News - South China Morning Post

Chinese researchers have developed a “lifelike” shape-changing hydrogel they say could provide a platform for next-generation developments, such as flexible tissue engineering scaffolds, brain-computer interfaces and humanlike robots. Inspired by living organisms, the team created a light-triggered system called STERS, which uses liquid metal particles to generate slow, self-sustaining chemical re...

Hong Kong and mainland Chinese residents will have to register with immigration authorities on both sides of the border to use automated “joint clearance” channels at the revamped Huanggang Port crossing, with around 100,000 travellers a day expected to use the control point when operations begin. Hong Kong’s Immigration Department would deploy sufficient manpower to help passengers register at th...

A Spanish judge on Tuesday lifted an arrest warrant for exiled former Catalan separatist leader Carles Puigdemont, paving the way for his return to Spain ahead of a general election in November. Supreme Court judge Pablo Llarena made the move after Spain’s Constitutional Court backed extending a 2024 amnesty law to include the crime of embezzlement. The law was aimed at easing tensions in the weal...

Two combat-tested American drones could become part of Taiwan’s expanding unmanned arsenal as the island seeks to build a “drone shield” against the People’s Liberation Army. California-based defence technology company Aevex Aerospace is working with Taiwan’s Coretronic Intelligent Robotics Corporation (CIRC) to produce its Vandal and Onyx drones locally, combining lessons drawn from the war in Uk...

China has pledged to expand its health partnership with Kazakhstan by helping the Central Asian nation integrate traditional medicine directly into its national healthcare system, shifting away from simple product exports. The Chinese embassy in Kazakhstan on Monday called for the alignment of high-level policy to enhance bilateral health cooperation for both countries’ benefit. “Both nations shou...

Indian police detained several opposition lawmakers in the capital of New Delhi on Tuesday for trying to breach barricades during a protest march to demand the resignation of the election chief over a controversial revision of voter lists. The march presents a fresh political challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi midway into his ‌third term, just months after similar protests forced the resign...

On September 22, the global artificial intelligence landscape spun on its axis within a matter of hours. In Beijing, Xiaomi engineers went live with an unusual broadcast, streaming the training run of their new MiMo-V2.6 model. In San Francisco, Anthropic unveiled its frontier Opus 5.5 model. About an hour later, OpenAI crashed the party with the surprise release of its GPT-6 Sol and Luna models....

An elderly man was found dead and his wife was taken to hospital after authorities responded to a report of a foul smell from a flat in Hong Kong on Tuesday. Authorities received a report at about 5.20pm from security staff at One Madison, a residential building on Castle Peak Road in Cheung Sha Wan, after an unusual odour was detected from the flat and the occupants had not been seen for some tim...

About 100 incidents of visitors catching sea cucumbers and digging up sea snails and clams were recorded at a popular spot in Hong Kong’s Unesco-listed geopark on a single day of the National Day “golden week”, a green group has found, following similar incidents last year. The Po Pin Chau section of the High Island Geo Trail in Sai Kung was also strewn with rubbish on a separate day, Greenpeace s...

Students, teachers and parents marched ⁠in cities across France on Tuesday and protesters blockaded hundreds of schools, in the biggest day of action in a wave of demonstrations demanding the government tackle understaffed and dilapidated classrooms. In Marseille, Nantes and Lyon, the street protests began peacefully mid-morning, with the largest demonstration expected in Paris in the afternoon. Y...

Iran and Saudi Arabia are edging dangerously closer to direct conflict, analysts warn, after Riyadh resumed major air strikes on Yemen’s Tehran-allied Houthi rebels this week, ending a four-year lull. More than 100 Saudi warplanes bombed rebel positions on Monday, enabling Yemeni government forces to retake much of the Red Sea coastal territory the Houthis seized last month. The Houthis had been a...

Indonesia is expected to receive its first Chengdu J-10CE fighter jets in six months, according to an Indonesian media report, which would make it the third international operator of the Chinese-made aircraft. Jakarta confirmed an order of 42 of the 4.5-generation fighter jets – known as Vigorous Dragons – last October, with an approved budget of US$9 billion. The first delivery is expected in Apr...

