China’s largest new electric vehicle (NEV) maker BYD said it stopped producing purely oil-fuelled vehicles last month and currently only makes electric and hybrid cars, as the country pushes towards its national goal of reducing carbon emissions. �...

By Park Jae-hyuk China has warned of potential retaliation against the Korea Fair Trade Commission’s attempt to fine shipping companies, including dozens of Chinese firms, for their alleged collusion to fix the freight rates for sea routes between ...

Three men have received up to 4½ years in jail for rioting and resisting police on National Day during Hong Kong’s anti-government ­protests more than two years ago, while two accomplices have been sentenced to correctional training. Judge Ernest...

A Chinese fast-fashion company without a global network of physical stores of its own is seeking a valuation that could be more than the combined worth of high-street staples Hennes & Mauritz (H&M) and Inditex’s Zara. Shein, an online-only retailer...

When Beijing resident William Wei tried to go for a run with his wife at the Olympic Green last month, he could not enter the park. He was scanning the health QR code at the entrance – a routine measure to ensure all entrants are coronavirus-free �...

Presidential candidates in the Philippines want the country to take a tougher stance against Beijing over territorial disputes in the South China Sea. The Philippines must rally the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) in establishing a cod...

A Hong Kong medical expert has predicted a voluntary mass testing scheme could discover about 10,000 new Covid-19 cases, given millions of residents were thought to have already been infected, although at least some of the carriers expected to be ide...

As many countries try to live with Covid-19, the virus itself is relentlessly mutating to be ever more efficient in spreading among the population. Even the Omicron variant, which caused an unprecedented wave of cases around the world in December and...

The US National Transportation Safety Board has been helping Chinese officials download two black box recorders that were damaged in the mysterious crash of a Boeing 737 aircraft on March 21. The work to decipher the final sounds caught by cockpit mi...

Indonesia is turning to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, as well as crowdfunding from its massive population, to develop its new capital city in Borneo after Japanese tech behemoth SoftBank Group pulled out of the US$34 billion project. Coo...

In a world first, military transport planes have been drafted to Shanghai, as its 25 million residents undergo a three-day mass testing from Monday, aimed at cutting Covid-19 transmission chains in China’s most developed metropolis. The rapid testi...

Special centres will be set up at the government’s isolation facility at Penny’s Bay for university entrance exam candidates who are close contacts of Covid-19 patients or infected themselves, with the annual assessments scheduled to start from A...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday made a surprise video appearance at the music industry’s star-studded Grammy Awards celebration in Las Vegas and appealed to viewers to support his country “in any way you can.” “What is more o...

China’s health authorities have approved clinical trials of two Covid-19 vaccines that use mRNA, potentially adding an option to the nation’s arsenal in its battle against the pandemic’s worst outbreak since 2020. CanSino Biologics and CSPC Pha...

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan blocked a no-confidence vote he looked sure to lose on Sunday and advised the president to order fresh elections, fuelling anger among the opposition and deepening the country’s political crisis. His actions have ...

This story has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by subscribing. Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor has said she will not be seeking re-election, after a five-year t...

Lithuania said it has cut itself off entirely of gas imports from Russia, apparently becoming the first of the European Union’s 27 nations using Russian gas to break its energy dependence on Moscow. “Seeking full energy independence from Russian ...

Official results from Hungary’s general election on Sunday showed nationalist Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party had won a fourth term in office by a much greater margin than pre-election polls had suggested, after a campaign ov...

Hong Kong developer Sino Group will give HK$5,000 (US$639) a year to every child moving into its first transitional housing project, to encourage youngsters from low-income families to develop their talents or attend special interest classes. The Wel...

In early March, a family was seen standing in front of a kindergarten in eastern China with a banner that read, “give us the truth, and justice for our child”. They were protesting because they wanted to find out the truth behind the death of a f...

With Malaysia’s expanse of unused land and a coastline spanning almost 5,000km, citizens have long wondered why reclamation projects keep cropping up in the country. In the state of Penang on the northwest coast of Peninsular Malaysia, environmenta...

An outspoken half-brother of Jordan’s king relinquished his princely title Sunday in apparent protest over how the country is run. It was the latest chapter in an ongoing palace feud that saw the junior royal placed under house arrest a year ago. P...

Most mainland Chinese are expected to stay put during the upcoming Ching Ming Festival, as China grapples with its largest outbreak of Covid-19 since the pandemic began more than two years ago. The festival, which falls on Tuesday this year, is tradi...

Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor’s grand plan of overhauling the government has been derailed by the city’s worst coronavirus outbreak, with sources indicating that the revamp will now have to be left to the next administration. The sh...

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic won a second term in office and his ruling party headed for an election victory on Sunday, putting the leader on track to extend his coalition’s decade-long grip on power, according to an early third-party count. ...

Ukraine’s prosecutor-general says the bodies of 410 civilians have been removed from Kyiv-area towns that were recently retaken from Russian troops. Iryna Venediktova says on Facebook that the bodies were recovered Friday, Saturday and Sunday. She ...

