For residents of Vietnam’s biggest city, the sight of trees being cut down for development is not uncommon.In 2017, 258 trees that had dated back to the French colonial period were removed from a major street in central Ho Chi Minh City for the con...

A proposal to let Taiwan residents receive Covid-19 jabs at airports on the Chinese mainland and return immediately to the island, avoiding quarantine, has been rejected out of safety concerns.Ma Xiaoguang, spokesman for the mainland’s Taiwan Affai...

Beijing’s new top diplomat in Hong Kong, who called the battle against “foreign forces” his top priority after taking the job last month, doubled down on that message in his first public appearance on Wednesday, saying those who sought to curb ...

Growth in China’s factory output slowed for a third straight month in May, possibly due to disruptions caused by coronavirus outbreaks in the country’s southern export powerhouse of Guangdong.The Chinese economy has largely shaken off the gloom f...

Hong Kong police rounded up 79 people in a series of raids that shut down two underground casinos and an unlicensed pub in the span of two hours on Tuesday night.In one raid on a Ko Shing Street flat in Sai Ying Pun, officers found a baccarat table a...

Hungarian lawmakers voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to donate state-owned land on the banks of the Danube River to a planned Chinese university in Budapest.The proposed satellite campus of Shanghai-based Fudan University has attracted opposition crit...

Chinese billionaire Jack Ma of Alibaba is keeping a low profile and has taken up painting as a hobby, while the tech giant he co-founded has put last year’s regulatory troubles behind it, according to his close business partner Joseph Tsai.In a wid...

South Korea is trying to increase its future working population by making it easier for children of foreign residents to become citizens, but its plans have run into trouble in the face of rising anti-China sentiment.A measure proposed by the Ministr...

Asia’s emerging economies have accumulated their highest level of foreign-exchange reserves in seven years, offering a powerful buffer against market volatility if the US Federal Reserve changes course.Central bank holdings of foreign currencies in...

Nearly 2,400 Hong Kong youths aged 12 to 15 received coronavirus jabs in the first two days vaccines were available for their group, government data shows.According to figures from the health authorities, 2,381 children in that category received thei...

Thailand’s plan to reopen the tourist haven of Phuket could become a model for other holiday hotspots in Asia to prise open their borders and bring in visitors as strategies such as travel bubbles falter, according to the founder of Banyan Tree Hol...

Long-term appreciation in the yuan could have a large negative impact on China’s economy even if there was no substantial effect on the country’s exports in the short-term, a former senior official at China’s foreign exchange regulator warned.O...

China’s natural gas distributors are expected to step up inspection of industry-wide facilities following a deadly explosion this week, pushing safety issues, operational risks andcorporate governance to the forefront of the state agenda.At least 2...

When an Indian journalist took her editor to court in 2013 for allegedly sexually assaulting her in a hotel lift, she hoped the case would be a measure of justice in a country where sexual harassment by men often goes unreported and survivors seldom ...

US President Bill Clinton said he hung up after congratulating Vladimir Putin on becoming acting Russian president in 1999 “thinking he was tough enough to hold Russia together”.Clinton, who had a warm rapport with Putin’s mentor Boris Yeltsin,...

Malaysian durians have topped fruit and vegetable presales at a big Chinese retail festival, showing the pulling power of the pungent delicacy.The top-selling variety at JD.com’s 618 festival – China’s second-largest shopping event after Alibab...

Two experienced astronauts are among the first three-man crew for China’s first space station, with final preparations under way for their mission launch on Thursday.The Long March 2F rocket carrying them to the Tianhe module – the first part of ...

For years, Rachel had no idea she had been sexually assaulted by her own husband as she lay unconscious.She only made the grim discovery last August when she stumbled across a video of the attack that had been shared all over the internet.“It was d...

Small is beautiful again in Hong Kong’s initial public offerings (IPOs) as retail investors reaped a windfall from some eye-catching market returns in the absence of blockbuster tech listings. Angelalign Technology is extending that stellar run.Sha...

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has said the country’s economy improved this year but called for measures to tackle the “tense” food situation caused by the coronavirus pandemic and last year’s typhoons, state media said on Wednesday.Kim chai...

Japan has requested consolations with China at the World Trade Organization (WTO) over anti-dumping duties that have been placed on its stainless steel products since July 2019, the Geneva-based body confirmed on Tuesday.The request, which was circul...

Australian trade minister Dan Tehan said his government is bolstering its legal arguments before potentially asking the World Trade Organization (WTO) to resolve its wine-tariff trade dispute with China.The WTO action was “under active consideratio...

The dancer’s skirt appears to float as she slowly kicks her legs in the air; silk wrappings slowly rise and fall as if gravity has little effect. It’s not until the bubbles escape from her mouth that it becomes clear the dancer is underwater.The ...

Hongkong Land, the biggest commercial landlord in the city’s Central business district, has opened a flexible work environment at one of the world’s most expensive office addresses, in a U-turn to its reticence to develop co-working space.The dev...

Former US President Donald Trump repeatedly pressured the Justice Department to overturn Joe Biden’s victory, at one point urging prosecutors to file a Supreme Court lawsuit to nullify the election, according to new emails released by the House Ove...

