News - South China Morning Post

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...

A school bus flipped over onto its roof during a multivehicle crash in central Florida on Monday morning, killing two people – including a 10th grade girl – and injuring several others, authorities said. Some 39 people were on the school bus that was headed to Winter Haven High School in Winter Haven when an oncoming car crossed the centre line and caused the crash, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd...

For more than eight decades, the remains of US fighter pilot Morton Sher lay unrecovered in China. A photograph of a memorial to him in a Hunan village eventually helped investigators find where his plane crashed in 1943. Sher was buried in his hometown of Greenville, South Carolina, in December 2025, a homecoming that offers a rare example of what US-China cooperation can achieve for families of...

The owners of 14 subsidised sale flats have applied for a grace period to comply with Hong Kong’s new regulatory regime for subdivided homes, the housing minister has revealed, raising concerns that public resources were being abused. The cases were disclosed on Monday at a Legislative Council housing panel meeting when lawmaker Mark Chong Ho-fung asked Secretary for Housing Winnie Ho Wing-yin abo...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday vowed there would be no Hamas rule in Gaza as he attended a memorial event marking three years since the militant group’s October 7, 2023 attack. Monday is a national day of remembrance for the deadliest day in Israel’s history, with flags lowered to half mast on public buildings from 6.29 am, the time the attack began. Speaking during a state ce...

A 15-year-old student lost a hand on Monday picking up a police grenade as part of nationwide protests in France over classroom conditions that have disrupted lessons at hundreds of schools since last week. Some students returned to classrooms but others maintained actions outside their schools, ahead of a day of larger demonstrations expected on Tuesday. Authorities said the teenager was injured...

In the strongest sign yet of a shifting European Union policy on China, the leaders of France and Germany have demanded a new trade weapon that would cut off access to the EU market when third countries cause severe distortions. The tool would effectively act as a kill switch, allowing Brussels to respond rapidly to systemic distortions, potentially immediately. It would grant dramatic new powers...

A Hong Kong fertility clinic that had most of its services suspended for mishandling embryo biopsy specimens from two patients has been cleared to fully resume all treatments after implementing improvement measures. The Council on Human Reproductive Technology said on Monday that Heal Fertility in Central could resume all 17 treatment services covered by its licence from Tuesday, after members rev...

Hong Kong aviation authorities are investigating suspected illegal drone flying over Victoria Harbour during last week’s National Day fireworks display, after privately shot footage of the show went viral online. The footage drew the attention of local internet users after a mainland visitor, who came to Hong Kong during the “golden week” holiday, posted clips of the 23-minute display on his socia...

Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces have secured effective control of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, Yemen’s Information Minister Moammar al-Eryani has said, though fighting continues with Houthi forces in the area. The government forces advanced rapidly along the coast with heavy Saudi air support to seize key positions in the Dhubab area on the narrowest point of the strait, a vital oil route whose...

Japan ⁠and Australia ⁠have agreed to establish an ⁠annual finance ministers’ dialogue aimed at deepening cooperation in financial and economic policy, as well as strengthening bilateral collaboration on economic security. Under ‌a memorandum of understanding signed on Monday that is effective for five years, the two countries’ finance ministers will meet regularly to promote cooperation across a b...

Mainland Chinese arrivals to Hong Kong surged at the start of the National Day “golden week” holiday before easing towards last year’s levels, with tourism sector representatives attributing the early rush partly to the city’s fireworks display and tourists making the most of a shorter break. Immigration Department figures showed that 277,304 mainland visitors arrived on October 1, up 19.1 per cen...

China’s US$1.2 trillion goods trade surplus last year has focused attention on electric vehicles, batteries, solar panels and industrial overcapacity. Tariffs, anti-subsidy investigations and localisation requirements have followed as trading partners respond to China’s manufacturing scale. Yet the less visible shift is happening in services. Services exports rose by 17.1 per cent year on year in...

A 74-year-old retired Hong Kong police officer lost control of his paraglider in strong air currents and was fatally injured after crashing on Lantau Island, a probe into the 2024 accident has found. A report published by the Air Accident Investigation Authority on Monday detailed the incident involving the pilot at Sunset Peak, Hong Kong’s third-highest mountain, on June 17, 2024. The authority u...

Hong Kong’s first Chinese-owned department store, Sincere, will close its historic branch in the city’s central business district in December after 126 years of retail history. The company revealed, however, that it would seek a new location in Central or Sheung Wan. Sincere announced on Sunday that the flagship store would shut in early December after lease renewal talks with the landlord broke d...

Chryssa Ntalaka’s classroom has become an object lesson in subtraction. The sole teacher in the last school on the idyllic Greek island of Kalamos has a shorter list of students every autumn. This year, just two. On September 23, the sixth graders sat at Ntalaka’s table beneath the whiteboard, in front of rows of unused desks and benches. When they head to middle school on Greece’s mainland next y...

Adrian Cheng Chi-kong, former heir apparent to Hong Kong’s New World Development (NWD), is expanding his K11 cultural retail business in mainland China, launching a venture of his own as his family’s property group grapples with heavy debt. Xiamen K11 Select, developed by Cheng’s K11 by AC Group along with state-owned Xiamen Rail Transit Group in the city in the southeastern province of Fujian, ha...

India has sold its Akash air-defence missile system to Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, giving it a foothold in Central Asia as it seeks to become a major global arms exporter. Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh confirmed the latest sales on Thursday last week, hinting at interest from elsewhere as he called the Akash “one of our success stories”. Developed by India’s Defence Research and Developmen...

South Korea ⁠said on Monday that a ⁠recent border blast that seriously wounded two ⁠of its soldiers was caused by mines planted by North Korea. North Korea, which has been fortifying its border with South Korea since April 2024, deployed up to 7,000 workers to install mines and fences this year, with some 50 incidents of ‌crossing the border, according to a briefing on Monday by the South’s milita...