China’s largest hotpot chain Haidilao International Holding has seen takeaway emerge as its fastest-growing segment, with demand for single-serving meals like rice-bowl sets surging, amid positive revenue and profit growth in the first half. Takeaw...

As Washington increasingly turns away from the multilateral order it once helped build, Beijing is emerging as an advocate of international cooperation and rules-based stability. For some, the real surprise is that China’s rise is not challenging t...

We have put together stories from our coverage on science from the past two weeks to help you stay informed. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. Chinese team aims to put ‘smart’ diabetes probiotic on US...

China is drawing up an extensive set of standards for brain-computer interface technology, seeking to accelerate the commercialisation of a field in which Chinese start-ups are increasingly competing with Elon Musk’s Neuralink for global leadership...

Celebrating its 45th anniversary this year, the Student of the Year (SOTY) Awards unveiled a series of forward-looking initiatives while honouring a community-minded student-athlete from Ying Wa College with the Grand Prize for exemplifying this year...

A ⁠massive flash flood ⁠in the Himalayan nation of Nepal ⁠washed away villages while damaging roads, bridges and power projects in a region bordering Tibet, authorities said on Wednesday, as they warned against the risk of casualties. The areas...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has urged China to play a “strong diplomatic role” to help end the war between Russia and Ukraine, bolstering his call by highlighting national day congratulations from Chinese President Xi Jinping. “We co...

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam’s commercial ⁠hub, is proposing ⁠to gradually restrict ⁠petrol- and diesel-powered vehicles from its downtown area from mid-2027, as part of a planned low-emission zone (LEZ), according to state-run Thanh Nien newspa...

A mainland Chinese Buddhist monk has been remanded in custody after allegedly stealing a statue of the Monkey King, a deity famed in classic Chinese novel Journey to the West, from a Hong Kong temple. The 57-year-old, Zha Jianxin, appeared in West Ko...

Indonesia and Malaysia have agreed to share the skies amid a haze crisis that has closed nearly 600 Malaysian schools and erased much of the Kuala Lumpur skyline from view. The Petronas Twin Towers, usually visible for miles around, have been swallow...

Australian police said on Wednesday they were on the hunt for thieves who made off with hundreds of thousands of oysters. The molluscs have an estimated total value of A$350,000 (US$250,000) and were lifted from an oyster farm near the town of Taree,...

China’s BeiDou satellite navigation system – its home-grown alternative to the US-run Global Positioning System – has been adopted in about 90 per cent of “key industry” applications nationwide, according to the Ministry of Industry and Inf...

A Hong Kong man has lost more than HK$2.8 million (US$357,000) in an online investment scam in which fraudsters claiming to be employees of electricity companies duped him into investing in a “recyclable waste project”. Police also said on Wednes...

At least 14 infants were killed ‌in a fire at a state-run hospital in Pakistan’s capital of Islamabad on Wednesday, the prime minister said, with local media blaming the tragedy on a fault in the air conditioning system. The blaze started around ...

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) need subsidies to cope with soaring electricity costs after fuel surcharges imposed by Hong Kong’s two power suppliers rose by up to 78.5 per cent since March due to the Middle East war, an industry leader ...

A Hong Kong constable is suspected of discharging his service firearm accidentally at a police base in Mong Kok, the force has revealed. The alleged incident occurred at 11.01pm on Tuesday as the officer was loading a round into his service firearm a...

South Korea said on Wednesday it had scrambled fighter jets in response to Russian military aircraft entering its air defence zone, the second such incursion in weeks. The relationship between the countries has worsened since South Korea joined Weste...

Hong Kong authorities are investigating two new dog attack cases that have resulted in injuries to a woman and a canine, taking place amid mounting safety concerns triggered by two other similar but deadlier incidents last week. In the first case, po...

DeepSeek is nearing the completion of a new funding round valuing the company at about 500 billion yuan (US$74 billion) before investment, as the Chinese artificial intelligence start-up moves closer to a potential listing on Shanghai’s Star Market...

Malaysian police are investigating a killing near Kuala Lumpur as murder after a man rammed by a car died following an armed brawl in broad daylight that was caught on camera – footage that has stirred fresh alarm over brazen street violence in the...

Airports in China’s Zhejiang and Fujian provinces remained on high alert for potential delays and cancellations as Typhoon Saudel approached landfall on Wednesday, after multiple flights were cancelled in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Saudel, which entered...

The US Department of the Treasury launched targeted sanctions against some 24 entities based in mainland China or Hong Kong as part of its “Operation Economic Outcast” campaign against Iran and its enablers. See below for the original announcem...

A Hong Kong court has ordered a civil servant at public broadcaster RTHK to complete 160 hours of community service after he admitted taking upskirt footage of a woman in public. Chong Tak-yin, an assistant chief assignment editor in RTHK’s Chinese...

Hong Kong’s growing number of expatriates is boosting the city’s residential property leasing market with luxury rents likely to rise by about 5 per cent this year and continue their upswing in 2027, according to property consultancy JLL. The pri...

Long before the digital age, a Ming dynasty scholar made it his mission to map human knowledge from a Chinese perspective. The result was an encyclopaedia spanning 127 volumes known as the Tushu Bian, or Compendium of Illustrations and Texts. The wor...

