A secondary school in China has awarded stellar pupils with tailor-made quilt covers, bedsheets and blankets. The move has won praise from internet users for understanding juvenile psychology. The decision to shun traditional red paper-made merit cer...

The number of deaths from workplace accidents in Hong Kong rose to a record 118 this year, including 16 killed in the deadly Tai Po fire, with a union calling for full transparency in investigation reports and heavier penalties on those found liable....

A small Mexican Navy plane transporting a young medical patient and seven others crashed on Monday near Galveston, killing at least five people and setting off a search in waters along the Texas coast, officials said. Four of the people on board were...

A court’s decision to keep former Malaysian leader Najib Razak behind bars has reopened fault lines between Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s ruling coalition and Umno, the country’s once-dominant ruling party. The Kuala Lumpur High Court on Monda...

Nvidia has told Chinese clients it aims to start shipping its H200 artificial intelligence chips to China before the Lunar New Year holiday in mid-February, according to three people familiar with the matter. The US chip designer plans to fulfil init...

Hong Kong’s top Catholic priest has said the city’s deadliest fire in decades underscored the fragility of life, but celebrating Christmas amid the grief would share the “sweetness, acidity, bitterness, and heat of our humanity”. Cardinal Ste...

A luxury flat in Hong Kong’s Kowloon Tong district is one of the latest to have found a buyer amid a rosier outlook for the city’s residential property market. The HK$225 million (US$28.9 million) property in Tower 6 of Mont Verra was bought by E...

Germany’s trade deficit with China is on track to hit a record high in 2025 amid shrinking demand for German goods – a trend that appears unlikely to be reversed in the short term and which could trigger a protectionist backlash, according to ana...

One of China’s largest comic conventions has banned Japanese-themed content and derivative works just a week ahead of its opening amid spiralling tension between Tokyo and Beijing. Organisers of the Comicup (CP) 32nd edition “Pre” event – set...

Catch up on some of SCMP’s biggest stories about extreme weather and natural disasters in Asia. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. ‘It’s like apocalypse’: Myanmar, Thailand quake death toll tops 1,...

More than 99 per cent of Hong Kong residents have low immunity against the new “super flu”, a team of researchers has found, as they urged the public to get vaccinated against the rapidly spreading strain. Despite the low level of immunity among ...

Indonesia said it has resolved all substantive issues in trade talks with the US and is on course to sign an agreement in late January, removing a major source of uncertainty for Southeast Asia’s biggest economy. Both countries have aligned on the ...

The yuan has strengthened in recent months, with the offshore rate hitting its highest level against the US dollar in more than a year, fuelling forecasts that it could reach as high as 6.8 in 2026. The currency’s international profile has also inc...

A wave of online discussion blaming China’s last imperial dynasty for national historical sufferings has prompted official criticism after touching on sensitive questions, and ignited debate over historical narrative, nationalism and social governa...

A Chinese woman who dreamed of becoming a dancer spent four months losing 20 kilograms and is now being mistaken for the actress Joey Wong, gaining over 310,000 followers online. Liu Wendi, 32, from Ezhou in Hubei province, central China, recently ga...

Grieving mother Lee Hyo-eun returns every weekend to the airport where her daughter and 178 others died last year, desperate for the truth about South Korea’s deadliest airline disaster. Jeju Air flight 2216 was coming in to land at Muan Internatio...

US regulators on Monday gave the green light to a pill version of the blockbuster weight-loss drug Wegovy, the first daily oral medication to treat obesity. The US Food and Drug Administration’s approval handed drug maker Novo Nordisk an edge over ...

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. Mexico’s 50% tari...

Hong Kong is marking this Christmas and New Year in a subdued mood following last month’s Tai Po fire, which has claimed 161 lives so far. Many large-scale events have been postponed or scaled down, prompting residents and tourists to find quieter ...

For years, Nepal’s government has faced pressure to reduce rubbish in the Himalayas, where decades of commercial mountaineering have left large amounts of discarded gear, human waste and other debris on some of the world’s tallest peaks. Last wee...

The Sigg Prize 2025 has been awarded jointly to Hong Kong animator Wong Ping and Macau-raised artist Heidi Lau, marking the first time the contemporary art prize has been shared between two artists since it was first awarded in 2019. The announcement...

Education has long been considered one of the strongest forces for social progress, shaping safer, healthier and more equitable societies. But as the world changes, learning must evolve with it – a belief that is at the heart of the Yidan Prize, wh...

China has drafted a law on Antarctic affairs, as Beijing looks to protect its interests and strengthen its role in the governance of the southernmost continent. The draft “Antarctic Activities and Environmental Protection Law” was submitted to th...

Hong Kong will provide more chargers compatible with mainland Chinese electric vehicles, the transport chief has said, as the first batch of cars from Guangdong province enters the city’s urban areas under a new scheme. Secretary for Transport and ...

