British pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca said Thursday that a third, or “booster”, dose of its Covid-19 vaccine Vaxzevria “significantly” lifted antibody levels against the Omicron strain in a laboratory study.“Vaxzevria significantly boost...

The resurgence of international militant groups emboldened by the chaos in post-war Afghanistan is posing serious threats to anti-terror work, China has warned.Terrorist groups including Islamic State (Isis), al-Qaeda and the East Turkestan Islamic M...

One of China’s most famous young pop singers announced on Wednesday he would terminate his brand ambassadorship with US chip maker Intel over the corporation’s boycott of products made in Xinjiang due to allegations of forced labour in the wester...

The northwestern Chinese city of Xian launched lockdown measures on Thursday as it accounted for 63 of the country’s 71 new local symptomatic Covid-19 cases, detected in citywide testing.Home to the famed Terracotta Warriors and nearly 100 universi...

Rescuers in northern Myanmar retrieved two more bodies on Thursday after a landslide at an illegally run jade mine and warned that dozens of people feared missing are likely dead.Scores die each year working in the country’s lucrative but poorly re...

It’s the end of another year, which in Indonesia can only mean one thing: the return of the country’s perennial debate on whether Muslims should say “merry Christmas” to Christians.Heated public discourse around the topic highlights how entre...

Hong Kong authorities must keep a tighter leash on local dog owners, the city’s Ombudsman has recommended, after finding more than 167,000 canines were unlicensed and unvaccinated over the past decade amid dwindling inspections.Ombudsman Winnie Chi...

Hong Kong residents who received their second dose of the German-made BioNTech vaccine at least six months ago should begin getting booster shots, a government panel has said, even if they are not in a high-risk group.The Centre for Health Protection...

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has praised outgoing Chinese ambassador Li Jinjun for helping usher in a “fresh heyday” in bilateral ties, Pyongyang’s state media reported on Thursday, as the envoy returned home after nearly seven years in the ...

Chinese online search engine Baidu is laying off at least 100 employees from its video games unit, as the company moves to trim losses amid Beijing’s ongoing crackdown on the sector, according to two sources briefed on the matter.The Beijing-based ...

A Hong Kong woman who dropped a metal post between shopping centre floors in a bid to prevent two police officers from making arrests at a protest against the city’s sweeping national security law has been convicted of three charges and remanded in...

Beijing has set up an industry-leading rare earth giant in a bid to bolster China’s dominance of global production as it comes under threat from rising output elsewhere.The move will enhance the sector’s long-term sustainability and competitivene...

China’s reaffirmation of a long-term goal to be almost entirely self-sufficient in pork production means it will keep scooping up global grain supplies to feed the world’s largest pig herd.The country, which consumes half of the world’s pork, w...

[Sponsored Article]  The city’s flag-bearing postal service administrator, Hongkong Post has found itself in the fastest changing environment in its 180-year history. As everywhere else in the world, Hong Kong has experienced a steeply reduced d...

Though he is not even a year into his first term, US President Joe Biden said one factor could help convince him to run again in 2024: a rematch against 2020 rival Donald Trump.“That would increase the prospect of running,” Biden told ABC News on...

South China Morning Post managing editor Brian Rhoads recently flew home to the United States to attend a memorial service for his late father. After he had already left, the Hong Kong government moved the US into a new high-risk category, meaning he...

The accusations started in October and gathered steam throughout November into early December.In a series of videos published on a range of platforms, social commentator Sima Nan accused Lenovo, China’s largest PC maker, of selling state assets on ...

Russia is not preparing a military invasion of Ukraine, its ambassador to the European Union was quoted as saying on Thursday, after Moscow unnerved the West with a massive troop build-up on its territory close to the Ukrainian border.Vladimir Chizho...

Singapore jumped 19 spots to No. 18 in Bloomberg’s Covid Resilience Ranking in December as it moved past the most harrowing stage of its transition to living with the virus, though Omicron remains a key threat on the horizon.In the last month of th...

This year will go down as a tough period for Chinese technology firms, as Beijing moved to exert control over the once-freewheeling sector. In the second of a four-part series, the South China Morning Post looks at how 2021 became the watershed momen...

After a quiet year because of the coronavirus pandemic, staff at an accounting firm in Hong Kong have put Christmas cheer and the spirit of giving back into the office.Donning Santa hats and reindeer antlers, about 20 employees from KPMG’s Hong Kon...

When Singapore’s central bank gave the green light to three entities to offer digital payment token services including cryptocurrencies earlier this year, the news was met with much fanfare.Observers at the time said the move would cement Singapore...

Chinese entertainers will point to 2021 as the year the industry went through a seismic transformation.A number of serious accusations against some of the region’s most famous people coincided with a Chinese government crackdown on the showbiz indu...

Staff and students at two universities in Hong Kong will be forced to take leave, let their contracts lapse or withdraw from their studies if they fail to submit Covid-19 vaccination or testing records under strict new rules governing access to campu...

Ghislaine Maxwell will spend Christmas Day – her 60th birthday – behind bars, after the jury in her sex crimes trial suspended deliberations on Wednesday without reaching a verdict.The 12-person jury began considering Maxwell’s fate on Monday a...

