The northeastern province of Jilin, which has the second lowest fertility rate in China, will offer loans and tax breaks to parents as it tries to boost its declining population and fast ageing society.The provincial government announced on Thursday ...

Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, said it has punished 917,000 content creators and permanently shut down 11,000 online merchants this year, as it moves to create a safe and reliable online shopping environment.The short video app developed by B...

The northern Chinese city of Xian has punished officials for mismanaging a quarantine hotel where the Covid-19 outbreak that prompted a lockdown of 13 million residents originated.The city reported 49 new cases on Thursday, bringing the total number ...

Cambodia’s long-time ruling party voted to endorse Prime Minister Hun Sen’s eldest son as “future prime minister” but did not specify a time frame for when he might succeed his father, who has been in power for 36 years.A statement from the C...

China’s internet watchdog has started a new campaign to weed out social media manipulation, including inflating engagement records, discrediting competitors and hiring ghostwriters to influence online discussions.The campaign will keep authorities ...

Hongkongers looking forward to a relatively warm Christmas Day should brace for much colder weather over the rest of the holiday season, with temperatures dipping to nine degrees Celsius (48.2 degrees Fahrenheit) or below on Monday.The Hong Kong Obse...

Japan will not send a government delegation to the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, the top government spokesman said on Friday, a decision seen as in line with a US-led diplomatic boycott of the sporting spectacle over China’s human rights record.But...

Malaysian account executive Cecilia Chong has been following every twist and turn in Taiwanese-American entertainer Wang Leehom’s very public falling out with his estranged wife Lee Jinglei.A fan of Leehom’s since the late 1990s, Chong said one o...

Australia on Friday narrowed the waiting time for people to receive Covid-19 booster shots as another record jump in daily infections resulted in cancelled flights and sent Christmas travel plans into disarray.From January 4, the country will offer b...

Beijing will send anti-riot equipment and an ad hoc police advisory team to the Solomon Islands to help defuse the civil unrest that started last month and has been blamed in part on discontent with China.Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijia...

China’s legislature has ruled that local regulations allowing ethnic minority language education are unconstitutional and urged greater dominance of Mandarin.A constitutionality review on ethnic education regulations in autonomous regions requested...

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in his Christmas Eve message on Friday exhorted the UK public to get jabbed as a “wonderful” gift for the nation as cases soar.Johnson said that while little time remained to buy gifts, “there is still a won...

[Sponsored article] Renewable energy will have a key role to play in achieving sustainable growth and building a more equitable world for all as we move into the recovery phase of the Covid-19 pandemic. That was the consensus among the speakers at ...

Hong Kong authorities reported a wave of some 25 new preliminary-positive coronavirus cases on Friday, while announcing that those who had received two doses of the BioNTech vaccine would be able to sign up for a third from January 1.The surge in arr...

A former Boston College student who prosecutors say drove her boyfriend to take his own life with thousands of text messages pleaded guilty on Thursday to involuntary manslaughter.Under terms of a plea deal, Inyoung You, 23, received a two-and-a-half...

First, China’s ultra-left opinion leaders battled outspoken media, liberal intellectuals and NGOs, then foreign governments, corporations and moderate liberals. But lately they have found new ideological opponents to take on.Leftist bloggers are ta...

The Mandatory Provident Fund (MPF), Hong Kong’s compulsory retirement scheme, is set to register its first loss in three years due to the equities slump that wiped out value in the city’s stock market and the exchanges of Shanghai and Shenzhen.Th...

Inspired by a trend in Japan, Hong Kong men Fio* and Sky Lip make themselves available to anyone who needs company to go anywhere, do anything, or even do nothing at all.There is no hanky-panky involved in being a man for rent, they insist.The Japane...

A day after the University of Hong Kong dismantled a sculpture commemorating victims of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown in a late-night operation, two more local institutions have followed suit.The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) on Friday...

Miniso Group Holding, a Chinese budget household and consumer goods retailer whose stock is already traded in New York, is considering a second listing in Hong Kong next year, people with knowledge of the matter said.The firm is working with Bank of ...

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 third of a four-part series, the South China Morning Post looks at how 2021 became a turning point in t...

South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in on Friday granted a pardon to former president Park Geun-hye, who is in prison after being convicted of corruption, amid a tight presidential race.Park, 69, became South Korea’s first democratically elected lea...

Hundreds of local and foreign aircrew confined at a Hong Kong government quarantine facility have received gifts and necessities to ease the pain of spending Christmas alone.Resilience Deliveries, a “crew for crew” organisation made up of volunte...

When freelance IT professional Saiful Nizam Abdul Wahab, 42, was growing up in Malaysia, he recalls learning about sexual reproduction during religious and science classes.But the lessons were not “comprehensive or holistic”, Saiful said, as they...

