The United States is planning to build an “economic security zone” in the Philippines to counter China’s dominance in critical technologies. The 4,000-acre (1,619-hectare) hi-tech industrial hub will reportedly be the first of its kind in the w...

Malaysia’s busiest container port has started refusing Middle East-bound cargo unless shipping lines can guarantee prompt pickup, in one of the clearest signs yet that the Gulf crisis is working its way past oil and into the everyday trade that mov...

Hong Kong’s real estate market has come a long way in the past year. For a sign of the extent to which its outlook has improved, look no further than the rapid shift in expectations for the growth in house prices this year. As recently as January, ...

A tsunami warning was issued for northeast and northern Japan after an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.5 struck at 4.53pm on Monday. The epicentre of the quake, which had a depth of 10km (six miles), was off the Sanriku Coast, The Japan News reporte...

China’s trade with Iran and Gulf countries fell sharply in March as restrictions on the Strait of Hormuz tightened amid the US-Israeli war on Iran. Newly released data by Chinese customs showed imports from Iran plunged 48 per cent year on year las...

Regulators across Asia are stepping up scrutiny of cybersecurity risks in their financial systems, as concerns over Anthropic’s latest AI model Mythos spread. Singapore’s financial regulator is urging banks to plug holes, while South Korea’s go...

A former kindergarten administrator at Hong Kong’s biggest international school group has been sentenced to 25 months in jail for accepting more than HK$640,000 (US$81,700) in bribes from 13 parents and a middleman to secure places by tampering wit...

Hong Kong’s Airport Authority has launched its marina project as part of the broader SkyCity blueprint, seeking global interest from the yachting, hospitality and water sports sectors to help shape the 200-hectare (494 acres) development, with the ...

For Southeast Asia, trust in Japan runs deepest where China presses hardest and breaks down where neutrality is a point of pride. Analysts say that dynamic, revealed in an annual survey released earlier this month, explains why Vietnam and the Philip...

An adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei has warned of “a chain-reaction response” in more critical shipping lanes, including in the Malacca Strait in Southeast Asia, after Iran declared another full closure of the Hormuz Strait bef...

Global drug maker Pfizer and biotech firm Amgen, each valued at more than HK$1 trillion (US$153 billion), are among 22 strategic enterprises planning to open or expand offices in Hong Kong, the South China Morning Post has learned. A source said on M...

Hong Kong artiste Kristal Tin Yui-lee has revealed on social media that cancer cells were found in her lymph nodes, more than a year after being diagnosed with early-stage lung cancer, drawing renewed attention to the disease. A former leading actres...

Indonesia’s National Human Rights Commission strongly criticised the military ⁠on Monday as it ⁠investigated the killing of 12 civilians ⁠last week during an operation against rebels in Papua province. The military said it had no information ...

A new study from mainland China’s internal security forces offers a glimpse into a future where urban unrest is managed by autonomous machines instead of police in riot gear. In a scenario laid out by engineering experts from the People’s Armed P...

A Chinese influencer helped a girl who claimed to be raising her sisters alone in a remote village, only to later discover that some of her hardships were exaggerated. Super Btai, whose real name is Chen Jiajun, is famed for exposing scams and suppor...

Hesai Group, the world’s largest maker of vehicle lidar sensors, introduced technology it said would raise autonomous driving features to a new level by detecting colour to improve the reliability of object identification. The Shanghai-based maker ...

A 32-year-old man was found dead after being spotted floating in waters off a Hong Kong park, with police saying he had a record of mental illness. The force received a report at 6.37am on Monday that the body was floating two to three metres offshor...

Asia-Pacific economies are likely to suffer a slowdown in growth this year, as rising costs linked to the US-Israel war on Iran combine with lingering trade uncertainty to threaten global trade flows, according to forecasts by top international organ...

We have put together stories from our coverage last weekend to help you stay informed about news across Asia and beyond. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. Lesson for China? Iran’s low-cost 358 missile t...

Residents in low-lying areas of New Zealand’s ⁠capital city Wellington ⁠were urged to evacuate on ⁠Monday, as heavy rain continued to drench the city, which experienced flash flooding overnight. A state of emergency was declared for the regio...

A US move to freeze the Lunar Gateway orbiting space station could render Japan’s new technologies redundant – but its space agency is expected to be diplomatic in its response. The Lunar Gateway project was initially planned as an installation t...

Chinese researchers have developed a flexible 5G millimetre-wave antenna made from photo paper which they say slashes material costs by more than 95 per cent, potentially removing a key barrier to large-scale naval 5G adoption. They described a paper...

This story has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by subscribing. The third set of public evidential hearings into the deadly fire at Tai Po’s Wang Fuk Court began on Monday...

Yemen’s Tehran-aligned Houthi movement has threatened to besiege a second key Middle East waterway as Iran launched drone attacks against US Navy vessels in the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend after a diplomatic effort to end the war appeared to ...

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has been putting her own spin on omotenashi, the Japanese concept of hospitality, to build personal rapport with foreign leaders as her diplomatic skills are put to the test about six months into office. Takaich...