Russia’s shipments of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to China soared last month, consolidating Moscow’s role as the top energy supplier to the world’s second-largest economy even in the face of Western sanctions. Imports of LNG from Russia surged ...

As climate change fuels more frequent floods and storms across Southeast Asia, forests and wildlife are being pushed to their breaking point, with conservationists and scientists warning of a worsening impact on ecosystems due to a lack of oversight ...

The Long March 12A, China’s first state-owned reusable rocket, made its debut launch on Tuesday morning but the recovery of the first stage was a failure. It was China’s second failed bid this month to return an orbital-class booster to Earth, a ...

[The content of this article has been produced by our advertising partner.] Hong Kong’s first Research Grants Council (RGC) Research Summit, held at Hong Kong Science Park on December 11, arrived at a watershed moment when technological breakthroug...

US tech giant Amazon said it has blocked over 1,800 North Koreans from joining the company, as Pyongyang sends large numbers of IT workers overseas to earn and launder funds. In a post on LinkedIn, Amazon’s Chief Security Officer Stephen Schmidt sa...

Three in four multinational corporations (MNCs) operating in mainland China have maintained or increased their investments in 2025, according to a recent KPMG survey, despite Washington stepping up efforts to decouple from Beijing and its allies foll...

South Korea’s rival political parties are set to appoint special prosecutors to investigate allegations that the Unification Church bribed and lobbied politicians across the ideological divide, a rare move that observers have said could test the co...

As 2025 draws to a close, it marks an important milestone in the reconfiguration of the global economic system. Every century is defined not only by changes in technological leadership and shifts in global power, but also by the restructuring of the ...

US President Donald Trump announced the US Navy would build a new “Trump-class” battleship as part of the White House push to modernise a fleet that has been hobbled by years of cost overruns and delays. A poster displayed at the event at Trump�...

F-16V fighter jets ordered by Taiwan are undergoing ground tests in the United States, as Washington and the American contractor come under pressure to speed up deliveries following criticism of repeated delays. Photos circulating online in recent da...

An influencer in China has said online that a golden phoenix crown her artist husband made her as a wedding gift was damaged by a child and her mother while taking a photograph at an exhibition. The influencer, Zhang Kaiyi, who has 13.6 million follo...

Cybersecurity experts have urged Hong Kong residents to prioritise the use of an official one-stop digital identity app to register their accounts on the city’s new centralised pension fund platform to prevent theft after scammers made off with HK$...

The Japanese government is floating the idea of requiring anyone applying for permanent residency to have reached a certain standard of Japanese language skills and undergo instruction on how to be a good citizen. Media reports on the proposals from ...

Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney announced on Monday that financier Mark Wiseman will serve as Canada’s next ambassador to the United States, an appointment that comes at a critical time in relations between the two major trading partners. Wis...

Activity in Hong Kong’s ultra-luxury residential market is picking up, with Swire Properties selling two homes in Deep Water Bay for a whopping HK$2.2 billion (US$283 million). The two three-storey units at 6 Deep Water Bay Road had saleable areas ...

A Chinese combat robot tore through the competition at the Games of the Future Abu Dhabi 2025 on Sunday, sealing the Battle of the Robots title in a shower of sparks after slamming its rival into the glass wall of the arena. The robot, dubbed Deep-Se...

Protesters in Tirana, Albania hurled petrol bombs at the government building housing ‌Prime Minister Edi Rama’s office on Monday, demanding ‍the government’s resignation after prosecutors indicted the deputy prime minister for alleged corrupt...

Vince Zampella, the acclaimed co-creator of video gaming juggernaut Call of Duty, has died in a car crash. He was 55. The developer and executive died on Sunday while driving his Ferrari on a scenic road north of Los Angeles, according to local broad...

China accused the United States on Monday of violating international law by seizing oil tankers off Venezuela, as Washington intensified pressure on President Nicolas Maduro’s government and a senior US official openly suggested that he should be r...

A mistrial was declared on Monday in the closely watched case of a former senior New York official charged with acting as a Chinese agent after the jury was unable to reach a verdict. The jury remained deadlocked on all 19 counts after several days o...

All eyes are on how Beijing’s “Chinese dream” of eventual Taiwan reunification will unfold at a time when the leader of the United States – Taipei’s top international backer – appears less likely to intervene in case of a cross-strait con...

The US telecommunications regulator said on Monday that it is adding Shenzhen-based DJI, the world’s largest drone maker, to a list of companies determined to pose “unacceptable risks” to US national security, marking a significant escalation i...

China recently announced it would impose an export licensing regime on around 300 steel products starting January 1. The move, while seemingly technical, sends a clear signal Beijing is attempting to address a key source of trade friction with its em...

Weeks after US immigration authorities arrested and separated 6-year-old Yuanxin from his father, Fei Zheng, during a routine immigration check-in in New York, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed that the pair had been deported to China. �...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on ‍Monday he will discuss Iran’s nuclear activities during his visit next week with US President Donald Trump. Speaking at a joint press conference with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and ...