Tax bureaus in some of China’s most prosperous regions have given celebrities and internet influencers a deadline of 10 days to pay their outstanding taxes, according to a notice issued on Wednesday.The tax authorities in Beijing and Shanghai, and ...

More than three years after he was arrested in Tokyo and charged with conspiring to funnel money to former Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn, Greg Kelly has another three months to wait before a court hands down its ruling.The final hearing in the trial again...

Oscar-nominated actor James Franco has acknowledged sleeping with students of an acting school he previously ran, saying he struggled with a sex addiction and has been working to improve his behaviour in recent years.In excerpts from The Jess Cagle P...

President Joe Biden plans to address the nation on January 6 as the United States marks one year since the storming of the US Capitol.Without offering details, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Wednesday that Biden would make some kind of...

South African data offered a glimmer of hope on Wednesday about the severity of the Omicron coronavirus variant, but World Health Organization officials cautioned that it was too soon to draw firm conclusions as the strain spread across the globe.Wit...

The United States announced additional steps on Wednesday easing sanctions against the Taliban to allow aid groups to funnel desperately needed help to the people of Afghanistan.As the conflict-battered country faces an economic collapse and an acute...

The Israel Antiquities Authority announced on Wednesday the discovery of remnants of two shipwrecks off the Mediterranean coast, replete with a sunken trove of hundreds Roman and medieval silver coins.The finds made near the ancient city of Caesarea ...

Dutch prosecutors on Wednesday called for life in prison for four suspects on trial in absentia accused of downing Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine with a surface-to-air missile, killing 298 people.The ill-fated flight heading for Kuala Lum...

US health regulators on Wednesday authorised the first pill against Covid-19, a Pfizer drug that Americans will be able to take at home to head off the worst effects of the virus.The long-awaited milestone comes as US cases, hospitalisations and deat...

Madagascar reeled on Wednesday from a double tragedy in which at least 64 people died in a shipwreck, according to an updated toll, while two people remained missing from a helicopter that crashed during a search for survivors.A wooden vessel – bel...

Chinese Cryptocurrency pioneer Justin Sun will fly to space on billionaire Jeff Bezos-owned Blue Origin’s flight next year and invite five other crew mates, he said on Wednesday, joining a small list of wealthy entrepreneurs indulging in space trav...

A sculpture at the University of Hong Kong commemorating the victims of the Tiananmen Square crackdown was dismantled and taken away in the early hours of Thursday morning, two months after campus chiefs ordered its removal.The HKU Council, a partial...

Omicron could double the risk of catching Covid-19 during a flight according to an airline industry medical expert, who warned that the airport carries a higher likelihood that the virus could spread than on the aeroplane itself.The highly transmissi...

The US is capable of strongly overcoming all challenges and China should not bet against it, a Communist Party academic has advised.Zhang Baijia, a former deputy director of the Party History Research Centre, also called on China to carefully balance...

China has pledged to keep market expectations anchored and manageable in the coming year, according to a senior economic official, despite strong headwinds and growing pessimism about the nation’s economic outlook.“There have been fluctuations in...

Beijing’s top diplomat in Hong Kong has said the city’s democratic development must be guided by the central government, adding it was time to wake up from the “American-style democracy myth”.Liu Guangyuan made the remarks during a briefing s...

A restaurant at the Dubai Expo has closed temporarily after 10 employees tested positive for coronavirus, and as the UAE Wednesday recorded its highest number of infections in three months.The United Arab Emirates, with the world’s highest vaccinat...

The US Army is wrapping up early clinical trials on a vaccine it hopes will target all existing coronavirus variants.Named SpFN, for Spike Ferritin Nanoparticle, it has shown promise in non-human primate trials and early human trial results are expec...

Hong Kong’s first “e-visas” will be issued from next Tuesday, as the Immigration Department rolls out a new online application process, with non-local graduates and foreign domestic helpers being among the first to benefit.All visas are expecte...

Taiwan’s air force has taken delivery of a second Brave Eagle advanced jet trainer, which will help boost training for pilots responding to PLA warplanes that enter the island’s air defence zone as cross-strait tensions mount.Beijing sees Taiwan ...

Popular non-fungible token (NFT) project Monkey Kingdom, founded by entrepreneurs in Hong Kong and promoted by celebrities such as JJ Lin and Steve Aoki, had its group chat hacked on Tuesday, allowing a cyber thief to steal nearly US$1.3 million wort...

A group of new lawmakers have identified boosting voter enthusiasm in Hong Kong’s next general poll as an important task during their four-year term, after record low turnout cast a shadow over Sunday’s election.The 20 newly minted members of the...

A former executive member of the group behind Hong Kong’s annual Tiananmen Square vigil has been jailed for three months for failing to assist a police investigation into its alleged violation of the national security law.Simon Leung Kam-wai, forme...

The ugly public divorce between singer Wang Leehom and his estranged wife Lee Jinglei has led to at least one unpredictable outcome: Lee has emerged as a darling among Chinese netizens for her high-quality written Chinese.Her words, nicknamed the “...

All foreign organisations or individuals will be banned from spreading religious content online in China under new regulations released on Monday, in what Beijing says is another effort to safeguard its national security.No organisation or individual...