Bikes, figurines, paintings and a safe are among cherished items rescued from the ashes of Wang Fuk Court, as residents begin returning under close monitoring by Hong Kong government staff. Wang Sun House residents, the first in the fire-ravaged Tai ...

The US-Israeli war on Iran has unleashed sharp swings across global energy and financial markets, fuelling demand for safe-haven assets, with Hong Kong emerging as a potential beneficiary across gold, property and capital markets. In the third of a t...

In the early 2010s, a small Australian company tried to build a fleet of satellites before lenders, concerned about its chief executive officer’s flamboyant behaviour, pulled hundreds of millions of dollars of financing. The firm collapsed in 2015....

Deliveries of China’s home-grown C919 narrowbody airliner, billed to challenge mainstream models from Boeing and Airbus, appear to be delayed, with only three units shipped to Chinese carriers in the first quarter of 2026. Observers point to severa...

Bolstering strategic partnerships and economic ties will be high on the agenda during South Korean President Lee Jae Myung’s six-day trip to India and Vietnam, as Seoul seeks to expand cooperation with the Global South amid turmoil in the Middle Ea...

Hong Kong’s government is under mounting pressure to deliver the Northern Metropolis, announced in 2021, as it approaches the end of its term – less than 15 months and counting. The megaproject, to turn 30,000 hectares (74,132 acres) near the bor...

A young Chinese woman who returned to her hometown to raise more than 60,000 venomous snakes and earns more than a million yuan (US$147,000) a year has caused astonishment online. The woman, surnamed Qin, was born in 1995 and hails from Guilin in Gua...

Twenty Hong Kong couples have each received baby bonuses totalling HK$60,000 (US$7,700) for having three children in about 2½ years. Yet less than 60 per cent of the HK$2.28 billion earmarked for the three-year government scheme has been disbursed a...

Hong Kong-headquartered Toys ‘R’ Us Asia has pivoted to an experience-focused format and smaller stores in the city following an expansion programme that sought to increase its outlets as it navigates the changing retail landscape. The group plan...

This year’s El Nino could increase the global demand for fossil fuels and worsen the price rises caused by the Iran crisis, Chinese government scientists have said. The climate phenomenon happens every two to seven years and causes an increase in a...

Across Asia, a revolution in how people move was already gathering speed. War in Iran just hit the accelerator. Prashant Tiwari was among the first people at his company to go electric when he swapped his petrol car for a Hyundai Kona five years ago....

US federal prosecutors said on Sunday an Iranian national was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport for allegedly trafficking arms to Sudan on behalf of Tehran. Shamim Mafi, 44, is charged with “brokering the sale of drones, bombs, bomb fus...

Sven Biscop is a Belgian political scientist and strategist specialising in the foreign affairs and security of the EU and its relations with great powers. He is a director at the Egmont Royal Institute for International Relations in Brussels and a p...

Many Hongkongers would have been surprised last week that the government was postponing the introduction of basketball betting. It was only months ago that the bill had been enacted by the Legislative Council. So clearly it was a matter that fell wit...

Israel said its military had been instructed to use “full force” against imminent threats in Lebanon despite a truce there and vowed to level homes allegedly used by Hezbollah, with state media reporting on Sunday that demolitions were under way....

UK police said on Sunday they were investigating whether a string of arson attacks on Jewish sites in London were the work of Iranian proxies, as the country’s chief rabbi said British Jews were facing a campaign of violence and intimidation. The M...

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said in a video address released on Sunday that Canada’s strong economic ties to the United States were once a strength but are now a weakness that must be corrected. In the 10-minute address, Carney spoke about ...

Pope Leo on Sunday recalled the “sorrow and great suffering” Angolans endured for centuries, as the American pope prayed at a Catholic shrine located at the site of an important hub of the African slave trade during Portugal’s colonial rule. Le...

Senior Cabinet ministers on Sunday rallied around UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, whose leadership is teetering over his decision to give Britain’s most important diplomatic job to Peter Mandelson, a scandal-tarnished politician and friend of Jeffr...

A man shot dead eight children – seven of them his own – early Sunday in the southern US state of Louisiana in an incident of domestic violence that spanned three locations, police said. The early morning massacre at a grey house in the city of S...

The head of Ukraine’s police patrol, Yevhen Zhukov, has handed in his resignation after two police officers were seen fleeing the scene when a gunman opened fire in Kyiv, killing at least six. “As an officer with combat experience, I have decided...

Ciao UFO, a sci‑fi drama inspired by a local urban legend of mysterious lights over a public housing estate, clinched the top honours at the 44th Hong Kong Film Awards on Sunday night, winning best film and best director for Patrick Leung Pak‑kin...

Tensions in East Asia reached a fresh peak with a Japanese warship’s transit of the Taiwan Strait on a historically freighted date for China. According to the PLA Eastern Theatre Command, the Japanese destroyer JS Ikazuchi spent 14 hours navigating...

About 1,000 animal welfare activists who tried to gain entry on Saturday to a beagle breeding and research facility in Wisconsin were turned back by police who fired rubber bullets and pepper spray into the crowd and arrested the group’s leader. It...