Today is International Domestic Workers’ Day. The International Labour Organization (ILO) adopted ILO Convention 189 on decent work for domestic workers in 2011, and June 16 marks the 10th anniversary of this convention.It is an opportune time for ...

Israel mounted air strikes in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, the first since the end of 11 days of cross-border fighting last month, in response to incendiary balloons launched from the Palestinian territory.The flare-up, a first test for Israel’s ne...

China’s internet watchdog is pursuing a two-month campaign to discipline online fan clubs, which often show their support for a celebrity by doxxing and trolling rival groups, in a move to clean up the country’s cyberspace of opinion manipulation...

It seemed like a lifetime ago that Jerry Yuen Tak-chi remembered meeting close friends and fellow Hong Kong opposition activists regularly over hotpot and beer, sharing their political ideals and frustrations or laughing over insider jokes.The group ...

The pandemic has taken a harsh toll on domestic workers who have lost far more jobs than others despite a decade-old international pact guaranteeing their rights, the United Nations said on Tuesday.In a fresh report, the International Labour Organiza...

Japan’s plan to send Covid-19 vaccines to countries across Southeast Asia, starting with a donation of 1 million doses to Vietnam on Wednesday, is at least partly aimed at raising Tokyo’s profile in the region as a counterweight to China, analyst...

US actress Lisa Banes, best known for her role in the movie Gone Girl, has died 10 days after a hit-and-run by a scooter or motorbike in New York.The 65-year-old TV, Broadway and film actress was pronounced dead Monday after suffering a head trauma i...

MacKenzie Scott, the billionaire philanthropist and Jeff Bezos’s ex-wife, has given US$2.7 billion to a variety of charities, she wrote in a blog post Tuesday, bringing her total donations since her first giving spree in July 2020 to $8.5 billion.S...

Moscow and Beijing, both facing confrontation from the West, are likely to strengthen their alliance regardless of the outcome of a US-Russia summit, observers say.US President Joe Biden is expected to raise contentious issues with his Russian counte...

New York and California, among the first US states to record Covid-19 infections, announced on Tuesday the dropping of restrictions meant to slow the spread of the pandemic that has claimed 600,000 lives in the country.Governors Andrew Cuomo of New Y...

This is the 11th in the South China Morning Post’s series of explainers about China’s Communist Party in the lead-up to the party’s centenary in July. Here, William Zheng explains some of the political terms popularised by the Xi Jinping adm...

China hosted the foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations at a meeting in Chongqing on June 7-8 to mark the 30th anniversary of dialogue relations between the two sides. Given the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the region...

This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Lara Seligman on politico.com on June 15, 2021.The Pentagon is considering establishing a permanent naval task force in the Pacific region as a counter to C...

US President Joe Biden’s pick to oversee the State Department’s East Asia policy told senators on Tuesday that China was “our biggest geopolitical test”, the latest sign that the administration has no plans to ease up on its hard-line stance ...

The US death toll from Covid-19 surpassed 600,000 on Tuesday, although authorities hailed progress towards a return to normality as its vaccination programme promised to turn the page on one of the worst health crises in its history.The United States...

India’s top court on Tuesday dropped long-running proceedings against two Italian marines who shot dead two fishermen off Kerala in 2012, but said that the soldiers should now be tried in their own country.Salvatore Girone and Massimiliano Latorre ...

Thousands of Israeli far-right nationalists marched in a flag-waving procession through East Jerusalem on Tuesday, an event that risked reigniting tensions with Palestinians and posed an early challenge to Israel’s new government.Last month, Israel...

The European Union and United States launched a trade and technology council that seeks to “write the rules of the road” on the global economy, in the face of growing competition from China. It was the latest salvo against Beijing on US Presiden...

Hungary’s parliament passed legislation on Tuesday that bans the dissemination of content in schools deemed to promote homosexuality and gender change, amid strong criticism from human rights groups and opposition parties.Hardline nationalist Prime...

Arrest warrants could be issued within months if the International Criminal Court’s investigation into the Philippine government’s “war on drugs” proceeds, a human rights lawyer has said.The prosecutor’s office of the ICC in The Hague annou...

A French court ruled on Tuesday that Ikea had set up an elaborate system to illegally spy on hundreds of employees and job applicants over several years, using private detectives as well as police sources.The French unit of the Swedish furniture gian...

The Urban Renewal Authority will spend HK$100 billion (US$13 billion) over the next five years building 18,000 homes for Hong Kong’s private sector under a massive drive to help first-time buyers and regenerate parts of the city.Announcing its bigg...

Radiation levels around a nuclear power plant in southern China are normal and the facility is running safely, Chinese authorities said on Tuesday.“The Taishan nuclear power station has a good operating record … There is no abnormality in the rad...

The Chinese navy is sailing its new destroyers in the South China Sea as its shipbuilding spree continues, state media reported.The Nanning, a new type of 052D guided missile destroyer made its public debut in a four-day real combat training exercise...

China will work with the Islamic Development Bank to help member states build public health laboratories in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.Chen Weiqing, China’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia, signed an agreement with Mansur Muhtar, vice-pr...