Hong Kong’s transactions of new residential property may rise 15 per cent next year as buyers continue their demand in every segment of the market from 138-square foot micro-apartments to 4,500-sq ft mansions on The Peak, according to one of the ci...

Good morning, and happy Friday! I hope you are all prepared for Christmas.I’m Echo Xie, a reporter at the South China Morning Post focusing on climate, energy and environment. I’m also interested in Chinese politics and policy. You can find me on...

Global warming could result in China being hit by twice as many crop pests and diseases by the end of the century, threatening the country’s food security, scientists have warned.An international team of researchers said that if the world failed to...

Iran has agreed to accept Ceylon tea in payment for a Sri Lankan oil debt valued at US$251 million, Iranian media reported on Thursday.“In recent negotiations, we reached a written deal to reimburse Iran’s debt and interest on it in the form of a...

When the Pillar of Shame, a sculpture at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) to remember the victims of the Tiananmen Square crackdown in Beijing, was pulled down in the early hours of Thursday and mummified in bubble wrap, a piece of the city’s hist...

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle gave the world an early gift on Thursday, the eve of Christmas Eve: their first official family holiday card featuring baby Lilibet Diana.The photo – shot by Alexi Lubomirski over the summer at the royal couple’s ho...

A new engine for hypersonic weapons, built using technology that the military did not believe would work, has successfully completed its first test flights in China, the team behind it has said.The scientists believe it will help China speed up large...

Why has the United States not accused Myanmar of committing genocide against it Rohingya Muslim minority, almost a year after saying the same of China and its Uygur Muslims in Xinjiang?Given that the grim details of both countries’ alleged abuses a...

Italy has tightened restrictions to curb surging Covid-19 infections, including banning all public New Year’s Eve celebrations, as daily infections hit a record high, the government said on Thursday.Health Minister Roberto Speranza said mask wearin...

Revellers will still ring in the new year in New York’s Times Square next week, there just will not be as many of them as usual under new restrictions announced on Thursday as the city grapples with a spike in Covid-19 cases.Viewing areas that norm...

A Minnesota jury on Thursday found former police officer Kim Potter guilty of manslaughter in the fatal shooting of black motorist Daunte Wright during a traffic stop when she mistakenly fired her handgun instead of her taser.A 12-member jury declare...

For Kent Liu, 2022 looks to be riddled with uncertainties that he fears could take a hefty toll on his digital printing production company in Guangdong province.Orders from the garment and bag factories owned by Liu’s key domestic clients have been...

Lawyers for Julian Assange have launched an appeal before Britain’s Supreme Court against a High Court ruling that he may be extradited to the United States, the WikiLeaks founder’s fiancée said on Thursday.The December 10 decision by the High C...

Former US president Donald Trump turned to the Supreme Court on Thursday in a last-ditch effort to keep documents away from the House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol led by his supporters.Trump’s lawyers asked the ...

Author Joan Didion, whose essays, memoirs, novels and screenplays chronicled contemporary American society, as well as her grief over the deaths of her husband and daughter, has died at the age of 87.The cause of death was Parkinson’s disease, her ...

China has pledged to keep the yuan exchange rate “basically stable” amid a recent appreciation, as it assembles a set of policies to counter the risks of slowing exports and rising economic headwinds next year.Beijing also called on banks to sign...

Hong Kong’s ailing food truck pilot scheme, originally designed to cater for tourists, has finally been axed by the government.The Tourism Commission said the scheme would end on June 1, 2022, after a “comprehensive evaluation”. Most operators ...

The relentless surge in European energy prices is exposing the region’s biggest gas and power consumers to heavy losses, forcing industrial giants to cut production and threatening the economic recovery.With energy costs spiking to fresh records da...

A top Hong Kong official has fired a fresh salvo at the United States, describing the country as “plagued” with social problems that expose its leadership to be “anti-democracy”.Echoing Beijing outrage against Western governments, Chief Secre...

US President Joe Biden has signed into law a measure that will effectively ban all imports from China’s Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, a move likely to have significant ramifications for US-China relations and global supply chains alike.In a bri...

Police have arrested four Hongkongers on suspicion of trying to start a “Christmas Eve revolution” through violence.The local men aged 22 to 52 were accused of inciting others on Facebook and Telegram to gather on the streets illegally and commit...

Thai authorities have seized crystal methamphetamine with a street value of almost US$30 million stuffed inside boxing punch bags bound for Australia, officials said on Thursday.Customs officers inspected the shipment after growing suspicious of the ...

The United States may have solved the problem of how to detect hypersonic weapons but would still struggle to stop them, Chinese analysts said.A report from C4ISRNET, a US-based publication covering emerging issues and trends in global military trans...

The destructive power of typhoons and a lack of private sector interest are preventing the wider use of a construction technique hailed by many for its potential to fix Hong Kong’s housing crisis, according to experts.They outlined some of the barr...