News - South China Morning Post

The father of 16-year-old Irene Sofiya said he drew comfort from Malaysia’s Queen Raja Zarith Sofiah and her assurance that she would do what she can to help seek justice for his daughter. Mohd Khairool Faisal Khyar, 42, said he deeply appreciated the queen’s concern and words of encouragement during her visit to the family home in Kampung Selamat, Johor, on Monday. “Raja Zarith Sofiah was very co...

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US President Donald Trump has approved the execution by firing squad of Nidal Hasan, a US Army psychiatrist who shot dead 13 people at a military base in 2009, the Pentagon said on Monday. Hasan’s execution for the attack at Fort Hood in Texas – which also wounded more than two dozen people – will be the first carried out by the US military since 1961. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth “has recommend...

From a humble working-class family in northeast China to becoming a celebrated actress on the Hollywood stage, 53-year-old Li Bingbing’s ascent has never been a solo journey. At the heart of her decades-long career is her younger sister, Li Xue, 51, who transitioned from journalism to become Li Bingbing’s manager. Together, they co-founded Hesong Entertainment, a talent company that has represente...

Bangkok is preparing for possible flooding as more than 15,000 delegates are due to arrive for the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Group. The Thai capital could receive about 50mm (two inches) of rain a day from October 11-13, coinciding with the start of the week-long gathering of finance ministers, central bankers, executives and other delegates from the institu...

In 2019, President Xi Jinping became the first Chinese leader to publicly call for the exploration of detailed proposals for governing Taiwan after reunification. Seven years later, the first proposals from a handful of the mainland’s leading research institutes have either been finalised or are nearing completion, the South China Morning Post has learned. Rather than setting out a single fixed mo...

Beijing’s push to accumulate gold serves a larger goal: yuan internationalisation. In this series, Part I traces China’s path to becoming a gold superpower, while this article explores Hong Kong’s key role in safeguarding the nation’s financial security. In 2013, one-third of the world’s traded gold passed through Hong Kong. That year, the city imported 1,158 tonnes of bullion, overtaking India, t...

Temperatures in Hong Kong dropped to about 23 degrees Celsius (73 Fahrenheit) on Tuesday morning, the lowest so far this autumn. According to the Hong Kong Observatory, the cooler weather was caused by a dry northeast monsoon. “A dry northeast monsoon will bring mainly fine weather to the coast of Guangdong in the next couple of days. It will be windier and slightly cooler in the morning over the...

Hong Kong’s building authorities should consider inspecting the remaining properties in a luxury residential development and tightening work process documentation after one house was found to have used insufficient steel bars during construction, experts have said. Their suggestions followed the Buildings Department revealing at the weekend that it had launched an investigation into work quality i...

The alleged murder of an Okinawan woman by a US marine has put newly elected Governor Genta Koja under intense pressure, raising questions about whether the incident could deepen opposition against the American military presence just as Okinawa assumes greater importance in Japan’s regional security strategy. Koja only took office on September 30 after campaigning on economic issues rather than th...

US President Donald Trump on Monday said that he would pay for television advertisements himself or with money raised ‌from the Maga political committee after pushback over the use of taxpayer-funded television ads featuring him just before the November congressional elections. Ethics experts and lawmakers from both parties ⁠have criticised the three nationally broadcast ads, which ‌celebrate a “g...

Amid concerns over rising interest rates and a weak retail property market, a long-time investor has sold a portfolio of prime street shops in Tsim Sha Tsui – held for more than four decades – and locked in a profit of nearly HK$237 million (US$30.2 million) despite accepting a deal more than 40 per cent below his original asking price. The portfolio of retail shops in Cheung Lee Commercial Buildi...

The US Justice Department (DOJ) is seeking to revoke the citizenship of a former Navy sailor convicted of spying for China and a Florida man convicted of conspiring to act as an agent of Beijing, it announced on Monday. Jinchao Wei and Ping Li are among 40 people facing denaturalisation actions in what the department described as the largest batch of such filings under the Trump administration. Th...

