Hong Kong exports surged by 50.7 per cent year on year in July, driven by “impressive growth” in artificial intelligence-related electronic products, with the government expecting the robust demand to continue supporting trade development despite...

China’s muted response to North Korea’s latest missile launch, which came soon after top diplomat Wang Yi’s visit to Seoul, underscores how Beijing is prioritising Pyongyang’s stability over near‑term denuclearisation, according to analysts...

The Philippines has cut its official poverty rate to below 10 per cent for the first time, a milestone officials hailed as proof that millions of Filipinos are climbing the economic ladder. Yet for families like Vhan Castro’s, there is a big differ...

A Hong Kong court has acquitted a government statistician accused of loitering near a girls’ school and outside a classroom to photograph a pupil, ruling that his conduct did not pose an actual threat despite leaving the girl feeling unsafe. Easter...

South Korea is preparing to overhaul the rules governing technical qualification exams after five candidates were caught using AI-powered smart glasses to cheat in just over two months. The five cases, reported between May and June, were disclosed in...

A coalition may call itself a commitment. It still has to say what that commitment is. The Trump administration is reportedly preparing to send a letter to dozens of countries, pressing them to choose sides in the US-China artificial intelligence rac...

The Philippines plans to expand its unmanned ⁠capabilities, including through development ⁠and acquisition of drones as part ⁠of efforts to modernise its military, its defence chief said on Tuesday. US defence ally the Philippines also planned ...

Israel’s escalating campaign to stop Syria rebuilding its military with Turkish help looks set to backfire, after Damascus signalled it was considering joining the new mutual-defence pact formed by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Securing a Wash...

Three domestic helpers in Hong Kong have been sacked and issued warning letters after providing their employers’ personal data without consent to secure loans, resulting in the households being harassed by debt collectors. Privacy Commissioner for ...

South Korean carmaker Hyundai Motor and the union representing its workers have reached a tentative deal on wages and bonuses, both sides said on Tuesday after a rare full-day strike. Around 40,000 employees of a roughly 73,000-strong domestic workfo...

Xiaomi’s long-term push into proprietary silicon is laying the groundwork for complex artificial intelligence workloads on smartphones and cars, analysts say, as the Chinese tech giant doubles down on self-developed chips despite an earnings slump ...

We have selected seven stories from the SCMP’s coverage of Asia over the past week that resonated with our readers and shed light on topical issues. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. Islamic university ...

For months, Masoumeh Zakeri has endlessly replayed the last night she spent with her nine-year-old daughter before she was killed in a strike on her school during the opening hours of the US-Israel war with Iran. Motahreh excitedly talked about comin...

The US has proposed a new US$103,265 fee for H-1B visa petitions – a move that could ramp up the cost of hiring skilled foreign workers, with Chinese and Indian professionals particularly hard hit. It comes at a sensitive time for US-China relation...

Fuelled by the recent bubble tea boom and an intensely competitive market, financial investors have shown growing interest in the sector’s major brands, shifting their playbook from early-stage bets and initial public offering subscriptions to full...

Beijing could soon hold carmakers legally responsible for traffic violations when autonomous driving systems are in use, marking an important step towards clearing regulatory hurdles to wider commercialisation. The National People’s Congress Standi...

As massive forest and land fires burn across parts of Indonesia, sending haze towards neighbouring Malaysia, President Prabowo Subianto has vowed firm action against big corporations found responsible – reviving a long-running test of whether Jakar...

China’s top legislature has reviewed a draft law aimed at combating cross-border corruption as part of Beijing’s latest efforts to expand its anti-graft legal framework beyond borders. On Tuesday, the draft Anti-Cross-Border Corruption Law was su...

The Japan Monkey Centre, a primate zoo in central Japan known for its winter tradition of monkeys warming themselves by bonfires, will close from mid-October to renovate ageing facilities before reopening in several years. Home to about 700 monkeys o...

About 60 people were evacuated and a 98-year-old woman was taken to hospital after a fire broke out in a flat in Hong Kong on Tuesday. Police said they received multiple reports of the blaze at 488 Hennessy Road in Causeway Bay at 10.59am. The 58 peo...

Hong Kong should make safety design a part of all building development plans and address the culture of rushing work at construction sites, industry leaders have said after the city recorded 15 fatal industrial accidents earlier this year. Their call...

Record-breaking cross-border deals helped make some formerly loss-making Chinese biotech companies profitable in the first half of the year, but multinational drugmakers are now signalling plans to tighten deal budgets. Analysts said deals with globa...

Residents of Section 9 in Kota Damansara thought they knew what was coming to the vacant land opposite their homes. The site, beside a community forest in the Malaysian township, was expected to become a high street retail development. Instead, they ...

Guo Yanliang, a champion debater who honed his argumentation skills in international contests and on online variety shows, has left one of Europe’s top quantum laboratories to set up his own research group in Beijing. Guo, 33, says he sees scientif...