“I want to survive.” That was uppermost in Senior Seaman Michael Coccon Johen’s mind while he was drifting in the South China Sea, hours after a free-fall parachute training exercise went wrong. Johen, 27, was one of six Malaysian navy special ...

A roller coaster malfunction at a major theme park on the outskirts of Malaysia’s capital city injured 10 people on Saturday, the operator confirmed after coming under fire for what critics called a prolonged silence over the incident. Authorities ...

A Chinese-proposed international standard for automotive solid-state batteries has been approved as a new work item by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) – marking the first of its kind for the advanced power systems and the nation...

A Chinese woman developed life-threatening muscle breakdown after her company forced her to perform 200 squats as punishment for unfinished work. The young woman, surnamed Yang, recently moved to Hangzhou in eastern China’s Zhejiang province and be...

Singaporean online commentator Amos Yee Pang Sang on Wednesday received four fresh charges linked to posts he made about race and children. This brings his total number of charges to seven, including three for allegedly dodging national service. Acco...

North Korea has stepped up its verbal attacks on Japan, issuing more than a dozen denunciations through state media since early July and hardening its rhetoric in recent days by accusing Tokyo of whipping up a “neo-militarist frenzy” and preparin...

Japan’s Environment Ministry says it plans to reuse soil collected in decontamination work near the disaster-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex at national government branch offices in Miyagi and Saitama prefectures. The government has alre...

South Carolina Senator Darline Graham won the Republican nomination in seeking a full term on Tuesday, overcoming a rocky moment in last week’s debate, when she struggled to answer questions about Taiwan and the South China Sea. Graham, a political...

A group of Hong Kong-listed biotechnology companies have seen their stock prices surge in the wake of Moderna’s breakthrough cancer vaccine trial, as the Chinese companies push forward with similar vaccine programmes. The companies – from Jiangsu...

Philippine military officials said on Tuesday that Filipino and US personnel had tried to access a closed Chinese-linked steel plant in Mindanao as part of planning for a future naval facility and joint military exercises, extending a dispute that ha...

A “widening” AI gap between advanced economies and developing countries has sparked calls to use the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation framework to develop an open, fairer and culturally sensitive governance system. Although the technology is oft...

Ooshies were not just fun to collect – the tiny plastic Disney figurines were powerful enough to move sales between Australia’s supermarket giants. Woolworths Group said on Wednesday that Australian food sales jumped 7.6 per cent in the first eig...

Mainland Chinese enterprises will play a key role in developing Hong Kong’s Northern Metropolis by sharing financial risks and helping align the megaproject with national strategy, according to real estate and political advisers. Their analysis fol...

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi remains in a strong position despite a poll showing falling support for her administration, ahead of an expected cabinet reshuffle to bolster her coalition government. A new cabinet could help the government win...

US President Donald Trump’s administration is starting to send staff back to some diplomatic missions in the Middle East that were evacuated ‌or downsized amid tensions with Iran, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters. The posts in Leb...

China’s deliberation on its sweeping cross-border anti-corruption law may ripple through Hong Kong’s financial and property markets, as Beijing seeks harsher punishments for corrupt officials and broadens its scrutiny of the massive pool of wealt...

A man killed eight of his relatives, including four children, as they gathered for Sunday dinner at a home outside Billings, Montana, weeks after his parents asked him to move out, a family member told Associated Press. Brad Ireland, whose former wif...

A prominent Sikh separatist said Tuesday that the FBI and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have warned him that he faces a new credible threat to his life even as a man from India faces sentencing later this year for a 2023 death plot against him. G...

The South China Morning Post has launched a major data project diving into President Xi Jinping’s signature anti-graft campaign. In the second part of an accompanying series, William Zheng examines how the campaign has targeted corrupt officials ou...

A taboo-breaking book about Vladimir Putin’s rise to power and private life, written by two exiled Russian journalists, won a newly established French literary prize on Tuesday. The book, titled The Tsar in Propria Persona: How Vladimir Putin Decei...

The gaffe at last month’s Aids 2026 conference in Rio de Janeiro, where a US State Department presentation displayed a map of Africa with every country mislabelled, serves as more than a source of embarrassment. It was a potent symbol of the distan...

On the tree-lined streets of Sterling, northern Virginia, Lindsay Shaw’s home sits across from an industrial neighbour that has consumed the past several years of her life: a data centre. When Shaw sits outside, she can hear its constant hum. At ni...

The US Secret ⁠Service is aware ⁠of a video ⁠broadcast by Iranian state television discussing a potential plot to assassinate US President Donald Trump’s youngest son, a spokesman said on ‌Tuesday. “The US Secret Service is aware of the v...

Six Chinese nationals were killed and nine ‌more are missing after a fire broke out at a gas chemical complex in Russia’s far eastern Amur region, the plant said on Wednesday. A total of seven people died and 152 people were treated for injuries,...

A shipper needing to transit the Panama Canal bid a record US$5.3 million to secure its spot, according to people familiar with the matter. South Korea-based SK Gas Ltd agreed to pay the sum to travel the canal on September 1, said the people, who co...