A Singaporean woman has been added to a US list of “the worst of the worst criminal aliens,” becoming the third citizen from the city state to appear on the register, after convicted sex offender Amos Yee and money launderer Lim Seok Pheng. Jing Emtage, 54, was sentenced in July last year to two years and two months in prison on seven counts of second-degree promoting prostitution across multiple...

Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto is seeking to keep potential rivals in his inner circle as he faces growing political pressure by appointing influential figures from across the political establishment to a presidential advisory council, according to analysts. The council, which advises the president on the direction of government policy but has no power to set or control it, comprises allie...

Firefighters are battling a rooftop blaze at a residential building in Hong Kong’s Mong Kok, with thick black smoke billowing into the sky. The Fire Services Department received a report at about 5.20pm on Tuesday that items stored on the rooftop of the 26-storey Block B at the Shun King Building on Nelson Street had caught fire. No casualties had been reported as of 7pm, while some residents self...

Hong Kong’s Generation Y residents – those aged 30 to 45 – are the city’s unhappiest age group, largely because of dissatisfaction with economic and housing conditions, a poll has found. A survey of 1,039 adults by HK.WeCare, a platform set up under the non-profit organisation Wofoo Social Enterprises, put the Hong Kong Happiness Index at 5.87 out of 10. The score remained below the passing level...

A construction worker has been sentenced to life in prison for murdering a man who confronted him about smoking while they were waiting for a lift at a private housing estate in Hong Kong. A High Court jury on Tuesday found Tam Yun-chiu, 52, guilty of killing Ho Lok-man after hearing that he repeatedly punched the victim in the face, knocked him to the ground and kicked his head on the podium floo...

The death of a 30-year-old nurse in southwestern China from a brain haemorrhage while on duty sparked outrage after authorities refused to classify her death as work-related. Chen Jiajia, a supervising nurse in the medical imaging department at Guizhou Maotai Hospital in Zunyi, experienced a severe headache and began vomiting while working on August 4, according to Dafeng News. Her colleagues swif...

The winner of this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics is ⁠Francis Halzen. The scientist was honoured for “decisive contributions to the IceCube Neutrino ‌Observatory and the discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin”, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm said on Tuesday. “Francis Halzen has led an international team of researchers and engineers who have provided us with a...

Kenya reported its first-ever Ebola death, the health minister announced on Tuesday, after a Kenyan man who had been living in the Democratic Republic of Congo died after returning to the country. In mid-May, the DR Congo declared its 17th Ebola outbreak, an extremely deadly disease that has killed more than 15,000 people in Africa over the past 50 years. While Kenya has previously never reported...

Hong Kong has retained its status as the world’s freest economy in the latest annual ranking by a top Canadian think tank, although its score has declined in recent years. Switzerland overtook Singapore to claim second place, pushing the city state down to third in the league table released by the Fraser Institute on Tuesday. The Economic Freedom of the World report, compiled by the Vancouver-base...

India’s recent push to become more involved in helping end the Russia-Ukraine war comes as the costs of the conflict continue to mount for New Delhi, amid the threat of US tariffs on major buyers of Russian energy and a recent drone attack on an Indian-owned pharmaceutical plant in Ukraine. Sunday morning’s drone attack destroyed a large part of Kusum Group’s factory in Sumy, killing one person an...

Germany and France, the European Union’s two largest economies, jointly called for tougher EU trade defences, as European and Chinese negotiators prepare for crunch talks this week under the shadow of a potential trade war. “The open and rules-based trade system is massively affected by weaponisation of trade, systemic market-distorting practices, and global macroeconomic imbalances,” German Chanc...

Eight public service officers have been referred to Singapore police after a review of 191 officers’ property transactions, Coordinating Minister for Public Services Chan Chun Sing has told parliament. The review followed a working paper by the US-based National Bureau of Economic Research, which identified 2007 to 2011 as the period of concern. The Public Service Division (PSD) extended the scope...

The recent US-China summit yielded a narrow, caution-filled outcome for bilateral trade: a two-month extension of the Kuala Lumpur trade truce, which now expires on January 10 next year. This reprieve eases fears of immediate tariff escalation and shows that head-of-state diplomacy can still curb spiralling confrontation. Yet the short timeline exposes the wide gulf separating the two sides’ prior...