The landing of the Zhu Rong rover on Mars is a milestone for China’s space programme, signalling advances in the country’s technology. China is the third country to achieve such a feat.What is the Tianwen programme?The Tianwen-1 probe carrying th...

The deadly escalation between Israel and the Palestinians has embarrassed Gulf states which forged ties with the Jewish state and put a strain on their Abraham Accords that were billed as a game-changer.The bloodshed has prompted condemnation from Is...

Back-to-back tornadoes killed at least 10 people in central and eastern China and left more than 300 others injured, officials and state media reported on Saturday.Six people died in the inland city of Wuhan and four others in the town of Shengze, ab...

Since the arrival of Pfizer and Moderna’s mRNA vaccines for Covid-19, Asia-Pacific countries have struggled to source adequate supplies.Governments including those of Australia, South Korea and Singapore are now racing to establish facilities to ma...

US Republicans on Friday elected Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, an outspoken defender of Donald Trump, as their new House conference chair, as the party scrambles to unify amid an explosive debate about its direction.Stefanik replaced Liz Cheney, who ...

The South China Morning Post has bagged 51 medals at a prestigious international annual awards event that attracted thousands of entries from media organisations around the world.For the second year in a row, the paper’s graphics team was among the...

Taiwan has ordered the closure of selected entertainment venues and public facilities, and imposed limits on social gatherings in a bid to contain a new coronavirus outbreak as the number of local cases rose to 180 on Friday.Officials said the measur...

Hong Kong customs officials have seized HK$50 million (US$6.4 million) worth of gems, luxury items and marine products bound for mainland China in the biggest haul of its kind so far this year, with the raid carried out at the construction site of th...

When Zhang Zhengxiang heard that officials in Kunming had been named and shamed for damaging the environment around Dianchi Lake he was so pleased he could not sleep for two days.The scandal involved a real estate project on Changyao Mountain on the ...

After muttering a prayer, Thai taxi driver Sopee Silpakit strings a chain of amulets around his neck then jumps behind the wheel – buoyed by the peace of mind the ritual gives him against Covid-19.The 65-year-old’s job driving a cab in Bangkok pu...

As China plans to add more mini-aircraft carriers and assemble at least six carrier strike groups by 2035, it faces the vital task of maintaining the right number of each type of ship.The Chinese navy has undergone considerable expansion, with the Ce...

The Hong Kong judiciary must ensure that its plan to appoint lay members to its system of handling complaints against judges does not become politicised, legal scholars have said.The move to boost transparency in the process comes at a time when the ...

In 2008, 69-year-old Fu Daxin from rural Hunan province in central China was so poor he decided to find himself a better place for retirement – prison. Wielding a peeling knife at a railway station in Beijing in an attempt to stage a robbery, Fu go...

Around 20 staff members and pupils at a Hong Kong kindergarten were ordered into quarantine after a four-year-old boy who went there was reported to have tested positive for Covid-19 on Saturday.The untraceable case involved a pupil from HKVNS Alumni...

Tokyo Trail is the first in our weekly special series looking at the key issues surrounding the Olympics, scheduled for late July. Here we look at why Tokyo wants the show to go on:They insist the 2020 Tokyo Olympics must take place, pandemic or no p...

A move by G7 leaders last week to castigate China and Russia over their treatment of Taiwan and Ukraine has reopened a lively discussion among commentators about the merits of comparing the self-ruled island with the Eastern European country.Some ins...

When Alvin Cheung Ho-ching and his partner launched their tech start-up six years ago, it marked the beginning of a journey to make rehabilitation robotics accessible and affordable to Hong Kong residents in need.After graduating with a bachelor’s ...

After seven months of space travel, three months in orbit and “nine minutes of terror”, China has become the third country in the world to safely land a rover on Mars.The China National Space Administration (CNSA) said its roverZhu Rong – na...

As Singapore enters a tighter phase of Covid-19 restrictions this weekend, the future of its “travel bubble” with Hong Kong has been thrown into limbo yet again. Under this arrangement, which was set to start on May 26 after a delay, travellers f...

Ivy To Wing-ying remembers being on the Cathay Dragon flight last July to Xiamen, in mainland China, as rumours swirled that the airline was about to shut down.She was a flight attendant on board and, sceptical about the pessimistic talk, did not joi...

A new species of dinosaur identified by Mexican paleontologists is believed to have been “very communicative” and used low-frequency sounds like elephants to talk to each other, a researcher said on Friday.The specimen, which has been named Tlato...

Japan will extend US$4 million in emergency food aid to Myanmar in response to a humanitarian crisis triggered by the February 1 military coup, according to the Foreign Ministry.The aid, to be channelled through the UN World Food Programme, is expect...

An oil painting by Pablo Picasso sold for US$103.4 million at a Christie’s auction in New York, smashing its presale estimate of US$55 million.The portrait of Picasso’s French lover Marie-Therese, Femme assise près d’une fenêtre (Marie-Thér�...

A French court on Friday upheld a police ban on a pro-Palestinian demonstration planned for Saturday in Paris, but the organisers said they were not cancelling the march.Police on Thursday banned Saturday’s demonstration called over the ongoing con...

