News - South China Morning Post

A Royal Navy sailor appeared in a London court on Thursday to face charges of spying for Russia. Teddy Young, 24, has been charged with two offences under the National Security Act, including preparing to disclose protected information between November 2024 and May 2025, London’s Metropolitan Police Service said. During the same period, Young allegedly obtained, copied, recorded or retained protec...

BYD is studying whether to manufacture lithium batteries in Argentina, Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno said on Thursday after meeting Stella Li, the Chinese electric vehicle maker’s executive vice-president. According to Quirno, the company was looking at “investment opportunities in Argentina linked to the lithium value chain, particularly in the production of batteries and energy storage systems”....

US President Donald Trump said the US would not attack Iran ahead of November’s midterm elections, citing what he said were “productive discussions” with the Islamic Republic. “We will not be attacking Iran at any time prior to the Midterm Elections to be held in the United States on November 3rd,” Trump wrote in a social media post on Thursday. The president’s comments amounted to an unusual blen...

US President Donald Trump misnamed Muslim candidate for the US Senate Abdul El-Sayed on Thursday, calling him Mohammed and baselessly accusing him of being a “Terrorist Sympathiser”. El-Sayed, an Arab American running for a Michigan senate seat that could decide which party wins the US upper chamber in knife-edge midterm polls next month, fired back, saying “he knows my name”. Left-wing insurgent...

UK Ministry of Defence security patrols arrested two Latvian men near an RAF (Royal Air Force) base that houses US and Nato intelligence operations, police said on Thursday. The base, RAF Molesworth, 112km (70 miles) north of London, is operated by the US Air Force and includes intelligence staff from the US Africa Command and the Nato Intelligence Fusion Centre, which provides information to the...

The US government ⁠is suspending Microsoft, Adobe and ⁠several large IT firms from a programme that allows skilled foreign workers to gain permanent residency, senior US officials have announced, citing alleged fraud, and as part ‌of an effort to push companies to hire more Americans. “Our message to Microsoft is: You’re a great American company, but you’ve got to hire great American workers,” US...

British police on Thursday said that search warrants they secured to search properties linked to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor had been issued unlawfully and must be quashed, but that the investigation into King Charles’ younger brother was ongoing. Mountbatten-Windsor, 66, was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in ‌public office in February, linked to his relationship with the late US sex offender...

Washington’s policy towards Taiwan is increasingly tied to its relationship with Beijing, according to former US officials who also warn that the war in Iran is weakening US military readiness for a potential conflict in the Taiwan Strait. During a fireside chat in an annual symposium hosted by the Global Taiwan Institute in Washington on Wednesday, Brent Christensen, former director of the Taipei...

The United Kingdom is “open” to Germany joining an international coalition to build the next generation of fighter jets, British Prime Minister Andy Burnham has announced. Speaking in Berlin on Thursday, during his first visit to the German capital since taking office, Burnham said he “indicated” to Chancellor Friedrich Merz Britain’s “openness” to the country joining the Global Combat Air Program...

A 15-year-old former pupil killed one employee and injured two others at a Polish primary school on Thursday wearing a helmet-mounted camera, the second school stabbing in two days, possibly in response to an internet challenge, authorities said. A 37-year-old woman who ‌worked as a caretaker had died in the latest attack, which took place at around 9am local time in Leszczydol-Nowiny, northeast o...

Three of the six residential buildings at CK Asset’s “starter homes” project in Hong Kong will be demolished and rebuilt in what the developer called the most “time-saving” solution, two years after a scandal over substandard steel reinforcement work halted construction. The Buildings Department confirmed on Thursday that it had approved demolition plans for three blocks at the Anderson Road devel...

South Korea flight-tested on Thursday its first domestically developed hypersonic weapon, designed to fly at least five times the speed of sound and evade missile defence systems, bringing Seoul closer to what it says could be game-changing weapons capabilities. There was no immediate response from North Korea, which last week tested its own hypersonic missile that landed in the waters near Japan....

