Africa was China’s fastest growing export market in the first quarter of 2026, up 32.1 per cent year on year to US$60.66 billion, according to customs data, reflecting a continuing shift away from American trade. The growth outpaced other regions o...

At first glance, the rupee is staging a recovery. India’s battered currency has gained around 1.5 per cent since March 27, making it the best-performing currency in Asia, according to Bloomberg data. However, the recent bounce belies vulnerabilitie...

Communist Party chief Xi Jinping appears to be taking a patient approach to reunification with Taiwan, according to the island’s opposition leader and a member of her delegation who attended a rare meeting with Xi in Beijing. Xi met Cheng Li-wun, w...

Russia unleashed its deadliest attack so far this year on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv and other cities overnight, killing 16 people, including a 12-year-old child, and wounding scores, in drone and missile strikes, officials said on Thursday. Fires bu...

South Korea welcomed a record 2.06 million foreign visitors in March, led by Chinese arrivals, government data showed on Thursday, with tourism spending lifted ‌by the comeback tour of K-pop supergroup BTS after a years-long hiatus. The Ministry of...

Thai police arrested seven French tourists after a viral Songkran confrontation in Phuket in which revellers surrounded a van, sprayed its driver with water and later ignored police orders to disperse. The incident came during Thailand’s annual new...

With the rise of social media and generative AI, how much of what we see online is true? In this series, SCMP Fact-Check, the South China Morning Post investigates claims circulating online and debunks viral misinformation impacting the daily lives o...

Japan is expected to remain the most trusted power among Southeast Asian countries, even as it seeks to amend its pacifist constitution and continues its military build-up. However, Tokyo would need to be transparent on its motives and assure others ...

A leading Indonesian university suspended 16 law students on Thursday after a sexually explicit group chat about their female peers went viral, sparking a debate about gender violence in the Muslim-majority country. Screenshots of a conversation amon...

Chinese suppliers of parts for Tesla’s electric vehicles (EVs) and robots saw their stock prices gain on Thursday morning as the US tech giant announced that its AI5 artificial intelligence inference chip was 45 days ahead of schedule. After a near...

Mainland China’s first-tier home prices edged up 0.2 per cent in March, rising after nine months of losses and no change in February, but it is too soon to declare the property market stable without sustained improvement in homebuying demand, accor...

China continued to diversify its foreign exchange reserves in February, trimming its US Treasury stockpile even as overall overseas holdings of sovereign American debt rose to a record high. China’s stockpile of United States Treasuries fell to US$...

China’s first abandoned dog, Deng Deng, who was famously sold at judicial auction, recently died after spending five joyous years in his new home. He is fondly remembered on social media. The owner of the 13-year-old Shiba Inu, identified as Shu, a...

Hong Kong police have arrested a syndicate led by a beautician that allegedly stole credit cards from patrons of a beauty salon in Mong Kok, causing losses of more than HK$410,000 (US$52,347). The force said on Thursday that four men and two women, a...

A Japanese man arrested for abandoning the body of his stepson who had been missing for weeks has admitted to killing the boy and allegedly hiding the corpse in different locations amid an extensive search by police in Kyoto prefecture. The arrest on...

Greater Bay Airlines has suspended its flights between Hong Kong and Bangkok for more than four months amid surging fuel prices driven by the conflict in the Middle East. The airline’s website on Thursday showed no flights from Hong Kong to Bangkok...

Nearly 1,800 young Hongkongers convicted of protest and national security-related offences have taken part in a rehabilitation programme, authorities have said, including 99 per cent of those found guilty over the 2019 unrest, up from 63 per cent in ...

Macau’s finance minister has resigned over “personal reasons,” prompting the city’s chief executive to temporarily assume his duties until a new candidate is appointed. The cabinet change took effect on Thursday after China’s State Council ...

China’s top diplomat Wang Yi sought guarantees of freedom and safety of international navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, in a phone call with his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, on Wednesday. The call is Beijing’s latest diplomacy effo...

Malaysia has deployed police to dozens of petrol stations along its borders as it moves to stop subsidised fuel from leaking out of the country, with the government linking the tougher enforcement to a global energy crunch triggered by the Iran war. ...

US President Donald Trump has said that leaders of Israel and Lebanon will speak on Thursday, as Washington pushes to ease hostilities after the rivals’ first direct talks in decades. Lebanon was pulled into the Middle East war on March 2 after pro...

Mark Mobius, who was known as the father of emerging markets and was among the first fund managers to invest in Hong Kong and mainland China, died on Wednesday at the age of 89, according to a statement on his LinkedIn account. The statement did not ...

Beijing residents are once again bracing for a seasonal nuisance that has become something of a tradition: the city’s annual “snowstorm” of willow and poplar catkins. The catkins are essentially seeds from female willow and poplar trees, encase...

The partial closure of a major landfill site on the Indonesian holiday island of Bali is forcing thousands of residents to instead burn trash in their gardens, sparking widespread environmental and health concerns. Suwung landfill, about 10km (six mi...

The health of jailed Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi is critical after she suffered a heart attack last month, supporters warned on Wednesday. Her Iran-based family and legal team were on Saturday allowed a second in-person visit wi...