From switching ingredients to staggering price increases, Philippine companies are rethinking strategies to cover rising costs without losing customers squeezed by inflation and a weak peso. The Philippines is now grappling with the second-weakest gr...

A woman from central China undertook a fasting regimen for half a month and lost 20kg, but ultimately suffered from a serious brain disorder from which she may never fully recover. The 31-year-old woman from Henan province, who wishes to remain anony...

Feel strongly about these letters, or any other aspects of the news? Share your views by emailing us your Letter to the Editor at letters@scmp.com or filling in this Google form. Submissions should not exceed 400 words. Public debate over Hong Kong�...

At least 47 people were killed and 22 more injured in an overnight gang raid on a neighbourhood overlooking Haiti’s capital of Port-au-Prince, the UN said on Monday, prompting anger over the lack of protection from repeated deadly attacks. The Unit...

This article was first published on August 26, 1976. Tragedy hits Sau Mau Ping At least seven people, including four children, were killed by the landslide that hit Sau Mau Ping Estate yesterday (August 25, 1976). Yesterday’s disaster was only a fe...

The number of theft cases in homes jumped by about 25 per cent in the first half of 2026, even as Singapore’s overall physical crime situation remained stable. There were 459 thefts in dwelling cases at residential premises in the first six months ...

China is building a global network of gold vaults and accelerating central bank reserve buying as part of efforts to promote the yuan’s role in international trade, according to an S&P Global Ratings report on Tuesday. Firms such as Zijin Mining �...

Scientists have recorded the highest temperature ever measured in the world’s oceans, as climate change combines with a powerful El Nino in the tropical Pacific. The global average sea-surface temperature hit a record 21.1 degrees Celsius (70 Fahre...

Hong Kong’s education authorities will revamp the senior secondary school science and extended maths curriculum by providing additional syllabus options from the 2029-30 academic year in a bid to attract more students and nurture talent in the fiel...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Iran had attempted to assassinate one of his two sons, without offering further details. “Something incredible happened: Iran targeted one of my sons. Iran tried to kill one of my sons,�...

South Korea and the US agreed to maintain close coordination on efforts to revive dialogue with North Korea, days after Pyongyang rebuffed President Donald Trump’s overtures and launched a barrage of short-range ballistic missiles. South Korean For...

“Nothing bad can happen. It can only good happen.” Donald J. Trump It would be easy to write off the regular word salads of America’s 47th president as the increasingly incoherent ramblings of an elderly man in obvious mental and physical decli...

Music made by artificial intelligence will be banned from Australia’s top charts under new guidelines aimed at protecting “the human nature of artistry”, an industry body said on Tuesday. Under new rules in force from Friday, music must be “s...

Heat, humidity and crowded living spaces could pose challenges for Hongkongers hoping to keep large or aggressive dogs as pets, experts have said, urging potential owners to consider the needs of such animals before deciding to house them. They issue...

Two outlandish claims that gained large audiences online in Japan recently have “shocked” misinformation experts, who say conspiracy-style narratives are feeding on disaster anxiety, fading wartime memory and an online information ecosystem that ...

UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham said he and other European leaders plan to travel to the US next month to lobby President Donald Trump to let Ukraine access some of its Patriot air defence missile stocks ahead of the winter. “I’m looking forward t...

A federal judge on Monday postponed a trial in the US for a former Libyan intelligence official charged in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, citing the discovery of new evidence that defence lawyers want to examine in the nearly 40-year-old case...

The South China Morning Post has launched a major data project diving into President Xi Jinping’s signature anti-graft campaign. In the first part of a series accompanying the data project, Phoebe Zhang looks at how the campaign became one of the C...

The Trump administration is preparing to revoke the business and tourism visas of up to 200,000 foreigners who have applied for or are currently seeking asylum status in the United States. If it happens, the move would be the largest single mass revo...

The US Supreme Court gave President Donald Trump a temporary victory on Monday, lifting a lower court block on his executive order curbing the use of mail-in ballots. The Republican president signed an order in March seeking to restrict mail-in votin...

Reports of a female employee allegedly being assaulted at a drinking party in Hangzhou brought back a version of myself from more than a decade ago. Back then, I was one of those young women routinely invited to business dinners. Seating followed an ...

The United States is opening Venezuela’s telecommunications sector to new investment and technology while explicitly excluding Chinese companies, a move that could reshape a market where Huawei and ZTE have become deeply embedded and give Western s...

US President Donald Trump invested as much as US$50,000 ⁠in Elon Musk’s SpaceX in June, according to a public financial disclosure, giving him a financial stake in a major government contractor run by his former adviser. Trump bought between US$1...

The United States on Monday removed Syria from its list of state sponsors of terrorism, rescinding a decades-old designation that came with severe economic restrictions and marking another step in warming ties between the countries. The US Department...

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum expressed optimism she can reach a trade deal with US President Donald Trump as her chief negotiator leads talks in Washington, just after negotiations between the US and Canada collapsed. “As President Trump sai...