All coverage of Hong Kong, ranked by recency.
A Hong Kong merchant has been jailed for five years and four months for attempting to murder his wife and three daughters by burning charcoal in their public rental flat after struggling to repay debts totalling nearly HK$900,000 (US$115,000). The High Court on Monday sentenced Wong Pak-ting in what the presiding judge described as a “tragic” case. The 45-year-old pleaded guilty in May to four ...
An extremist Israeli lawmaker in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition publicly advocated for killing “30 to 40” people in Gaza each night, comments that surfaced Sunday and were quickly shared by Palestinian media. Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir made the statement while speaking to a former Gaza-held hostage, Rom Braslavski, on Braslavski’s podcast. The two were discussi...
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. Why Chinese youth are turning to an 84-year-old Cambridge professor for support 2. Chinese officials rattled by White House chaos weeks ahead of Xi-Trump summit 3. How Southeast Asia’s monarchies ...
“Horrific, horrendous, unbearable, unsafe.” That is how medical professionals describe the impact of this year’s heatwaves on Britain’s healthcare system, in response to a survey by the Doctors’ Association UK. In hospitals built for a cooler climate, staff are now dealing with patients too sweaty to receive intravenous drips, medication at risk of degrading in high temperatures and colleagues ...
Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto is presiding over celebrations marking the 81st anniversary of the country’s independence, with a flag-raising ceremony at the presidential palace in Jakarta, followed by a military parade.
The operator of a Hong Kong maid cafe has been arrested for allegedly molesting a 14-year-old employee multiple times, beginning on her first day at work. A police source said on Monday that the operator, a 35-year-old man surnamed Cheung, was arrested on Saturday at the cafe in Mong Kok’s Dundas Square. The victim was a 14-year-old Form Three student, who started working at the cafe on August ...
South Korean shipbuilders could be among the first US partners to benefit from President Donald Trump’s push to rebuild America’s naval industrial base, analysts said. Trump last week signed a National Security Presidential Memorandum allowing foreign shipbuilders with US investments to build up to two vessels at their parent shipyards – a move aimed at quickly addressing gaps in US Navy capaci...
President Xi Jinping presides over a grand ceremony in Beijing on Monday to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of former state leader Jiang Zemin, who served as the country’s top leader between 1989 and the early 2000s and died in 2022. Xi is addressing thousands of officials and delegates from various sectors at the ceremony, held in the Great Hall of the People, delivering a speec...
It made perfect sense for Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu to hold public consultations on both the city’s first five-year plan and the last policy address of his current term at the same time. Many have been putting forward views that warrant serious consideration. It is clear that Lee needs to be bolder when it comes to the “new chapter” he promised in 2022 when he was elected. The ...
An earthquake of magnitude 5.9 struck Indonesia’s Flores region on Monday, the German Research Centre for Geosciences said, hitting at a depth of 10km (six miles). The aftershock comes two days after a magnitude 7.7 quake shook six regencies on Flores, a predominantly Catholic island in the Muslim-majority country. Rescue teams in eastern Indonesia recovered six more bodies on Sunda...
A top US military commander said mental health was a valid concern after meeting crew deployed on the USS Abraham Lincoln, where conditions aboard the aircraft carrier have led to complaints during its long deployment in the Iran war. Admiral Brad Cooper’s visit to the carrier in the Arabian Sea followed outrage among family members about reports of food shortages, water contamination, mouldy s...
As dark tourism gains traction, some Chinese youth are embracing a related form of experiential travel, paying to confront simulated typhoons, floods, and other disasters while acquiring survival skills. Also referred to as grief tourism, dark tourism involves visiting sites linked to death, catastrophe, and human suffering. Its origins trace back centuries, including connections to 17th centur...
The rise of Chinese open-weight models has shaken up the global artificial intelligence (AI) market in recent months. With China’s systems offering high performance at a lower cost, businesses around the world are looking at shifting away from Silicon Valley’s leading providers. Now, a new Hong Kong-based company aims to turn that trend into a billion-dollar business. The “neo-cloud” provider A...
After climbing four flights of stairs in the August summer heat, Helen was met with a locked metal gate and a printed sign saying Have a Nice Stay had permanently closed. A notice outside Have a Nice Stay saying it is permanently closed. Photo: Hillary Leung/HKFP. “I didn’t think it would be shut already,” Helen told HKFP on the top floor of the walk-up building in Mong Kok, where the independe...
The percentage of non-Chinese-speaking students who sat Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (DSE) exams and were admitted to the city’s public universities has remained persistently low over the past five academic years, with no clear signs of a change in sight. Veteran educators who teach such pupils, classified by the government as NCS students, attributed the trend to three main factors...