The latest sanctions from the US covering a number of businesses for their ties to Russia following its invasion of Ukraine, including a Singaporean entity, acts as a warning shot to Chinese businesses with exposure to the market, analysts say. The U...

Nearly 100 people have died in international waters after setting off from Libya in an overcrowded boat, international organisations said. A commercial tanker, Alegria 1, rescued four people from a life raft in the Mediterranean early Saturday mornin...

Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa called on Monday for a unity government to deal with the country’s economic crisis after cabinet ministers and the central bank governor offered to resign. The debt-laden country is struggling to pay for impo...

Germany said on Sunday that the West would agree to impose more sanctions on Russia in the coming days after Ukraine accused Russian forces of war crimes near Kyiv, ratcheting up the already vast economic pressure on Russia over its invasion. Russia�...

Cash sweeteners and cheaper petrol have failed to substantially boost the Australian government’s opinion polls ahead of an election that Prime Minister Scott Morrison is expected to call within days. He must hold an election on or before May 21 un...

India’s southern Andhra Pradesh has cancelled bids made for two separate tenders by Adani Enterprises, owned by billionaire Gautam Adani, to supply imported coal as the prices quoted were too high, two state government officials said. It is the fir...

Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban announced a ban Sunday on poppy production, even as farmers across the country began harvesting the bright red flower that produces the opium used to make heroin. The order warns farmers that their crops will be burned ...

Nationalist Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban faced a tough challenge with a united opposition in an unpredictable general election on Sunday, after a campaign dominated by Russia’s invasion of neighbouring Ukraine. The six main opposition part...

With the Ukraine crisis putting further strain on China’s ties with the United States and the West as a whole, Beijing has set its eyes on mending fences with its neighbours. China’s diplomatic frenzy in the past two weeks shows the importance of...

US police in California were searching for at least one suspect on Sunday, in connection with a mass shooting in downtown Sacramento that claimed six lives and left 12 other people injured. Sacramento Police Chief Kathy Lester said at a news conferen...

A 60-year-old man allegedly had himself vaccinated against Covid-19 dozens of times in Germany so he could sell forged vaccination cards with real vaccine batch numbers to people not wanting to get the jabs themselves. The resident of the city of Mag...

A former senior official at Beijing’s top office overseeing Hong Kong affairs has been installed as the head of the semi-official mainland Chinese think tank on policies concerning the city and Macau. The Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macau ...

A WHO panel has recommended that member states consider using traditional Chinese medicine to help manage Covid-19, saying there is evidence that TCM is beneficial in some cases. The suggestion was contained in a report on a three-day meeting in Febr...

Hundreds of protesters in tightly controlled Singapore staged a rare demonstration against the death penalty Sunday as fears grow the city state is set to carry out a wave of hangings. Authorities last week conducted the country’s first execution s...

Prime Minister Imran Khan on Sunday threw Pakistan into chaos, calling for a fresh election after one of his loyalists abruptly cancelled a no-confidence vote in a shock move the opposition vowed to challenge at the Supreme Court. Deputy Speaker Qasi...

Ukraine on Sunday accused Russian troops of war crimes after the discovery of mass graves and civilians apparently “executed” in the streets of Bucha, near the capital Kyiv. The claims came as explosions rocked the Black Sea port city of Odesa, w...

Shanghai’s coronavirus lockdown and the surge in cases has hit operations at the world’s largest container port by disrupting the logistical chain on land, according to industry insiders. Shanghai Port, a major export gateway for goods produced i...

Hong Kong property developers have revealed various promotional schemes ahead of the distribution of consumption vouchers this week, even as the city’s leader urged residents not to rush out to spend their e-coupons. Conglomerates such as Sino Grou...

Property curbs are easing in cities across China as stability takes precedence over reform in the slumping, debt-ridden sector. More than 60 municipal authorities started easing property restrictions in the first quarter, according to a note on Sunda...

More than 2,000 imported workers have been approved since March to join private care homes for the elderly under a special scheme to ease staff shortages during the Covid-19 outbreak, Hong Kong’s labour minister has said. Secretary for Labour and W...

China Molybdenum (CMOC) has regained control of its massive Tenke Fungurume copper and cobalt mine after the Democratic Republic of Congo withdrew a case it had filed against the Chinese mining giant. The two have agreed to settle their dispute outsi...

No 2 government official John Lee Ka-chiu was tipped by sources as a strong contender for Hong Kong’s leadership race, potentially ruling out incumbent Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor for a second term, as the two-week nomination period for next month�...

Pakistan’s president on Sunday dissolved the National Assembly on the advice of Prime Minister Imran Khan, foiling an attempt by the opposition to boot Khan from office. “The President of Pakistan, Dr Arif Alvi, has approved the advice of the Pri...

Authorities will step up the use of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) across Hong Kong, senior officials have revealed, as health authorities confirmed just over 3,700 new Covid-19 infections. The remarks on Sunday came a day after Tong Xiaolin, the...