When Neelam Mehta took her 82-year-old mother to the doctor in New Delhi last week, her coronavirus symptoms were mild but her oxygen saturation had dropped below healthy levels.The doctor advised Neelam, 52, to find an oxygen cylinder and admit her ...

The recent chaos generated by moving thousands of Hong Kong residents into quarantine – including complaints of food poisoning at the government facilities – reflects the city’s need to upgrade its large-scale evacuation plans, a health expert ...

An agreement between London and New Delhi for India to take back any of its citizens found to be living illegally in Britain in exchange for UK working visas for young professionals has evoked both optimism and reservations within the estimated 1.5 m...

Hong Kong’s national security police have been getting an average of 550 messages a day over possible violations of the Beijing-imposed legislation since their reporting hotline launched in November.Over the past six months, more than 100,000 messa...

The cyberextortion attempt that has forced the shutdown of a vital US pipeline was carried out by a criminal gang known as DarkSide that cultivates a Robin Hood image of stealing from corporations and giving a cut to charity, two people close to the ...

A revealing pole dance at a wedding reception in China has left guests stunned and drawn widespread criticism after a video emerged of the racy routine on Chinese social media.Pole dancing has become widely accepted on the mainland with dancers invit...

Hong Kong’s first known Covid-19 variant patient is now facing an additional charge of providing false information – this time to an immigration officer tasked with tracing contacts tied to the cluster he sparked.Syed Mohamed Rizvi, a 30-year-old...

A 28-year-old man was fatally shot Sunday at the Vancouver International Airport in what Canadian authorities said was a gang-related slaying. Police were later fired on while pursuing the suspects.The man was shot near the departure terminal at the ...

Cathay Pacific Airways Limited is selling a US-dollar denominated bondfor the first time in about three decades, less than a year after getting a HK$39 billion (US$5 billion) bailout from Hong Kong’s government, as it battles to stabilise its fi...

German-born American architect Helmut Jahn, known for his postmodern steel-and-glass structures, has died aged 81 in Illinois after being hit by two vehicles while he was riding his bicycle, police said.Jahn died on Saturday afternoon in Campton Hill...

China has blamed the US withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan for a surge in attacks, after multiple explosions at a girl’s school in Kabul on Saturday killed more than 60 people, predominantly female students.Foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chuny...

Hundreds were wounded in new clashes Monday between Palestinians and Israeli security forces in Jerusalem as a planned march marking Israel’s 1967 takeover of the holy city threatened to further inflame tensions.Palestinians hurled projectiles at I...

A study led by scientists in Hong Kong has found that a hepatitis C drug may improve the treatment options for patients with Covid-19.Laboratory tests showed that the drug, simeprevir, is able to prevent the Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus that causes Covid-1...

Myanmar poet Khet Thi, whose works declare resistance to the ruling junta, died in detention and his body was returned with the organs removed, his family said on Sunday.A spokesman for the junta did not answer calls to request comment on the death o...

Harry Harrison has never spared anybody’s feelings in his daily illustrations for the South China Morning Post. “I don’t mind if people hate them, as long as they don’t get ignored,” said the editorial cartoonist behind Harry’s View, w...

Singapore on Monday began a mass testing exercise involving 9,000 workers at Changi Airport and closed off a section of Terminal 3, shoring up its defences against an increase in unlinked Covid-19 cases, including some showing the B16172 variant firs...

Canada is not planning new pathways to asylum for Hongkongers who flee the city, as it has well-developed processes to deal with those claiming political persecution, according to the country’s top local diplomat.Jeff Nankivell, the outgoing consul...

Hell hasn’t frozen over yet, but last week, pro-establishment lawmakers took turns counting the ways Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor’s administration has messed up, freely airing their grievances. Some named names, calling the underperformers unaccept...

Authorities in China’s southwest are rapidly trying to demolish more than 1,000 villas and flats in a nature conservation area after the property development became the target of Beijing’s wrath.The development on the banks of Dianchi Lake in Kun...

The New Zealand parliament’s unanimous declaration last week that human rights abuses were occurring in China’s Xinjiang province drew condemnation from Beijing, but the removal of the term “genocide” suggested Wellington is unwilling to jeop...

One of Britain’s most wanted fugitives, a 35-year-old suspected of involvement in a plot to traffic huge quantities of cocaine, has been arrested in Dubai, authorities said on Sunday.Michael Paul Moogan, from Liverpool, had been on the run for eigh...

Tens of thousands of people marched in France on Sunday calling for more ambitious climate action, as President Emmanuel Macron’s promise to enshrine the fight in the French constitution appeared on the verge of failure.The initiative to state in t...

Churches across Germany are planning services to bless homosexual couples this week, in defiance of a Vatican decree clarifying that such blessings are banned in the Catholic Church.The Church of St Benedict in the southern German city of Munich is h...

A magistrate murdered by mobsters in Sicily and praised by two popes has been beatified by the Roman Catholic church on Sunday in the last formal step before possible sainthood.Rosario Livatino was gunned down on a Sicilian highway outside Agrigento ...

