This story has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by subscribing.Hong Kong has raised the first typhoon warning signal of the year.The Hong Kong Observatory issued the standb...

Local and mainland Chinese officials have called on Britain to “abandon colonial nostalgia” and stop meddling in Hong Kong’s affairs after London accused Beijing of using the national security law to crush dissent and suppress alternative polit...

The accuracy of coronavirus figures released by the Japanese government has been called into question after the health ministry adopted new criteria for its calculations at the beginning of June.Previously, the total bed occupancy rate for people wit...

The G7 is made up of the United States, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan. Representatives from the European Union also attend. This year South Korea, South Africa and Australia will attend parts of the summit. India, also an invited ...

London will allow Hongkongers holding the new British National (Overseas) visa to start applying this month for social housing or homelessness assistance if they are suffering extreme poverty after relocating.The new regulations for accessing housing...

Bitcoin trading volumes are continuing to plummet in response to pressures from a cryptocurrency crackdown in China, the location of most of the world’s bitcoin mining capacity, amid a bearish market for the most widely used cryptocurrency.Daily tr...

Japan’s relations with Taiwan are non-governmental and practical and are based on Tokyo’s recognition of China as the sole legitimate government, a senior Japanese official said on Friday, following Beijing’s protest over the prime minister’s...

Beijing has repeated an offer to vaccinate people from Taiwan against Covid-19, as the coronavirus continues to spread on the island.The Taiwan Affairs Office, Beijing’s main body for cross-strait affairs, on Friday said that Taiwanese who fly to m...

Hong Kong opened bookings for BioNTech Covid-19 vaccination slots to children as young as 12 on Friday, with leading health experts drumming up support for the inoculation drive on the airwaves, and one voicing approval for lowering the age threshold...

China’s new bank loans unexpectedly rose in May from the previous month but broader credit growth continued to slow, as the central bank seeks to contain rising debt in the world’s second-largest economy.Top Chinese leaders have repeatedly vowed ...

As South Korean President Moon Jae-in prepared to depart on Friday for the G7 summit in the UK, talk of countering China threatened to overshadow Seoul’s efforts to be regarded as a major player on issues such as climate change and the Covid-19 pan...

Hong Kong officials have introduced new censorship guidelines to recommend banning public screenings of films which contravene the Beijing-decreed national security law.The updated rules taking effect on Friday require censors to be on alert for cont...

China’s space authority has released four more pictures taken by its Mars rover and declared the probe mission a success on Friday.The four photographs, which the authority posted on WeChat, included a panoramic view of the landing site, a look at ...

Bringing her camera to a home for unwed mothers on South Korea’s Jeju island, Sun Hee Engelstoft anticipated an empowering story about young women keeping their babies.Instead, she ended up with a raw and unsettling documentary about how a deeply c...

Three pro-establishment lawmakers have triggered a storm in Hong Kong’s political and academic circles after they suggested that authorities’ support for hosting the Gay Games locally next year was tantamount to backing same-sex marriage. Accusi...

A former French government official who oversaw safety standards at the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s maximum security laboratory ahead of its opening has dismissed the theory that Covid-19 escaped from the institute, as a growing clamour of voices...

[Sponsored Article] As a world-class racing club The Hong Kong Jockey Club is committed to acting continuously for the betterment of society, and one of its aims is to promote a healthy community. That includes support for the development of Hong Ko...

Hong Kong is set to follow in the footsteps of at least 13 other countries, including the United States and Israel, in lowering the Covid-19 vaccination age limit to 12.This means from next week, more than 240,000 people aged between 12 and 15 – ab...

Concerns surrounding China’s “unfair and market-distorting industrial policies” and the “need to level the playing field” for American companies in the country were raised during Thursday’s latest round of trade talks, according to the US...

It’s been almost a year since I was on TikTok, the world’s most downloaded app, which has become the place to be seen and heard on the internet. The short-form video app, as those of you on it will know, is deeply addictive with its supply of ch...

An “elf ear” usually refers to a birth defect that results in a pointed ear shape, but it’s now the latest fad among young Chinese people amid a rapidly growing cosmetic surgery market.Turning their ears into those that look like an elf’s has...

The number of Hong Kong students seeking to study at universities in mainland China and Taiwan has reached its highest point in years, with the latter experiencing a 30 per cent spike in applications compared to 2020.A major student guidance centre l...

At least 12 people, including eight children, were killed when heavy monsoon rains caused a residential building to collapse in a Mumbai slum, Indian authorities said on Thursday.Mumbai city authorities confirmed that seven other residents were injur...

