a statement on Monday. President Kingo Hayashi and Chairman Satoru Katsuno would be replaced, the statement said, and the firm would withdraw ap...

Beijing has introduced stricter drone regulations, banning all uncrewed flights as well as the possession and storage of existing devices, while detailing disposal methods for the first time in an effort to strengthen security in the capital. The new rules, which will take effect on November 15, ...

A growing number of young Chinese employees are increasingly turning down promotions, challenging the traditional notion that career advancement is the ultimate marker of success. This trend has gained significant traction on mainland social media, where related posts have attracted over 40 milli...

Disposable sanitary pads sold in Hong Kong show wide discrepancies in absorption speed, with more than half of tested products also lacking adequate labelling, the consumer watchdog has found. The Consumer Council on Monday revealed the results of a survey of 36 winged sanitary towels, in which o...

British pharmaceutical company GSK is turning to patient data gathered from the 88 million residents of the Greater Bay Area’s 11 cities to speed up drug development in vaccines and cancer care, as officials push for closer cross-border medical cooperation. GSK Hong Kong and Macau general manager...

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung’s 36-year-old gender minister nominee stepped down before gaining confirmation of her position amid a public backlash over her suitability for the job in the latest negative fallout from the president’s cabinet reshuffle. Yong Hye-in, a lawmaker of the minor B...

A former Malaysian religious affairs minister pleaded not guilty on Monday to three charges involving more than 860 million ringgit (US$211 million) in transactions linked to the country’s state-run haj savings fund and a Saudi property group. Jamil Khir Baharom, 65, served as minister in the Pri...

We have put together stories from our coverage last weekend to help you stay informed about news across Asia and beyond. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. Brics members find common ground on AI, trade and de-dollarisation push 2. China urges US to ‘st...

While Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr was pitching the Luzon Economic Corridor to a 600-strong delegation of foreign investors and officials last week, protesters outside were clashing with police, accusing the US-backed initiative of exploiting the country’s resources. The backlash mir...

For generations of Chinese schoolchildren, English textbooks offered a glimpse of an unfamiliar world, from London’s Tower Bridge and Big Ben to American school life and Halloween traditions. Today, students opening an English textbook are more likely to encounter passages on late Qing dynasty (1...

Apple should ultimately bear responsibility for more than 700 unauthorised credit card transactions in Hong Kong, a lawmaker has said, while estimating that the actual loss would not be significant. Speaking on a radio programme on Monday, Election Committee sector legislator Johnny Ng Kit-chong ...

A little cheer rose for 79-year-old Hwang Sun-hee after she managed to place an online order at a training session in South Korea, which has one of the world’s starkest digital divides for seniors. Age gaps in digital literacy are a global concern, yet the gulf has widened massively in the hyper-...

North Korea said on Monday it conducted a joint live-fire drill involving missiles, artillery and drones that it claimed showed “huge destructive power”. The official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Saturday’s drill was meant to get familiar with the procedure for the operation of the inte...

Three people were killed and 15 others wounded as gunfire erupted hours before the polls opened on Monday in a semi-autonomous Muslim region of the Philippines set to choose its first elected parliament. The vote is the culmination of an on-off peace process that began in the late 1990s and estab...

China could improve its image in the United States by highlighting areas such as tourism and technology and positioning itself as a responsible major power, a survey has concluded. Researchers from Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou said that although concepts such as “decoupling” and “de-riskin...

Hong Kong’s inaugural five-year plan will not change the capitalist system and instead fully exploit its advantages to map the city’s long-term development, Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu has said. In an opinion piece published in the South China Morning Post on Monday, the city leader also str...

A report that eight Indonesians were allegedly tricked into fighting for Moscow in its war on Ukraine may be just the tip of the iceberg, analysts warn, cautioning that Southeast Asia’s existing scam networks could already be a hunting ground for Russian fraudsters. Ukraine’s intelligence agency ...

This year marks the opening year of the national 15th five-year plan. Faced with accelerating change globally and significant opportunities brought by national development, Hong Kong must better integrate into and serve the overall national development, enabling our economic progress to reach new...

A 75-year-old woman from Shanghai spent three million yuan (US$450,000) on beauty treatments in a salon, completely depleting her retirement savings before her daughter uncovered the situation. The elderly woman’s daughter recently sought assistance from a Shanghai television programme after disc...

In the final instalment of our series of previews on the five-year plan and policy address, to be announced on September 16, Natalie Wong and Matthew Cheng look at how national security spans areas such as finance and technology and what Hong Kong must do to earn Beijing’s trust. Read part one he...

China’s top intelligence official has warned of rising national security risks posed by artificial intelligence (AI), calling for robust risk prevention frameworks and stronger global governance of the emerging technology. The call from Chen Yixin, China’s state security minister, comes as Beijin...

Richardson Mojica is no stranger to thoughts of ending it all. The 40-year-old university professor and mental health advocate was diagnosed with generalised anxiety disorder, bipolar disorder and depression in his early 20s. He finds fulfilment in his job, yet suicidal ideation has always linger...

Hong Kong is intensifying efforts to attract technology start-ups and nurture unicorns through expanded financial support via a key government-backed platform, leveraging the city’s booming fundraising activities and world-class financial infrastructure. Investors are displaying an increased appe...

