Hong Kong’s anti-corruption agency and police have jointly arrested 19 people, including serving footballers and coaches, over illegal bookmaking, with one player accused of both fixing matches and handling illicit bets. Principal investigator Bill...

Only half of Malaysian women who were married or in a sexual relationship polled in a nationwide survey said they could refuse sex with their spouse or partner, with those who gave in saying they believed it was their marital duty or that they were g...

Who would have imagined that just over 100 days could so change the world? The US-Israeli “war of choice” on Iran has fundamentally – perhaps, permanently – shifted the global balances of economic, military and political power, and not in Ame...

Singapore’s cooling strategy, pioneered by founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, has come in for praise in Europe, which is sweltering under a deadly heatwave. Even Tesla founder and world’s first trillionaire Elon Musk has weighed in, calling th...

Hong Kong continued to draw US and European firms to expand their businesses in the city in the first half of this year, the latest data shows, adding new momentum to its superconnector role. A total of 413 companies either set up local entities or e...

A potential hi-tech upgrade to BeiDou-based rail monitoring systems could better protect and track containers on the transcontinental China-Europe railway express, according to the developers of a new mountable device. A team drawn from various state...

A South Korean court sentenced former first lady Kim Keon-hee, already serving time behind bars for corruption, to another seven years’ imprisonment on Friday in a jobs-for-gifts scandal. Kim, 53, was found guilty of accepting “high-value preciou...

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A Hong Kong beautician has admitted tricking two women into forced labour and confinement in Southeast Asia by offering them free flights and accommodation and promising a lucrative reward for transporting 48 million baht (US$1.4 million) more than a...

Malaysia is seeking compensation of 226 million euros (US$257 million) from a Norwegian defence firm after a deal to deliver a naval missile system was cancelled, despite the Southeast Asian country having paid about 95 per cent of the contract value...

Former Israeli defence chief Gadi Eisenkot is emerging as the main rival to incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, months ahead of the nation’s parliamentary elections. Eisenkot’s new centrist party, Yashar! (Hebrew for “Straight!”), ha...

Iran and the United States may have entered a temporary ceasefire, but uncertainty over the agreement continues to cast a shadow over the operations of Chinese businesses across the Gulf region. While the deal has raised hopes that business activity ...

A 50-year-old woman has died in the wake of a fire at a Hong Kong flat, with three others hospitalised. Police said the fire broke out at Valiant Court in Ho Man Tin at around 10.04am on Friday. Fire services were immediately deployed to the scene an...

Hong Kong authorities have officially extended the buy-back offer to the only block spared in the deadly Wang Fuk Court blaze after more than three-quarters of households indicated their intention to sell their flats to the government. Owners of 78 p...

Spurred by the rising popularity of electric vehicles (EVs), Chinese carmakers are consolidating their foothold in the global auto market, prompting international banks like Goldman Sachs to significantly raise their export forecasts. Buoyant oversea...

At a time of worsening global security, East Asia could eclipse a Europe “no longer worth emulating” and become the benchmark for peace and economic growth, according to a prominent Chinese political scientist. Yan Xuetong, honorary president of ...

A 19-year-old influencer in China has announced he has been admitted to top-tier Boston University, with tuition and living costs to be covered entirely by himself, as he has earned money through his online activities in recent years. Zhong Meimei, b...

A penthouse at CK Asset Holdings’ luxury residential project in Hong Kong’s Mid-Levels has been sold via tender for HK$380.77 million (US$48.5 million), according to a statement from the flagship property developer of tycoon Li Ka-shing, undersco...

Malaysia’s ruling Malay party has been drawn into a sensitive palace row on the eve of Johor’s nomination day after a veteran figure quit Umno and accused the southern state’s royal household of influencing the timing of a snap election. The co...

Hong Kong police have arrested a minibus driver for dangerous driving after his vehicle fatally hit a cyclist in North district. Police received a report of the incident in Ta Kwu Ling at 6.27am on Friday. Emergency personnel found the man unconsciou...

Hong Kong authorities have proposed overhauling the city’s medical watchdog by raising the proportion of lay members to about a third and requiring the time frame for handling complaints to be made public, which may help slash the inquiry process f...

As Hong Kong marks the 29th anniversary of its return to Chinese rule on July 1, the South China Morning Post talks to the city’s senior officials about the administration’s achievements so far and what may lie ahead. Allowing all doctors without...

This story has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by subscribing. New users who download our updated app get a seven-day free trial. A man has been injured after being struck ...

We have selected seven stories from this week’s news across Hong Kong, mainland China, the wider Asia region and beyond that resonated with our readers and shed light on topical issues. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please conside...

As China’s relationship with African countries deepens, the country’s influence is spreading into more areas. In this series Jevans Nyabiage looks at an initiative to help control weapons and reduce conflict in a region where Beijing has vast eco...

