News - South China Morning Post

Japan is expected to float the idea of acquiring a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines in revised security documents to be released later this year, with analysts suggesting that Tokyo’s initial aim is to promote discussion of the issue and overcome the public’s concerns. Analysts acknowledge there will inevitably be pushback from some sectors of Japan – the only nation to have suffered a nuclear...

Former Anthropic and OpenAI researcher Jacob Coxon said he was 90 per cent certain that China already had spies inside both US artificial intelligence (AI) companies, without providing evidence. Coxon made the allegation in an interview with entrepreneur Patrick Bet-David on the PBD Podcast, arguing that China could steal advances from leading US AI labs and quickly close any technological gap. “R...

US President ⁠Donald Trump, who waged war ⁠with Iran and has ⁠yet to broker peace in Ukraine, said on Wednesday that he should win the Nobel Peace Prize but acknowledged doubt about his chances. “I don’t know what their decision is going to be,” Trump said of the ‌2026 award, which the Norwegian Nobel Committee will announce on Friday. “They have a reputation for maybe not giving it to people like...

President Donald Trump will present close ally Elon Musk and other tech bosses with the top US scientific award at a ceremony on Thursday, the White House said. Google co-founder Sergei Brin, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and AMD chief Lisa Su will also receive the National Medal of Science at the “Science: A New Golden Age” summit. Computer mogul Michael Dell and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella will get th...

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday flexed American power and called on Europe to shake off its “long slumber” in a rousing speech delivered beneath the Acropolis in Athens. “We believe that Europe can awaken from its long slumber and rekindle the fire that was lit here millennia ago,” Rubio said in a speech attended by senior Greek officials at Pnyx hill, praising ancient Greece’s civi...

US President Donald Trump pressed his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to roll back China’s export curbs on Japan during their meeting in the US, urging talks between the Chinese and Japanese leaders as Tokyo seeks to manage mounting pressure from Beijing. People familiar with the discussions told the South China Morning Post that Xi also warned Trump about the growing risks of Japanese militarism d...

For decades, the Gulf superhubs of Dubai, Doha and Abu Dhabi performed an improbable trick. They redirected millions of people travelling between the West and Asia to connect through their airports. Last year, the three airports handled about 182 million passengers, three times the traffic at Hong Kong airport. Dubai alone handled 95.2 million, the highest ever recorded by an airport. The Gulf’s h...

Ousted Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, ‌are expected to face new criminal charges in the US over the alleged torture of Americans held in the South American ⁠country, a US official said on Wednesday. The ‌announcement could come as soon as Thursday, the official said. Maduro ‌and Flores were captured by ⁠the ⁠US military from their homes in Caracas on ‌January 3 and...

Maricarmen ⁠Abascal, the 87-year-old woman whose ⁠dramatic eviction last month sparked mass ⁠housing protests in Spain that ultimately led to an early election, has died, Madrid’s tenants’ union said on Wednesday, provoking an outpouring of grief and anger on the streets of the capital. Abascal had been in hospital since her eviction on ‌September 23 from her home of more than 70 years, when polic...

A US real estate firm announced on Wednesday it is buying the Chrysler Building and will undertake a vast makeover of the art deco landmark that dominates New York’s skyline. The Chrysler Building, which was opened in 1930 as a symbol of exuberance and modernity, had faced several years of uncertainty over its ownership. Tishman Speyer, a commercial landlord, said it and other investors will injec...

The US Treasury on Wednesday announced its first penalty under rules governing American investment in sensitive Chinese technologies, revealing a US$200,000 fine against the parent of Plug and Play Tech Centre for failing to report an investment in a Shanghai robotics AI company. The Treasury said on Wednesday that Amidi, LLC failed to submit a required notification after its Chinese fund subsidia...

Canada will not allow medically assisted suicide for people whose only condition is mental illness, the justice minister said on Wednesday, seeking to close debate on one of the country’s most controversial healthcare issues. Canada legalised assisted dying for those at the end of life in 2016. The right was extended to those suffering from serious and incurable illnesses in 2021, even if death wa...

