A winning bid involving Henderson Land Development to operate a major Hong Kong harbourfront event space has expanded the developer’s footprint in Central to three prime locations, a situation that experts have said could result in greater accessib...

As my wife and I quaffed our way through a sumptuous five-course South African wine tasting dinner at the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents’ Club (FCC) early this week, the world food crisis and global food insecurity seemed a very long way away. Ye...

Just weeks before US President Donald Trump’s planned visit to Beijing next month, China is sending two giant pandas to Atlanta in what observers describe as a “goodwill gesture” amid persistent tensions that range from trade to broader securit...

US President Donald Trump’s order for the US to attack Iranian gunboats is the latest sign that an asymmetrical war-fighting strategy is stymieing the world’s mightiest navy, with US aircraft and destroyers forced to track swarming speedboats in ...

As Southeast Asian leaders descend on Cebu in the Philippines for the 48th Asean summit on May 8, immediate concerns such as the global energy crunch will top the agenda. Yet a year-end deadline to finalise a long-delayed code of conduct in the South...

Although he was already married, a man began dating a domestic helper he was introduced to and later got married to her in Batam, Indonesia. The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) caught wind of the bigamy and flagged the case to the police, who arrested bot...

US interceptions of Iranian-linked tankers in Asian waters suggest Washington’s maritime pressure campaign may be spreading eastward, raising new risks for Southeast Asian states overseeing crucial sea lanes. Analysts said that although Southeast A...

Burger King in Japan is tempting franchisees of rival fast-food brands like McDonald’s and Mos Burger by offering them 40 million yen (US$250,000) cashback to jump ship. The offer, under its franchise switching plan, is on the table until 3pm on Se...

National Assembly Speaker Woo Won-shik condemned US Republicans’ claim that South Korea was discriminating against e-commerce giant Coupang, calling it “interference in domestic affairs”. His remarks followed a letter sent by 54 US lawmakers in...

Playing one last song on a piano that cannot be retrieved from a fire-ravaged home is among the wishes of residents returning to the scene of the deadly Tai Po blaze in Hong Kong, with one man climbing stairs on a fractured leg to try and recover a w...

A former senior manager at a major Chinese cryptocurrency exchange has been acquitted by a Hong Kong court of secretly moving about US$5 million in Tether stablecoins, worth around HK$39 million, to his own accounts six years ago. A seven-member High...

Hundreds of alleged Mara Salvatrucha gang members sat chained, shaved and mute as they were accused of murder and torture during a mass trial at El Salvador’s notorious CECOT jail on Thursday. Seated in neat columns of plastic chairs in the prison�...

The United Nations very much relied on China for its environmental protection role, including its major funding for biodiversity conservation in the Global South, the organisation’s environment chief said on Thursday. Speaking on the sidelines of t...

After two decades of a loveless personal life, a 60-year-old traditional dancer in Japan discovered unexpected late-life love with a protege who is 34 years her junior. In April, the couple made an appearance on the Japanese television show Welcome, ...

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...

The United States is offering a reward of up to US$4 million for information leading to the arrest of a Chinese national who fled the US after being convicted of money laundering. The bounty on fugitive Daren Li, 43, was announced by the State Depart...

The death of a Bangladeshi gaming influencer in an alleged drink-driving crash involving a Malaysian soldier has sparked cries for justice and renewed demands for punitive laws, as anger grows over a second similar fatal case in less than a month. Mu...

Mozambique President Daniel Chapo became the first African head of state to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping this year. Chapo was the tenth national leader overall to meet Xi in Beijing in 2026, following earlier visits from the heads of countr...

India’s agreement to review Dhaka’s request for Sheikh Hasina’s extradition could hint at more flexibility over a deeply political issue, but observers warn that does not mean New Delhi is ready to hand the former Bangladesh ruler over just yet...

Adamant about retaining its runaway lead in supplying smart driving systems in China, Huawei Technologies plans to invest as much as 80 billion yuan (US$11.7 billion) over the next five years to boost computing power essential for training and testin...

Indonesia’s top diplomat said the country will not pursue tolls on ships passing through the Strait of Malacca, seeking to calm concerns after its finance minister raised the idea this week. “As a trading nation, Indonesia supports freedom of nav...

DeepSeek has finally released its much-anticipated next-generation foundational artificial intelligence model, the open-source V4, which it said was competitive with leading US closed-source models from the likes of OpenAI and Google DeepMind. The Ha...

Taiwanese analysts have broadly welcomed a new US Navy plan to deploy thousands of uncrewed surface vessels across the Indo-Pacific by 2030, saying it could complicate Beijing’s military planning and strengthen deterrence. But they also warned that...

This story has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by subscribing. The head of the Fire Services Department (FSD) testified on the 19th day of evidential hearings looking at Ho...

The job ads posted on several Philippine military forums on Facebook in 2023 looked enticing. “We are hiring regional security researcher,” said a notice bearing the emblem of Janes – the well-known international aerospace and military technolo...