Lawyers representing the alleged financier of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, Felicien Kabuga, have requested that charges against him be dropped on the grounds he is unfit for trial.In a May 6 filing to the UN court’s branch in Tanzania, lawyer Emmanue...

Egyptian authorities on Sunday executed a defrocked monk convicted of killing an abbot in a desert monastery north of Cairo, officials said.The 2018 killing of Bishop Epiphanius, an abbot at St Macarius Monastery, shocked Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Ch...

“Any Taedonggang beer?” That was the first thing 31-year-old Simon (not his real name) asked for, as he took his seat at a North Korean restaurant in Dandong, China’s largest northeastern border city.The smiling, bright-eyed North Korean waitre...

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Sunday invited the leaders of the UK’s devolved nations for crisis talks on the union after Scotland’s pro-independence party won its fourth straight parliamentary election.Nicola Sturgeon, leader of the Sc...

China and Indonesia conducted joint naval exercises in waters off Jakarta, Beijing said on Sunday, as the two countries work to improve trust and cooperation amid tensions in the South China Sea.The drills, which took place on Saturday morning, were ...

“Are you sleeping well? You should be in very big stress, when you are walking down the street …”Slovakian academic Matej Šimalcík had never heard of Ľuboslav Štora before he opened his email on March 30, but he was familiar with the organi...

One of the last things any government wants is to make an abrupt policy U-turn.It takes political courage and wisdom to do so when necessary, but just as important is understanding and acknowledging why, as well as learning any lessons to be drawn fr...

The shortage of automotive chips is bringing China’s carmakers and semiconductor suppliers closer together than ever before, with representatives from both industries discussing contingency plans on the sidelines of a chip industry event that ended...

An undercover investigation has claimed Prince Michael of Kent, cousin of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth, was willing to use his royal status for personal profit and to seek favours from Russian President Vladimir Putin. Michael told undercover reporte...

A lawyer in mainland China deregistered after taking up the case of one of the Hong Kong fugitives who were captured while trying to flee to Taiwan has been barred on national security grounds from leaving the country to attend an American fellowship...

The last of a trio of leopards that escaped from a safari park in Hangzhou continued to evade capture on Sunday, outwitting its pursuers in a mountainside game of big cat and mouse.The leopard – one of three juvenile siblings thought to have broken...

Sea levels along China’s densely populated coastal provinces are rising faster than ever, sending the water line up to 42 metres inland in some places, according to the Ministry of Natural Resources.In an annual report released on late last month, ...

Singapore will test thousands of people for Covid-19 as the number of infections unlinked to current clusters continued to rise.Three Changi Airport employees and a junior college student were among those who registered positive for the virus in rece...

The debt problem for all but one Chinese provinces is worsening as local authorities continue to rely on borrowings to finance big-ticket spending programmes, according to a joint review of local government finances.The review revealed that with the ...

As Ramadan enters its final days, a spate of incidents has led to renewed debate online about religious piety and whether behaviour during the Muslim fasting month should be policed.In Singapore, where about 15 per cent of the population are Muslim, ...

Hong Kong’s economy is moving towards recovery, but its slow progress in vaccinating residents against the coronavirus could hold back growth, the city’s finance chief has warned.While private consumer spending increased by 1.6 per cent in the la...

Four in 10 Hong Kong teachers have decided or are inclined to leave the profession, with most citing increasing political pressure for wanting to quit, according to a survey by one of the city’s biggest trade unions.Ten per cent of the 1,178 educat...

Haiva Nurani couldn’t quite believe her eyes when she spotted her favourite brand of Indonesian coffee confectionery in an episode of hit South Korean television series Vincenzo . The 22-year-old college student from Bandung, Indonesia, has been a...

Authorities in a southeastern Chinese province have postponed plans to shorten quarantine for visitors from Taiwan after a surge in new coronavirus cases on the island linked to the travel industry.A coronavirus command centre in Fujian announced on ...

Hong Kong’s health minister has warned that the community spread of mutated coronavirus strains with untraceable sources of transmission could trigger a reversion to tougher control measures, and those who refused to comply with quarantine orders w...

After a month-long delay, the results of China’s once-a-decade population census will be released on Tuesday, the country’s statistics bureau said on Sunday.The data was originally scheduled to be released in early April, but was put back first u...

The remnants of China’s Long March 5B rocket splashed down in the Indian Ocean near the Maldives on Sunday morning with no immediate reports of any damage or casualties, ending an anxious week as people and governments wondered where and when the s...

US politician Elise Stefanik began her Washington career as a moderate, but has changed tack and surged in influence to likely become the most powerful Republican woman in Congress – a trajectory she owes entirely to her staunch defence of Donald T...

Outside a remand prison in a run-down Bangkok suburb, five women stand by cardboard cut-outs of their incarcerated children. A bedsheet tied to the gates bears the message: “Give us our children back.”This is the closest they can get to the young...

Eddie Lo* is preparing for an imminent move to Britain with his wife, a primary-school teacher, and their two young children. They want their son settled in a British state primary school in time to sit the competitive 11-plus entrance examination ne...