Over the past three decades, investor Fang Fenglei has had a major role in shaping China’s capital markets. He worked with Morgan Stanley in the early 1990s to help create the country’s first joint venture investment bank – China International Capital Corp. Then, at the start of the millennium, h...

Uganda’s King Oyo Nyimba, who was once the world’s youngest monarch, was buried on Saturday amid an acrimonious succession dispute that has rocked the royal family and gripped the nation. The traditional monarch, who ascended the throne of Uganda’s Tooro Kingdom as an infant in 1995, died last mo...

The latest Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) results are out and unfortunately for the Education Bureau, Hong Kong’s performance looks bad. Is this the outcome of not learning from the last assessment? In the 2022 Pisa assessment, a metric for creative thinking was introduced ...

US President Donald Trump on Sunday said he will look into requests from families of September 11 victims to release records that could shed light on Saudi Arabia’s alleged role in the attacks 25 years ago. Several families have long alleged that a group of extremist religious leaders in Saudi Ar...

US President Donald Trump on Sunday played down the need for his administration to check the development of artificial intelligence, saying he worried about ceding America’s edge over China in a global competition and that winning would help address the risks from the advancing technology. While ...

Iran plans to formally unveil an agreement on a temporary shipping lane through the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, after a flurry of diplomatic activity including a rare meeting between senior officials from Tehran and Abu Dhabi. The Islamic Republic is set to reveal to Gulf nations its agreement wi...

No country should have lower interest ⁠rates than the United States, President Donald Trump said on Sunday, days before the Federal Reserve’s next policy meeting. Speaking to reporters at the Irish Open golf tournament at the Trump International Golf Links & Hotel in Doonbeg, County Clare, Trump ...

Ukraine’s state railway operator said top Western figures – including former UK prime minister Boris Johnson and ex-CIA director David Petraeus – were at a west Ukrainian railway station just before Russia struck a Warsaw-bound train there. “Shortly before the locomotive was hit at the Ukrainian-...

Canada’s Prime ⁠Minister Mark Carney wants a closer ⁠relationship with the European Union and is ⁠exploring whether his country could become an “associate member” of the bloc, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday. The EU, which has not been flexible about membership rules in the past, is op...

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen, a front runner in the French presidency race, signalled on Sunday that she would favour French citizens over foreigners, defending her long-held principle of “national priority”. Speaking seven months before France’s presidential polls, Le Pen, 58, said that under ...

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Last month, the People’s Liberation Army released footage showing its H-6N bomber flying with a nuclear-capable Jing Lei-1 (JL-1) air-launched ballistic missile (ALBM), offering a rare look at China’s airborne nuclear strike capability. The H-6N is one of the latest modernised variants of the H-6...

Z.ai, the Chinese artificial intelligence model developer listed in Hong Kong, is seeking to raise about HK$15.7 billion (US$2 billion) through a placement of roughly 21.97 million new H shares at HK$714 apiece, according to a company filing on Sunday. The company also announced a 20.14 billion y...

A lunch supplier will stop portioning meals in classrooms at a Hong Kong primary school following a suspected food poisoning outbreak that hit 39 pupils and staff members last week. Danny Catering Service said in a statement on Sunday to its school partners, parents and teachers that the incident...

Voters in an autonomous southern Philippine region will cast their ballots on Monday in the region’s first parliamentary elections, seen as a crucial step in the quest for self-determination and lasting peace after decades of insurgency and violence. The Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Min...

A leading South China Sea analyst has urged Chinese think tanks to recruit AI talent for the “public opinion war” over the disputed waters. Wu Shicun, the founding president of China’s National Institute for South China Sea Studies, said Chinese humanities and social science research had traditio...

A Hong Kong teenager with a rare muscle-wasting disease has created an AI version of himself, hoping the digital twin can continue sharing his life story and message of perseverance even after he is gone. Chen Tsz-kin, 17, unveiled “AI Tsz-kin” at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) on Sunday, week...

Winston Churchill famously praised the resilience of the British people during the Blitz, describing the nightly bombings of London as a “cruel, wanton, indiscriminate” attempt by Adolf Hitler to break the spirit of a tough “island race”. He was not wrong about the toughness and courage of his fe...

China’s FAST telescope has compiled the world’s largest catalogue of neutral hydrogen beyond the Milky Way, replacing a long-dominant US survey as the main reference for mapping the gas that fuels the formation of stars and galaxies. The FAST All-Sky H I Survey (FASHI), conducted with the 500-met...

In the final instalment of the Health Matters wellness series on Hong Kong’s growing wellness trends, Emily Hung examines alternative therapies helping residents restore their balance, as practitioners stress that small, conscious moments can make the biggest difference. For Hong Kong film practi...

Swedes were voting in a closely fought election on Sunday that will either bring a far-right party into government for the first time or shift the country back towards the liberalism that has long defined the northern European kingdom. Sweden’s centre-left opposition holds a narrow lead over the ...

Hong Kong will deepen ties with emerging economies worldwide, expanding connections with the Middle East and belt and road countries, from finance to innovation and technology, according to the finance chief. Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po also said the city aims to build “networked and inst...

Japanese fashion brand WEGO has scrapped a plan to launch a new range in collaboration with the hit anime and manga franchise My Hero Academia after it triggered an angry backlash from Chinese consumers. The Tokyo-based company triggered an outcry on Chinese social media after announcing it would...