Some early risers in the northern hemisphere may have been lucky enough to see a rare eclipsed sunrise known as the “Ring of Fire” on Thursday morning.Skywatchers from New York to parts of Asia were able to see the ring-shaped or partial eclipse ...

As Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson prepares to host the world’s most powerful leaders in Cornwall this weekend, China watchers will be looking for further clues to an evolving policy towards Beijing.China, Hong Kong and Taiwan are set to f...

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told politicians on Thursday that debt relief for poor and developing countries would be hampered without new funding, while US$2.7 billion in current unmet US commitments to the World Bank, International Monetary F...

China’s nuclear arsenal is a growing threat to US security, less in its absolute size than in the growing risk of a mishap as Washington and Beijing butt heads over Taiwan and many other issues, experts told a US Congressional commission on Thursda...

British Health Secretary Matt Hancock has defended his handling of the coronavirus pandemic following a series of damaging allegations from Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s former top adviser.Facing questioning from politicians, Hancock said on Thurs...

This is the tenth in the South China Morning Post’s series of explainers about China’s Communist Party in the lead-up to the party’s centenary in July. In this piece, Eduardo Baptista explains the relationship between the ruling party and the...

President Joe Biden called on global leaders on Thursday to join him in sharing coronavirus vaccines with struggling nations around the world after he promised the US would donate 500 million doses to help speed the pandemic’s end and bolster the s...

Hungary’s right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Thursday said he would support holding a referendum to settle a row over his government’s plans to host a campus for a top Chinese university.About 10,000 people marched through Budapest on Satu...

The man accused of killing members of a Muslim family with his vehicle in what Canadian police are calling a hate-motivated attack appeared briefly by Zoom before a judge on Thursday and is due back early next week.Due to a publication ban, details f...

Lawyers for Huawei Technologies Co. executive Meng Wanzhou are seeking a publication ban on new evidence obtained from HSBC bank that they think will boost her Canadian court battle against extradition to the United States.They believe the material s...

The Australian city of Brisbane moved closer to landing the 2032 Olympics on Thursday after winning the approval of the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) executive board and the choice will be put to a final vote next month.Queensland state c...

The wife of Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, Emma Coronel Aispuro, on Thursday pleaded guilty in federal court for her role in helping her husband run the Sinaloa cartel of smugglers.Clad in a green jumpsuit and wearing a white face m...

As the US withdraws from Afghanistan, its demand for a military base in Pakistan to gather intelligence on groups such as al-Qaeda and Islamic State, and to execute radar surveillance counterterrorism operations on Afghanistan, has left Pakistan in ...

Group of Seven (G7) leaders are discussing ambitious plans to shift the balance of car buying away from petrol to greener vehicles by the end of the decade, as part of a package of measures to combat climate change.Under one proposal contained in a d...

The United States’ international image has undergone a dramatic rehabilitation with the election of Joe Biden as president, recovering from record low assessments of the country’s global standing under Donald Trump, according to a new survey of p...

A French court ordered the man who slapped French President Emmanuel Macron across the face to serve four months in jail, BFM TV reported.The court gave Damien Tarel, 28, a fan of medieval swordsmanship and martial arts, a sentence of 18 months in ja...

Hong Kong has rejected the European Union’s “unfounded” allegations that Beijing has breached the Sino-British Joint Declaration by overhauling the financial hub’s electoral system and installing a national security law.The government also ac...

A man who had received two doses of a version of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine died of the disease in Seychelles on Thursday.The man, who was 54, is the first fully vaccinated person in the country to die of Covid-19, Jude Gedeon, the island na...

A panel of experts has unanimously backed a move to accord the highest historical grading to three of Hong Kong’s century-old underground reservoirs, acknowledging that these facilities are vital to understanding the development of the city’s wat...

Senior trade officials from Taiwan and the United States have discussed the resumption of long-stalled talks that could lead to a free-trade agreement – a move that would be certain to anger Beijing. US trade representative Katherine Tai spoke to ...

Beijing’s latest plan to build China into a world leader in blockchain technology has given the country’s start-ups a much-needed shot in the arm, boosting a wide array of applications and industries, apart from bitcoin, industry insiders and inv...

A Hong Kong court has barred media tycoon Jimmy Lai Chee-ying and his companies from challenging the legality of the search warrants executed in a series of raids at his offices last year and refused their applications for an injunction against the p...

China’s top lawmaking body has passed new legislation banning the defamation of military personnel as the country seeks to bolster the standing of its armed forces.“No organisation or individual may in any way slander or derogate the honour of se...