The United States has accused mainland China of hiring an American citizen of Chinese origin to surveil the family of Taiwanese leader William Lai Ching-te, days after President Xi Jinping’s state visit to Washington. The Federal Bureau of Investigation on Sunday arrested 34-year-old Zhang Wanying at Los Angeles International Airport, alleging that she attempted to flee the country and charged her...

US President Donald Trump said on Monday that a threat linked to Iran ⁠had prompted the removal of American B-1 bombers from a British airbase. The planes had been stationed at RAF Fairford, the preferred European base for US bombers, and had recently been used in US strikes on Iran. Last week, five British men were arrested near the base – which Iran’s Revolutionary Guards previously said was a l...

The hotly contested court battle over government plans to build 12,000 public flats on Hong Kong’s oldest golf course has played its final round. The government decided not to appeal against a ruling that held its approval of an environmental impact assessment (EIA) report on the project to be unlawful. This is better than pursuing a further attempt to persuade the courts to uphold a fatally flawe...

Mainland Chinese prefer coercion over military force to settle the “reunification question” with Taiwan, and their opinion of the US remains low, although they favour engaging with Washington on trade and security. These are the results from the latest survey of Mainland citizens, conducted between April 16 and June 26. This straddled the first summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese...

Former British politician and writer Jeffrey Archer has died aged 86, his publisher said in a statement on Monday. Archer, who was a Conservative MP for five years before serving as the party’s deputy chairman, died peacefully at his home between writing sessions on Monday, publishing house HarperCollins said. He had a successful career as a novelist and was made a life peer in 1992. The ⁠bestsell...

Xi Jinping’s state visit to Washington in September was steeped in pageantry. The Chinese president received two 21-gun salutes in three days, watched a flyover by the powerful B-2 stealth bomber, and viewed the founding documents of American democracy at the National Archives. US President Donald Trump called his summit with Xi a “great meeting” and rated it a “12 out of 10”. Xi was also positive...

A former Ohio music pastor who once appeared on American Idol was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on Monday after a jury convicted him of murdering his wife while he was having an affair. Prosecutors said Caleb Flynn, 40, staged a home invasion in February after shooting Ashley Flynn, a 37-year-old teacher and volleyball coach. Flynn claimed she was killed by a burgla...

Bogota mayor Carlos Fernando Galan has called on the Chinese-led consortium building the city’s first metro line to send more workers to its stations, after the country’s top auditor warned that delays in several parts of the project could push back its opening in March 2028. “We are entering a critical stage, which is the final stretch,” Galan said in an interview published by local news magazine...

The International Criminal Court on Monday unsealed arrest warrants against four senior Taliban leaders, accusing them of the crime against humanity of gender persecution against women, girls and members of the LGBTQ community in Afghanistan since the Taliban seized power in 2021. The court said in a statement that warrants were issued in July and September last year for the Taliban’s supreme lead...

Quebec separatists eyed a return to power in Canada’s majority French-speaking province on Monday in an election that could test Prime Minister Mark Carney’s message of national unity to confront the United States. Carney is popular in Quebec and the possible success of the separatist Parti Quebecois (PQ) is not seen as a repudiation of his stance towards US President Donald Trump, whose trade war...

Moscow on Monday downplayed reports that a laboratory technician had died of plague, stressing that postmortem tests had not detected the disease, while Washington said it was closely monitoring the situation. Reports on Friday that plague had killed a 28-year-old woman named Darya Shipilova, who had been working for the anti-plague institute in Siberia’s Irkutsk region, sparked alarm. The news ou...

The US Energy Department will announce US$150 million in new funding for power lines in Alaska on Monday as Vice-President J.D. Vance visits the state, where Republicans are ‌fighting to hold a critical Senate seat in the November midterm elections. Vance is set to rally voters for Republican Senator Dan Sullivan, who is locked in a tight re-election battle with Democrat Mary Peltola. Flipping the...