A Malaysian teenager’s dream of owning a Yamaha Y15 motorcycle has pushed his imagination to the next level. Too young to actually ride one, the 13-year-old instead converted his bicycle by mounting motorcycle parts with cable ties. His innovative ...

Japanese airlines cancelled on Friday more than 100 flights as two tropical storms barrelled towards the archipelago, with authorities advising evacuations in some areas because of possible flooding and landslides. Severe tropical storm Mekkhala, dow...

A New York City housing board voted on Thursday to freeze the rents for about one million regulated flats for up to two years, fulfilling a central campaign promise of Mayor Zohran Mamdani only months into his term. The 7-1 vote by the city’s Rent ...

Hong Kong’s labour authorities are investigating a fatal accident in which a worker died after being run over by a construction vehicle at a sports ground. Police received a report at about 8.58am on Friday that a man had been hit by a vehicle at K...

In the first of a two-part series on the economy as Hong Kong marks 29 years since its return to Chinese rule, Denise Tsang and Vivian Au look at efforts at transformation, including the city’s bet on the Northern Metropolis, and the challenges ahe...

Singaporean Hong Weilun was left disappointed after he failed to secure tickets for limited Teochew screenings of the Chinese film Dear You when they were released on Monday. “It is important to watch the original version because the mood, nuances ...

A man in eastern China deceived long-time friends out of over 700,000 yuan (US$103,000) by changing the lock on a random vacant flat and posing as its owner to sell it to them. Sun, a Shanghai resident who previously owned two shops that went out of ...

China’s 6G engineers have built a special metasurface system that can bounce wireless signals around like a precision mirror to fill in dead spots, while still sensing people moving about – just like a radar. The innovation earned a gold award at...

A record 156 new models are expected to hit the Chinese automotive market in the second half of 2026, intensifying concerns about small players’ profitability as a new price war looms. The mass-market segment would see an influx of intelligent elec...

“Founding Father, Benjamin Franklin, published the sayings of Confucius in his colonial newspaper and today’s sculpture recognising that ancient Chinese age is carved into the face of the United States Supreme Court very proudly,” said US Presi...

As Hong Kong marks the 29th anniversary of its return to Chinese rule on July 1, the South China Morning Post talks to the city’s senior officials about the administration’s achievements so far and what may lie ahead. Hong Kong is on a global tal...

A public row between Seoul and the US-led United Nations Command (UNC) has revealed a fresh fault line over how the two interpret North Korea’s recent border fortification activities. South Korea views its arch-rival’s actions as a violation of t...

The US Supreme Court on Thursday backed a Trump administration move to strip deportation protections from some 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians living in the United States. The 6-3 ruling by the conservative-dominated court could have implications ...

Hong Kong is seizing every opportunity to consolidate its role as a global financial centre, leveraging unique advantages and national strategies. This piece, the second in a miniseries focusing on the city’s financial industry ahead of the handove...

Venezuela has received offers of rescue teams and humanitarian aid from across the Americas, including from right-wing governments that had broken off diplomatic relations with Caracas less than two years ago, in the wake of this week’s deadly twin...

King Charles will not live at Buckingham ⁠Palace after its 10-year refurbishment finishes next year, royal officials said on Thursday, ending nearly two centuries of the central London landmark serving as the British monarch’s primary residence. ...

Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) is expanding into the index business with plans to launch more proprietary benchmarks and related investment products, as traditional market gauges have lagged regional peers during the artificial intelligence-...

As the United States marks the 250th anniversary of its founding, it confronts a new world order dominated by its relationship with China. In this wide-ranging series, we examine the pressure points and possibilities in those ties, from hard tech to ...

The European Union is offering Brazil a “more beneficial” partnership on critical minerals than the United States or China, the bloc’s international partnerships commissioner said on Thursday, promising investment in domestic refining and techn...

Last week, while preparing a lecture on the visual culture of the Global South, I caught Google’s Gemini in a double hallucination. Cross-referencing a historical event between English and Chinese data sets, I found the English AI to be authoritati...

Venezuelans searched for survivors beneath collapsed buildings on Thursday and rescue teams raced to northern areas rocked by a pair of powerful earthquakes that officials say killed at least 235 people and left some 4,300 injured. The number of dead...

The United States has been asleep for decades as China undercut US economic strength by stealing ideas, technologies and, more recently, artificial intelligence advances, with the Chinese military first in line to benefit, according to testimony hear...

The controversial “Alligator Alcatraz” immigration detention centre – a costly Florida facility that became a symbol of US President Donald Trump’s deportation drive – has shut down after less than a year in operation, officials said Thursd...

The top US diplomat for East Asia sought to reassure Taiwan that Washington stood by its “Six Assurances” despite US President Donald Trump’s earlier dismissal of the policy, but offered no timeline for approving a stalled US$14 billion arms pa...

A liner along the bottom of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was cut with a sharp knife or razor this month, causing damage to the foam sealant installed as part of a US$16 million rehabilitation project, a top official at the National Park Servi...