Japan is looking beyond the United States to enhance its defence capabilities, as mounting doubt over American munitions supplies pushes Tokyo to seek deeper industrial ties on this front with Australia and India. Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi’s visits to the two countries this week are set to advance cooperation spanning warships to stealth technology and drones, analysts say, pointing to ...
The police force has launched an internal investigation into an officer who appeared in a viral video dancing in uniform with a dog-ear filter. The video video of a Hong Kong police officer. Photo: Supplied. The clip gained traction on platforms in mainland China, including Douyin, the mainland’s version of TikTok. It was captioned “It’s too hot. Let me fan some wind.” “The police have confirme...
Hong Kong homebuyers flocked to the first batch of units at a major residential project in the Northern Metropolis with 44 – or more than half – of the 82 flats made available via regular sale finding buyers as of 7.30pm on Sunday, according to agents. Wheelock Properties’ Park Silicon project in Kwu Tung North also sold eight units via tender worth more than HK$78.43 million (US$9.99 million),...
Welcome to Open Dialogue, a series from the South China Morning Post where we bring together leading voices to discuss the stories and subjects occupying international headlines. In this edition, we invited a leading Chinese scholar of South Asian affairs and a former Indian foreign secretary and ambassador to China to reflect on the deep fault lines in India-China relations. They debate whethe...
In 2022, Ukraine asked SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to activate Starlink coverage around Sevastopol to support an attack on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. He refused, saying SpaceX would become “explicitly complicit in a major act of war”; he later also cited US sanctions covering Crimea. At the moment that mattered, one private actor had the final say. It exposed a question hidden inside every chokepoint. ...
US Attorney General Todd Blanche said on Sunday that he backs top Washington prosecutor Jeanine Pirro, who was criticised by US President Donald Trump for the way she handled a case of alleged vandalism at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. “I absolutely support US Attorney Pirro, as does President Trump,” Blanche said on NBC’s Meet the Press programme. The Trump administration fast-trac...
A number of people have died and others have been seriously injured in a crash involving a car driving in the wrong direction on a highway in Ireland, Irish police said. Commissioner Justin Kelly described the head-on collision between two cars on the M9 as “horrific” and warned that “in some cases” cars are being driven on the wrong side of highways for social media likes. Police said they are...
Thieves stole four works attributed to Renaissance painter Antonello da Messina worth millions of euros from the regional museum in the city of Messina in Sicily while crowds gathered across town for the traditional Assumption holiday celebrations, cultural officials and Italian media said on Sunday. The thieves bypassed alarm and security systems on Saturday evening at the MuMe museum, making ...
• Kushner meets Hamas leader. • Aims to salvage Gaza road map. • Meets Israel's PM on Monday.
A passenger bus travelling on a highway in Hungary early on Sunday went off the road and into a ditch where it overturned, killing 12 and injuring others, police said. The bus, which was carrying a group of Polish tourists, was travelling on eastbound lanes near the town of Mezokeresztes when it overturned on the M3 motorway around 140km (87 miles) east of Hungary’s capital, Budapest, at around...
Iran’s military announced on Sunday that it was offering a bounty equivalent to US$30,000 for killing or capturing US soldiers, with the reward doubled if carried out by a woman. Army chief Amir Hatami said the plan had been drawn up following a “large number of requests” to take part, according to the IRNA state news agency. There has been no known deployment of US ground forces in Iran during...
Britain’s BBC asked a US court for help in getting documents and testimony from members of US President Donald Trump’s family in connection with his US$10-billion defamation lawsuit against the British broadcaster, a court document showed. Lawyers for the BBC argued that Ivanka Trump, her husband Jared Kushner and Donald Trump Jnr have “personal knowledge” and are likely to have records relevan...
Hong Kong customs has said it is actively following up on a case involving a London‑based beauty chain after a woman complained that she was cheated into paying more than HK$60,000 (US$7,700) for products and raised concerns about the company’s sales practices. Opatra London’s outlet at Sha Tin New Town Plaza shopping centre posted a notice over the weekend saying that it had “temporarily suspe...
A silver Montblanc fountain pen owned by Singapore’s first prime minister Lee Kuan Yew has sold for S$461,500 (US$360,000), nearly 10 times its highest estimate, after drawing 111 bids at an auction. Singapore auction house Hotlotz said the sterling silver Montblanc Meisterstuck No 146 fountain pen, engraved with “SM Lee Kuan Yew”, sold on Sunday at its “Interiors & Collectibles – August, Fine ...
A raw, handcrafted Chinese animation has become an unlikely box-office sensation despite being widely panned by critics and social media users. Niu Lai, or The Arrival of the Ox, has been criticised for its “rough” and “broken” style and a plot that many viewers found hard to follow. But the film has generated some of the loudest online discussion in recent days, despite the competition from tw...
