A US judge has denied Britney Spears’ request to remove her father from his role overseeing her conservatorship, a court filing reveals.The singer’s lawyer, Samuel Ingham, asked a court in Los Angeles to oust Jamie Spears from his position managi...

A 24-year-old woman whose colleague is believed to have contracted the Delta coronavirus variant at Hong Kong airport has the same strain, a local university has found, suggesting she was infected by her co-worker.The two Covid-19 cases, which emerge...

The first international travellers touched down on Thursday in the holiday hotspot of Phuket under a quarantine-free scheme, as Thailand tries to reboot its battered tourism industry while also enduring its worst coronavirus outbreak.Tourism makes up...

From Marx to Mao and from Hu to Xi: Hundred years of Chinese Communist Party

With just over three weeks before the opening ceremony for the Tokyo Olympic Games, the Japanese capital is witnessing a surge in cases of the Delta variant of the coronavirus – a situation described by one government adviser as “very, very worry...

Vaccinated Hong Kong residents will be allowed to visit Macau without undergoing mandatory quarantine as early as this month under a plan that limits visitor access to hotel facilities, the Post has learned.A government source with direct knowledge o...

A seven-year-old Taiwanese boy who was in a coma for over two months after he was repeatedly thrown to the floor during a judo class has died, a hospital said on Wednesday.The boy, who was identified only by his family name Huang, was rushed to Feng ...

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Thursday said he will push to further upgrade relations with China, his main ally, as he struggles to navigate his country out of a deepening crisis linked to the Covid-19 pandemic.Kim made the comments in a message...

Noise pollution is a common complaint among city dwellers in highly urbanised Hong Kong. But the problem runs deeper, affecting species in the ocean, including the vulnerable Chinese white dolphin.To show just how damaging ocean noise pollution is, H...

Wang Xing, founder, chairman and CEO of China’s biggest food delivery service Meituan, participated in the Communist Party of China’s 100th-anniversary celebration on Thursday, a sign that he and his company are back in Beijing’s good graces de...

China’s all-powerful leader Xi Jinping gave a spirited keynote address to mark the centenary of the Communist Party on Thursday in the capital, repeatedly sending thinly veiled warnings to hostile countries while lauding the party’s achievements ...

Hong Kong police have imposed a lockdown on Victoria Park to prevent any possible unauthorised protests on the 24th anniversary of the city’s return to Chinese sovereignty.The force invoked the Public Order Ordinance at noon on Thursday to close si...

Though Gerry Casida is on the priority list for a free Covid-19 vaccine in the Philippines because of his asthma, he is not planning to get the shot any time soon. A video he found on social media of a woman claiming vaccines are being used for genoc...

Hong Kong police have imposed a lockdown on Victoria Park to prevent any possible unauthorised protests on the 24th anniversary of the city's return to Chinese sovereignty. The force invoked the Public Order Ordinance at noon on Thursday to close si...

Fanny Zhang, a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) member, wanted to treat herself to an expensive gift at the Xintiandi commercial complex ahead of the party’s centenary celebrations.“The Party has advanced with the times over the past 100 years,” s...

An openly transgender woman will compete in the Miss USA pageant for the first time this year after being crowned Miss Nevada.Kataluna Enriquez, 27, will represent the western US state at the national competition in November 2021 after her groundbrea...

Malaysia’s motorists have long grown accustomed to the billboards that dot the country’s major thoroughfares such as the 772km North-South Expressway, but in recent years these seemingly ubiquitous hoardings have begun to carry a new sort of adve...

Hong Kong authorities remain committed to safeguarding national security and are confident the city can reach new heights with Beijing’s support, acting chief executive John Lee Ka-chiu has said on the 24th anniversary of its handover from British ...

Imagine sitting down to a meal of steamed fish at one of Hong Kong’s iconic street food restaurants – pulling out the plastic chair and settling down with a cold bottle of Tsingtao for conversation with friends – but, when the fish arrives, it ...

Japan’s Supreme Court has confirmed the death sentence for a 74-year-old woman found guilty of killing two lovers and a husband for their money, with Chisako Kakehi joining just over 100 other people on death row. No date has been set for Kakehi�...

With bars closed, universities empty and hook-up apps poleaxed by internet blackouts, dating got much harder in post-coup Myanmar, but young people are still finding love – often in the heady rush of anti-junta protests.Since the military seized po...

China will mark the centenary of the ruling Communist Party this morning with a grand celebration in Beijing that will be weighted with symbolic meaning. Party secretary Xi Jinping, the most powerful figure in China in recent decades, will deliver a...

For a sense of how big K-pop stars are in China, look no further than the entertainment shows that have gripped audiences since the start of 2021.For example, between February and May, Blackpink’s Lisa appeared as a judge for the third season of th...

Hollywood actor James Franco will pay more than US$2.2 million to settle a class-action lawsuit filed by two former students at his acting school, pending court approval, according to court documents filed last week and made public on Wednesday.This ...

It is highly likely that the founding meeting of the Chinese Communist Party was held in Shanghai not on July 1, 1921 but later that month. But if Queen Elizabeth’s “official” birthday can be celebrated in June despite her having been born in A...