Donald Trump wants to turn his luxury Florida golf course into retreat for future US presidents modelled on the historic Camp David getaway, the White House said Wednesday. The plan would make the Trump International Club in West Palm Beach – where the 80-year-old billionaire often spends weekends on the fairway – into an official sanctuary for his successors. “The United States government has ask...

The United States has proposed requiring universities and other certified schools to pay US$70,000 for each foreign student entering a post-graduation work programme, a measure that could sharply raise the cost for thousands of Chinese graduates seeking employment experience in the country. The Department of Homeland Security announced on Wednesday that the proposed fee would apply to initial part...

The French government said on Wednesday it was pausing the use of stun grenades in its policing of student protests, after a 15-year-old boy’s hand was blown off during a clash with riot police, fuelling protesters’ accusations of police brutality. Protests showed no sign of easing, with more than 500 schools closed a day after demonstrations swept across the country, and unions representing high-...

Singapore’s air pollution worsened to the highest in the world as haze from Indonesia wildfires blankets the region days before the city state’s annual Formula One weekend. Air quality levels in Singapore were in the “very unhealthy” range as of Wednesday afternoon, according to data from IQAir. Nearby Kuala Lumpur, which was earlier in the top spot, ranked as the second-most polluted city globall...

Initial results from the world’s first two working nuclear clocks indicate that China’s timepiece is about six times as stable as the one in Vienna, according to papers published this week by the journal Nature. The clocks were developed independently but both the Chinese team, led by Tsinghua University in Beijing, and the researchers at Vienna’s TU Wien used thorium-229 nuclei embedded in crysta...

Ten people were injured in a knife attack at a ‌school in Ostroleka in northeastern Poland on Wednesday, the town’s mayor said, with police detaining the 19-year-old suspect, who was among those hurt, shortly after the incident. Masovian Regional Governor Mariusz Frankowski told reporters that nine people had been taken to hospital but that none of them was in a ⁠life-threatening condition. “The i...

Around two dozen luxury houses at One Stanley have been sold since Hong Kong authorities launched an investigation into alleged structural defects in March, with buyers including local and international businesspeople. These transactions have prompted experts to call for stronger homebuyer protections, including implementing a mandatory period for buyers to rescind contracts when statutory violati...

More than 300 people signed up for Hong Kong’s Election Committee poll as the nomination period opened on Wednesday, vying for seats on the body that chooses the city’s leader. The nomination period for committee subsectors for the November 22 election will run until October 20. The 1,500-member body will select Hong Kong’s next chief executive in March next year. The Registration and Electoral Of...

While China’s export engine still has room to grow, many of its trading partners may be approaching the limit of how much more they can absorb, which could place a ceiling on further growth over the coming years, according to a Goldman Sachs report. “At least over the next few years, there is still room for Chinese exports to maintain their strong momentum,” analysts said in the report led by the...

Despite Malaysia’s insistence that its long-standing non-alignment policy extends to cyberspace, analysts say the country’s reliance on American and Chinese technology could make such a stance difficult to sustain amid the rivalry between the two superpowers. Defence Minister Mohamed Khaled Nordin said on Monday that Malaysia would “always remain neutral” in cyberspace, arguing that cyber threats...

Sri Lanka’s anti-corruption authority arrested former first lady Shiranthi Rajapaksa on Wednesday over allegations that her charity misused donations collected for a children’s hospital. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s government has revived long-dormant corruption investigations involving members of the once-powerful Rajapaksa family, which dominated Sri Lankan politics for nearly two decade...

“Science has no borders,” Arup Neogi, an India-born scientist who works at a US-sanctioned university, told Chinese state media. Neogi’s speciality is photonics, the study of generating, controlling and detecting light. At the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC) in the southwestern city of Chengdu, he leads a team exploring the interconnection between light and sound....

Hong Kong and Indonesia can deepen cooperation in green finance as their ties strengthen, the country’s special envoy for international trade has said, adding that the city’s common law expertise can support the nation’s efforts to attract family offices. Hong Kong also played a vital role as a conduit channelling mainland China investments to Asean, Mari Elka Pangestu told reporters before delive...