Russia carried out a wave of air strikes on Ukraine overnight, killing two people at a steel plant, and Kyiv launched a heavy drone attack on the Moscow region that killed one person and set ablaze a warehouse used by Russia’s leading e-commerce retailer. Romania, which borders Ukraine, said an F-18 fighter on a Nato air policing mission had shot down a drone that breached its airspace during ...
A leading Communist Party research group has invoked the legacy of China’s former leader Jiang Zemin in a call to rally round President Xi Jinping. The article by the Institute of Party History and Literature, published on Sunday in the party’s mouthpiece People’s Daily, formed part of the commemorations of the centenary of Jiang’s birth and highlighted the importance of supporting the leadersh...
Hong Kong police have arrested 16 people as part of efforts to clamp down on juvenile crime, with those apprehended including a 13‑year‑old boy linked to a shoplifting case involving stolen goods worth about HK$4,000 (US$510). Officers from the force’s New Territories South regional headquarters said on Sunday that the arrestees, aged 13 to 39, included 11 teenagers. They were apprehended on su...
Australia’s foreign minister attacked the policies of the far-right One Nation party, arguing that its call for a monoculture would damage social cohesion at home and relations with friends and allies abroad. “The call for a monoculture is a call for Australia to curtail our choices and cut off our connections,” Foreign Minister Penny Wong said in a speech on Friday in Sydney. “At a time where ...
A crucial ally of Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s ruling alliance voted on Sunday to stay in government, giving him breathing room after months of uncertainty over whether the biggest party in the coalition would remain in cabinet. But the Democratic Action Party’s (DAP) decision also raises the stakes for its own political survival. Analysts warn that the party risks further erosion o...
The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is reportedly considering a ban on Chinese optical transceivers, signalling that the US-China tech war is expanding beyond the focus on semiconductor chips to shadow even the smallest link in the chain of essential artificial intelligence (AI) hardware. Optical transceivers are small devices that use fibre optic technology to send and receive data ...
Two Hong Kong universities have secured places in the top 100 of an academic ranking that assesses 1,000 institutions worldwide. The University of Hong Kong (HKU) rose five places from 67th last year to 62nd, while City University of Hong Kong (CityU) climbed four places from 99th to 95th in the Academic Ranking of World Universities, released by ShanghaiRanking Consultancy on Saturday. Launche...
More than 700 trucks carrying international humanitarian aid arrived in Afghanistan via Pakistan despite a near-total closure of the land border between the two countries following clashes in October, the United Nations said on Sunday. The convoy was carrying “food and other critical humanitarian items,” Olga Cherevko, spokeswoman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (...
China should speed up plans to commandeer civilian ships for wartime operations, drawing lessons from Britain’s use of commercial vessels during the 1982 Falklands conflict, according to a defence researcher at Beijing’s top economic planning agency. As maritime security threats and great-power competition grow, Beijing should make greater use of civilian ships to support military operations, a...
Wilson Hui Chau-yuen, a 22-year-old final-year student at Hong Kong Metropolitan University, recalls that the scorching heat was the biggest enemy during an annual two-week summer camp organised by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) garrison. “Even on the city’s hottest day, our training continued without pause including martial arts, bayonet practice and marching drills,” Hui said on Sunday, a...
Hong Kong Disneyland is collaborating with Pixar Animation Studios to offer an exclusive theatrical experience centred around a home-grown character, with the resort dropping clues in its concept art that suggest she could be a pangolin. The theme park announced on Sunday that a massive theatre space would be unveiled at Toy Story Land in the first half of 2027, with the theatrical experience t...
Hong Kong’s corruption watchdog has charged a former manager at a financial regulator with unauthorised access to its internal computer system to view confidential case files and licensee data. Tong Ka-lei, 39, who previously worked in the enforcement division of the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), faces 12 counts of obtaining access to a computer with a view to dishonest gain for hers...
In the first instalment of a five-part Health Matters wellness series on Hong Kong’s growing wellness trends, Lo Hoi-ying examines why younger residents are turning to supplements to boost energy, immunity and performance, as experts warn that excessive use should not replace a balanced diet. Tata Tse Yi-kwan spends around HK$2,000 (US$255) a month on supplements tailored to her different needs...
A 14-year-old Hong Kong boy has been arrested on suspicion of animal cruelty after bringing a badly injured cat that later died to a clinic for treatment. Police said on Sunday that they received a report from an employee of a veterinary clinic in Cheung Sha Wan at 6.25pm on August 10, suspecting that a cat had been ill-treated. “The informant said a 14-year-old boy had brought a cat for treatm...