Fifteen years after one of the world’s worst nuclear disasters, this part of the Fukushima coast feels stuck in the aftermath. Empty lots where homes once stood. Signs warning of restricted access. Convoys of construction trucks carrying radioactiv...

An overhaul of listing and trading rules has driven a 16-year-old board for start-ups on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange to an all-time high, and traders believe the listed companies’ above-average earnings growth and exposure to renewable energy will ...

A 51-year-old cancer patient who collapsed on a Cathay Pacific Airways flight to Hong Kong from the United Kingdom was pronounced dead on Friday morning. Flight CX216 took off from Manchester and landed at Hong Kong International Airport at 6.52am on...

Albert*, a 68-year-old retiree in the Philippines, was struggling to log into the country’s Social Security System app in August last year when a man rang to offer help. The caller said he worked for the government pension fund, the website was dow...

The signal is clear. In the first quarter of this year, just three C919 aircraft were delivered – two to China Southern Airlines and one to Air China. For a Chinese programme expected to deliver more than 30 of these home-grown narrowbody airliners...

A Shanghai grandmother has been nicknamed the “telephone booth princess” for persisting in her post as a public phone booth manager for 33 years. Shen Yuxiu, who is in her 80s, manages the city’s last staffed booth. She looks after two very old...

Hongkonger Dominique Li and his wife spent a two-day break earlier this month in Shenzhen to soak up the cultural vibe, a short getaway they said would not be their last. The 45-year-old engineer, who lives in Tin Shui Wai in the northwestern New Ter...

Chinese electric vehicle (EV) makers and supply-chain vendors, from Tesla rivals Xpeng to Nio and lidar sensor producer Hesai Group, will display their technological advances on a new front – in-car chips – at the Auto China show in Beijing as th...

A landmark warship deal between Australia and Japan is expected to drive further defence technology cooperation between the two Asia-Pacific nations, comparable in scope to Canberra’s security arrangements with Washington. Analysts say the agreemen...

US President Donald Trump’s “gold card” visa, where a foreigner can shell out at least US$1 million to legally live and work in the US, has been approved for one person, said Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick Thursday – appearing to fall a bi...

China has launched a bond-market-connect scheme with Brazil, Chinese media outlets reported this week, marking the first such link among emerging markets. Schemes such as this one, often dubbed “connects” between Chinese bond or stock markets and...

A US special forces soldier involved in the military operation to capture former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro has been charged with using classified information about the mission to win more than US$400,000 in an online betting market, federal...

US President Donald Trump’s close ally, Senator Steve Daines, will lead a bipartisan delegation to China next week, according to sources, even as Washington steps up pressure on Beijing over trade, technological competition, and its ties to Iran, a...

US President Donald Trump reposted a video and comments from a conservative pundit calling India a “hellhole”, prompting the South Asian country on Thursday to criticise the remarks as “inappropriate”. The comments come ahead of a planned vis...

US confrontations with Iran over the Strait of Hormuz point to future American attempts to contain China via maritime chokepoints, a Chinese policy adviser has warned, suggesting that Beijing boost its naval presence in the region. In a policy recomm...

Israel and Lebanon agreed on Thursday to extend their ceasefire by three weeks after a second round of negotiations between their envoys in Washington, despite reports of violations of the truce from both sides. US President Donald Trump announced th...

Britain’s King Charles heads to the United States on Monday with transatlantic tensions over the Iran war and the Epstein scandal’s long shadow threatening to intrude on the landmark visit. Both Buckingham Palace and the British government have s...

The sad saga of a humpback whale stranded a month ago on the German coast has sparked a flood of compassion but also a media frenzy, angry disputes, conspiracy theories and death threats. As Germans have followed the travails of the sea mammal, dubbe...

[The content of this article has been produced by our advertising partner.] AI-enabled solution providers and corporate gathered at Hong Kong Science Park on March 24 to examine real-world use cases of AI as it shifts from experimental pilots into co...

[The content of this article has been produced by our advertising partner.] A new international network, Global Connect – Global Innovation Exchange (GIE), was set to facilitate scale-ups win business, raise capital and find partners as they move b...

Warner Bros Discovery shareholders on ⁠Thursday backed the company’s proposed US$110 billion merger with Paramount Skydance, but cast an advisory vote against executive compensation plans tied to the deal. Under the pay packages proposed to execu...

In the latest cycle of threats and concessions that have marked US President Donald Trump’s approach to the war that he and his Israeli counterpart started against Iran, the mercurial leader said on Thursday he would destroy any boat attempting to ...

As key allies turn away and war costs soar, the US military campaign against Iran is spurring a growing consensus among Chinese observers and state media – that Washington’s unrivalled global dominance is crumbling. Communist Party mouthpiece Peo...

American enterprises operating in China lauded improvements in the country’s regulatory environment and more “openness”, but long-standing concerns over access and Beijing’s emphasis on security continue to weigh on optimism, with expectation...

The suggestion that Iran should be replaced by Italy at this year’s World Cup drew a mix of embarrassment and apathy from Azzurri fans on Thursday, with Italian media pointing out that the idea had a very familiar feel. Donald Trump’s US special ...