The US House of Representatives has narrowly passed a Democratic bill on Wednesday creating a 13-member committee to investigate the January 6 attack on the Capitol, with Republicans dismissing the inquiry as an exercise in partisan politics.“That ...

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that a US reconnaissance aircraft was operating in sync with a British destroyer last week when the ship sailed through the Black Sea in what he described as a “provocation” to test Moscow's resp...

The European Parliament is considering a new resolution on Hong Kong in response to the city’s crackdown on the Apple Daily newspaper, which was consistently critical of the local government and Beijing before being forced to shut down.The move wou...

China’s long-demanded recognition as a market economy has resurfaced in Beijing’s complaints to the World Trade Organization about anti-dumping duties that Canberra has imposed on Chinese wind towers, railway wheels and kitchen sinks, according t...

Donald Rumsfeld, the cocksure and unrepentant defence secretary who led the United States into war in Iraq and Afghanistan, died on Wednesday. He was 88.His family said that Rumsfeld – who after resigning in 2006 not only spent years defending his ...

Hundreds of pages of documents provided to Meng Wanzhou by HSBC bank should be rejected from her Canadian extradition hearing because the potential evidence is irrelevant to the proceeding, a government lawyer said on Wednesday.Earlier, Meng’s team...

A First Nations group in British Columbia, Canada said on Wednesday a search using ground-penetrating radar has found 182 human remains in unmarked graves at a site close to a former residential school that housed Indigenous children taken from their...

US comedian Bill Cosby was freed from prison on Wednesday, in a blow to the #MeToo movement after a US court overturned his conviction for drugging and sexually assaulting a woman 17 years ago.The 83-year-old flashed the V sign outside his home near ...

Didi Chuxing, the Chinese ride-hailing and tech giant, closed up 1 per cent at US$14.14 on Wednesday in its first day of trading on the New York Stock Exchange after shares had jumped 29 per cent early in the day.The company, with the ticker symbol D...

Six more bodies have been found in the ruins of a collapsed Miami-area condominium tower in the past 24 hours, the mayor of Miami-Dade County said on Wednesday, bringing the confirmed death toll to 18 nearly a week after the building fell.No one has ...

China’s southern tech hub Shenzhen is discussing a law to regulate the scope of surveillance camera installations in public areas and the management of captured footage, making it the first region to address the issue in a country where facial reco...

Hong Kong’s top judges and the justice minister were among a record 746 recipients of honours awarded by city leader Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor this year, the most since the system was introduced in 1997 and higher than last year’s 687.The govern...

President Xi Jinping is expected to use his keynote address marking the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party on Thursday to cement his position in history and rally the nation to face a monumental set of challenges ahead.F...

Hong Kong on Thursday marks 24 years since its return to Chinese sovereignty in a politically fraught atmosphere, with traditional anti-government protests on the anniversary banned by police citing pandemic restrictions and authorities warning peopl...

Some 365 days after the imposition of a sweeping national security law, Hong Kong has changed irrevocably. Advocates argue the law was badly needed to protect national sovereignty, after radical anti-China elements called for foreign intervention, an...

Myanmar authorities released more than 2,000 anti-coup protesters from prisons across Myanmar on Wednesday, including local journalists jailed after reporting critically on the junta’s bloody crackdown.Myanmar has been rocked by massive protests an...

A Chinese biotech start-up developing a protein-based Covid-19 vaccine has signed an advance purchase agreement to supply up to 414 million doses for global use by next year.Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, a public-private partnership, announced the deal...

Unfavourable views of China among the world’s most advanced economies stand at or near record highs, despite improving assessments of how the country has handled the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new public opinion poll.A survey across North...

This is the 14th in the South China Morning Post’s series of explainers about the Communist Party of China in the lead-up to the party’s centenary in July. Here, Josephine Ma looks at how the party’s ideology has evolved under different leaders...

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday said the time would come when he would name his possible successor in the Kremlin, but said the choice would ultimately lie with voters.Putin, 68, has been in power as president or prime minister since th...

A police officer who was last year hit by a motorcycle during a protest against Hong Kong’s national security law has denied using his body as a human shield to stop the rider, who faces secession and terrorism charges in the first trial under the ...

As China marks a century since the founding of the Communist Party, this series looks at the past, present and future of the country’s political system. Here, Shi Jiangtao and Jevans Nyabiage explore whether other countries can grow along the same ...

An opposition activist was arrested by police on Wednesday for inciting others to take part in a banned rally on July 1 when the nation marks the twin anniversaries of Hong Kong’s return to Chinese rule and the centenary of the Communist Party.Chow...

China’s ambassador to the United Nations has called for equality in forming international norms for cyberspace, free from interference in countries’ internal affairs, amid its rivalry with the US over governance of the digital sphere.Zhang Jun, C...

A daughter’s grudge against her relatives over their treatment of her ailing mother and their handling of a family property dispute prompted her to shoot her uncle and aunt dead with a handgun in a public park three years ago, a Hong Kong court hea...