Taiwan faces a potential “double whammy” as a surge of coronavirus cases and the reintroduction of containment measures threaten to derail the pace of growth in an economy that outperformed most of the world last year, economists said.While much ...

Police in Vancouver, British Columbia, are investigating two acts of mischief against the city’s Chinese consulate general: one in which a man spat on the mission’s name plaque then obstructed an employee, and a second incident when a different m...

Israeli planes renewed air strikes in Gaza early on Saturday and Hamas militants responded by firing rockets into Israel as their battle entered a fifth night and US and Arab diplomats sought an end to the violence.Palestinian medics said at least 12...

A team of Japanese scientists has shown it is possible for mammals to absorb oxygen via the anus.Intrigued by how certain sea creatures breathe through their intestines in emergencies, researchers at Tokyo Medical and Dental University were able to p...

No more royal court for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, as far as Madame Tussauds in London is concerned.The legendary wax museum has revealed that figures of the royals has been officially been moved away from Queen Elizabeth and the rest of Britain...

A national terrorism alert issued on Friday warns that violent extremists may take advantage of the easing of pandemic restrictions to conduct attacks.The alert does not cite any specific threats. But it warns of potential danger from an increasingly...

British Columbia’s health minister has pledged to look into the circumstances of Covid-19 infections in long-term care homes, in light of a South China Morning Post investigation that revealed at least 192 people had died in Vancouver homes where ...

Before the pandemic, firms and workers around the world used emails and conference calls to reduce communication costs. But a lack of coordination made it difficult to use these technologies fully.Firing off an email was easy, but there was no guaran...

A former Army Green Beret who admitted divulging military secrets to Russia over a 15-year period was sentenced to more than 15 years in prison on Friday on espionage charges.The sentence of 15 years and eight months imposed on Peter Dzibinski Debbin...

A rise in cases of the Indian coronavirus variant could “pose serious disruption” to Britain’s reopening plans, Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned on Friday.England will take the next step of reopening on Monday as planned, but the final stage...

California-born Japanese-American Fred Korematsu was just 23 years old when he resisted being sent to an internment camp in 1942. He was convicted for violating military orders, sentenced to five years’ probation and was interned with his family in...

Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha promised a United Nations special envoy on Friday that he will not force back people fleeing violence in neighbouring Myanmar, where the military ousted a democratically elected government in February.UN Special ...

A fugitive wanted in the killing of a Yale graduate student in Connecticut in February was arrested on Friday in Alabama, US marshals said.An international arrest warrant had been issued for Qinxuan Pan on murder and larceny charges in connection wit...

The US Senate has cleared an effort by legislators to set up US$110 billion in technology funding for basic research, in a move that borrows a page from Beijing’s playbook amid continuing competition between the two countries.The Senate Committee o...

Servers for Darkside were taken down by unknown actors on Friday, a week after the cyber extortionist forced the shutdown of a large American oil pipeline in a ransomware scam, a US cybersecurity firm said.Recorded Future, the security firm, said in ...

The World Health Organization urged wealthy countries on Friday to stop vaccinating children against Covid-19 and instead donate doses to poorer nations, while warning that the pandemic’s second year looked set to be more deadly.WHO director genera...

China is seeking to take diplomatic advantage of a “vaccine vacuum” by sending millions of Covid-19 shots to poor nations, including in Africa.While the West has failed to provide the doses needed in developing nations and major producer India ha...

This is the seventh in a series of stories about China’s once-in-a-decade census conducted in 2020. The world’s most populous nation released its national demographic data on Tuesday, and the figures will have far-reaching social policy and econo...

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has rebuffed a call from China to withdraw vessels from disputed areas of the South China Sea – vowing not to move an “inch backward”.The Philippines has boosted its presence in contested areas of its exclu...

A man in China who offered a 100,000 yuan (US$15,500) reward and did multiple television interviews begging for help finding his missing wife went on trial for her murder on Friday.The case grabbed national attention in July last year when Xu Guoli f...

A major Hong Kong developer said on Friday it would be willing to give up some land to the government to build public housing, a day after authorities announced they would seize the lots because they had lain idle for decades.The plots in Yuen Long, ...

Pope Francis said on Friday the cost of raising children was too high and that parents needed more help if countries such as Italy were to overcome the low birth rates that were undermining their future.Speaking at a conference on Italy’s dearth of...

China has accused the United States of being “indifferent” to the plight of Palestinians as the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians continues to escalate.The surge of violence and aerial attacks that started a month ago threatens to intens...

Alibaba Group Holding will strengthen its engagement with consumers and merchants in the world’s largest e-commerce market, according to analysts, in an effort to put the company’s first quarterly loss in nine years behind after being slapped wit...

Standing before the breathtaking beauty of the Balos lagoon in Crete on Friday, three German tourists couldn’t believe their luck at being there.“We searched for a location to go for our first holiday post-Covid and we … spontaneously decided t...

April 23 was a regular day in school for 17-year-old Ain Husniza Saiful Nizam – until it wasn’t.A PE teacher’s discussion about sexual harassment inexplicably led to him cracking a rape joke. He allegedly told the class, “if you want to rape ...