Bangladesh said on Sunday that Prime Minister Tarique Rahman would not visit India until New Delhi extradited Sheikh Hasina, the Bangladeshi former premier who fled during a 2024 uprising. The countries have had a strained relationship since deadly anti-government protests brought down Hasina’s government and prompted her to escape to neighbouring India, where she remains. She faces the death p...
Former Chinese premier Zhu Rongji will be cremated in Beijing on Tuesday, with flags across the country – including in Hong Kong and Macau – flown at half-mast, state media reported on Sunday. Zhu, who served as premier from 1998 to 2003 and played a pivotal role in transitioning China towards a market-based economy, died of an illness in Beijing on Wednesday at age 97. According to state news ...
Firefighters battling Belgium’s largest modern-day wildfire were counting on crucial air support on Sunday to help tame the blaze in a hard-to-access nature reserve, after it doubled in size over the previous 24 hours. More than 250 firefighters and emergency personnel were mobilised through the night, according to a Sunday morning update from the regional government which warned conditions in ...
Hong Kong police have arrested 17 people and seized HK$3.67 million in a crackdown on a fraud syndicate that recruited foreign “runners” from Malaysia to collect crime proceeds from victims. The force’s Kowloon West crime squad said on Sunday that the arrests were made in connection with “guess who I am” phone scams that duped 22 victims out of about HK$2.5 million between June and August. The ...
Chinese scientists have developed an AI model they say could be used to predict the risk of depression up to four years in advance. Major Depressive Disorder affects over 332 million people worldwide, according to the researchers at Shenzhen University, and is notoriously difficult to treat. The ability to predict the risk of depression and take preventive measures could prove a significant pub...
US entrepreneur Elon Musk has long been highly respected in China. His business ideas – from electric cars to rockets, humanoid robots and brain implants – have spawned Chinese followers, many of which now pose growing threats to Musk’s business empire. These Chinese competitors tend to follow a similar strategy: capitalise on the large domestic market to grow their business while taking advant...
Hong Kong will fly the national and regional flags at half-staff at various government sites on Tuesday to mourn the late former Chinese premier Zhu Rongji. The government said on Sunday it would lower the flags at government headquarters in Admiralty, Government House, all control points and checkpoints at border crossings and Hong Kong International Airport. The tribute will be paid on the da...
Hong Kong’s examination authority has defended an invigilator who refused to let a candidate with anxiety use a school lift after he started feeling unwell before his second assessment, arguing the man had not requested the facility in advance. Speaking to the South China Morning Post, private candidate Ray Lau* alleged that the incident occurred on April 13 at Caritas St Joseph Secondary Schoo...
Indoor heat levels in Hong Kong’s subdivided flats and rooftop huts felt like a blistering 52.21 degrees Celsius (126 Fahrenheit) this summer, with 80 per cent of homemakers living in those homes reporting dizziness and headaches, according to a survey released on Sunday. The study, conducted by CarbonCare InnoLab and the Concerning Subdivided Units Alliance, surveyed 86 households across nine ...
I’m a little perplexed and bemused by the brouhaha surrounding Hong Kong’s decision to draft its first five-year plan, as if the sky is falling in around the city’s famed laissez-faire economy. Predictably, Yale University’s Stephen Roach (he of “Hong Kong is over” fame) warned in a commentary last month that “Chinese-style central planning” could “over-promise and under-deliver”. In a 2024 com...
Tensions between Beijing and Manila appear to have spilled over from the South China Sea to immigration, just as Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr indicated he wanted to “reset” ties. Manila on Sunday dismissed Beijing’s criticism of Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jnr over his role in the arrests of Chinese workers at a steel plant in Misamis Oriental in May. A Chinese embassy offic...
Tencent Holdings’ WeChat is already the undisputed super-app for over a billion people in China, handling everything from splitting dinner bills to hailing taxis. Now, Tencent is embedding an artificial intelligence agent named Xiaowei into the platform, adding a hands-free, automated assistant to its vast digital ecosystem. In its latest earnings results announced on Wednesday, Tencent highlig...
Whether he is pulling a pint, tossing a builder’s helmet in the air or running with Olympic medallist Mo Farah, the UK’s new Prime Minister Andy Burnham has embraced social media with a deft touch. As well as putting out videos on his own accounts on X and TikTok, he has sought to broaden his audience by appearing on entertainment channels run by creators with large followings. Compared with pr...
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says the US is getting ready to squeeze Iran with unprecedented economic pressure, a claim critics greeted with scepticism given the country is already subject to a naval blockade and thousands of sanctions. While the Trump administration has not said what it is planning to do, there are still pressure points that Bessent’s Treasury Department could hit. The mai...