A Philippine bill expanding the country’s espionage law to cover peacetime activities is raising concerns among journalists and legal experts, who warn that its broad provisions could stifle free expression and restrict public scrutiny of national issues. The House of Representatives approved the measure on September 17, paving the way for a broader definition of espionage than under the current l...

The Chinese navy says it had a rare South China Sea encounter involving a foreign warship that lost power, propulsion and radar while following a People’s Liberation Army destroyer, an account that resembles incidents this year involving US Navy destroyers in the region. The incident occurred when a foreign vessel conducted aggressive close shadowing of the PLA Navy Type 055 destroyer Zunyi during...

Two summits in five months between US President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping have produced shared language but not an open Strait of Hormuz. After the May meeting in Beijing, there was little sign the two sides agreed on how to end the war. Xi’s visit to Washington yielded no breakthrough on Iran, though Xi backed a return to the interim US-Iran agreement. Last week, Trump rejected a truc...

Age calculation in China is probably one of the most confusing aspects of Chinese culture, even for Chinese people themselves, because two systems are used. One system is the international standard: a person’s age is calculated from their date of birth. The other, the traditional nominal-age system, or xu sui, adds a year at the start of each lunisolar year. Under the xu sui system, a person’s nom...

A ⁠Russian bomb attack on ⁠the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk ⁠killed at least 33 people, authorities said on Thursday, describing it as a targeted strike on civilians in the key stronghold sought by Moscow. Another 18 people were wounded in one of the largest single attacks this year, ‌which took place on a street where police said two city buses were operating at the time of the strike. Pr...

Japan and the United States will rehearse moving anti-ship missiles, air defences and communications networks onto islands near Taiwan this month in an expanded military exercise that analysts say could complicate Beijing’s planning for a Taiwan or East China Sea conflict. Keen Sword 27, which runs from October 19 to 29, will involve about 45,000 Japanese personnel, 6,100 vehicles, 40 ships and 26...

As Hong Kong and Singapore compete for leadership in businesses ranging from foreign exchange trading to wealth management, the battleground has extended to artificial intelligence, with both cities vying to attract investment from HSBC Holdings and other major corporations, according to industry players. The issue came into focus after the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) questioned HSBC about...

China has nominated health official Song Li to run for director general of the World Health Organization, the foreign ministry confirmed on Thursday. If elected, Song would be the first person from mainland China to head the United Nations health agency. China previously backed Margaret Chan, a Hong Kong-born doctor and former director of health of Hong Kong, who served as WHO director general fro...

Hong Kong police have arrested two tertiary students suspected of being key members of a fraud and money-laundering syndicate behind fake job advertisements, dating scams and bogus concert ticket sales. The force said on Thursday that officers had arrested 10 people in an earlier operation targeting the syndicate, which allegedly swindled victims – mainly students – out of more than HK$2.1 million...

A second visit by one of the top US naval officers to India this year has raised expectations that the two countries can insulate their growing military ties from trade tensions. US Admiral Samuel J. Paparo, who leads the US Pacific Command, is scheduled to leave India on Thursday after spending six days meeting with senior Indian defence officials and others. The talks, which follow Paparo’s visi...

The winner of this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature is Canadian poet and essayist Anne Carson. The 76-year-old won “for her bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature”, the award-giving body said on Thursday. Carson’s work often blends verse, prose, dialogue and translation in a genre-defying mix. She is widel...

Hong Kong’s development chief has dismissed concerns that commercial floor space in the Northern Metropolis megaproject will further depress the city’s struggling office market, stressing that incoming supply is primarily for the innovation and technology (I&T) sector. Secretary for Development Bernadette Linn Hon-ho told the Legislative Council on Thursday that the 1 million square metres (10.8 m...

The Philippines is “resigned” to managing its long-standing dispute with Beijing in the South China Sea and avoiding dangerous escalations, President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr said on Thursday. At the Forbes Global CEO Conference in Singapore, Marcos said: “I don’t know if we can find a resolution to the problem, but we are resigned to just being able to manage the problem, so that we do not have mista...