This story has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by subscribing. More Wang Fuk Court residents and senior staff at two engineering firms testified on Thursday for the 13th da...

China’s economy grew 5 per cent year on year in the first quarter, beating market expectations despite the global impact of the US-Israel war in Iran, which analysts said indicates the country remains on track to meet its full-year growth target wi...

A fire at one of Australia’s two operating oil refineries could hit petrol production more than diesel and aviation fuel, authorities said on Thursday, as emergency crews worked overnight to extinguish the blaze. Firefighters were battling flames a...

With fuel prices in the Philippines among the world’s hardest hit by the Iran war, consumer groups are urging the government to take bolder action, including tighter control over pump prices. Economists say the more realistic options are tax relief...

I heard an audible gasp in the audience, just as a gynaecologist on the movie screen tries to shove a speculum – a hollow cylinder used to open up a woman’s cervix – into the lower body of the protagonist. The film’s main character, a 25-year...

The BBC said on Wednesday that the British broadcasting corporation is set to cut up to 2,000 jobs amid a challenging media landscape. The BBC’s interim director general Rhodri Talfan Davies said in a statement to staff that “while we still have ...

Chinese jobseekers are now turning to dating apps to search for work, while some recruitment platforms have become places to connect for dates instead. The youth unemployment rate in China among the 16 to 24 age group, excluding students, has remaine...

China has issued its first map pinpointing seabed chemical elements in the country’s eastern waters as Japan also races to tap undersea rare earth resources and deep-sea minerals. The Chinese Ministry of Natural Resources published the results of m...

Travelling from Hong Kong’s commercial heart to the site of the San Tin Technopole, a planned innovation hub under the Northern Metropolis megaproject, is an exercise in endurance. The roughly two-hour trek from Causeway Bay requires taking trains ...

Japan’s public has once again signalled strong support for a woman ascending to the Chrysanthemum Throne, but Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, the country’s first female leader, is pushing in a different direction. A Mainichi newspaper poll publish...

Rising tensions in the Middle East cast a fresh shadow over the opening of China’s largest trade fair, at a time when the impact of geopolitical shocks is being reflected in the nation’s trade figures. In conversations across sprawling exhibition...

Futu Securities is the latest non-food and beverage retailer to sell coffee and other drinks in one of its outlets in Hong Kong as the online stock brokerage adapts to its clients’ lifestyle, according to a spokesman. Futu Café was officially laun...

US military leaders painted a picture of Chinese military threats, spanning Taiwan and space, as they briefed Congress on the military readiness for the financial year 2027 on Wednesday. The People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) “invasion rehearsals...

A US jury on Wednesday found that entertainment giant Live Nation wielded monopoly power at its Ticketmaster business, violating federal and state antitrust laws, according to California’s attorney general. A verdict that could have profound reperc...

A stretch of awkward diplomacy is unfolding in the Indo-Pacific. After India’s 2025 term as the Quad’s rotating chair ended without a summit, New Delhi is planning to host a foreign ministers’ meeting that could be framed as a leaders-level dis...

China’s largest artificial intelligence computing cluster for scientific research entered operation on Tuesday, doubling its number of domestically made AI accelerator chips in just two months, according to state broadcaster CCTV. The AI accelerati...

Having invested significant diplomatic capital into ties with Russia in recent years, North Korea now seems to be pivoting back to China. Leader Kim Jong-un said his country places “the greatest value” on improving ties with Beijing. This shift c...

Washington’s senior envoys to the United Nations took a victory lap in Senate testimony on Wednesday over the US-inspired cuts and efficiency drive at the multilateral agency, even as they slammed its inability to end the conflict in Ukraine, stem ...

A Ukrainian unit said on Wednesday that it has carried out more than 100 attacks on the front using ground robots, after President Volodymyr Zelensky recently hailed the capture of a Russian position thanks to this new method. “In total, there have...

Newly released video shows a high school principal in Oklahoma tackling and disarming a former student who entered the lobby of the school and began firing a pistol. Pauls Valley High School Principal Kirk Moore was shot in the leg during the April 7...

The White House on Wednesday dismissed as untrue reports that the US had sought to extend a ceasefire with Iran, while confirming that discussions over a second round of in-person negotiations were under way after marathon talks in Islamabad last wee...

US President Donald Trump posted an image of Jesus embracing him on Wednesday, as a war of words between his administration and the pope showed little sign of abating. The image, reposted to Trump’s Truth Social account, shows Trump with his eyes c...

[The content of this article has been produced by our advertising partner.] Vitiligo is often noticed before it is understood. White patches on the skin can draw attention, second glances or subtle avoidance, particularly in public settings. In Hong ...

A man snatched two Pokemon trading cards valued at about HK$28,000 (US$3,600) from a consignment shop in Hong Kong. The tenant of the shop at Sino Centre in Mong Kok reported the theft on Wednesday after reviewing security footage and discovering the...

Israel’s security cabinet ⁠will convene on Wednesday to discuss a possible Lebanon ceasefire, a senior Israeli official has said, more than five weeks into a war with Hezbollah that spiralled out of the US-Israeli conflict with Iran. Israeli Prim...