News - South China Morning Post

Motorists have been left queuing for hours at petrol stations across Indonesia’s resort island of Bali in recent days amid reports of a crippling fuel shortage. Long queues have been spotted all around the island, including in the capital Denpasar, Badung and Tabana, according to the Bali Post. On Tuesday, Bali Governor I Wayan Koster stressed that there was enough fuel to go around, suggesting th...

The arrest of a domestic helper over the suspected murder of an elderly woman in Hong Kong has prompted calls to include carers who look after isolated seniors in a government database to strengthen support and monitoring. While stressing that physical abuse was unacceptable, social welfare observers and a migrant workers’ group said domestic helpers often shouldered most of the caregiving burden...

German authorities opened an investigation into possible sexual harassment after a robot controlled by two young men touched the buttocks of a 16-year-old girl and made thrusting movements toward her, police said. Police in the western city of Cologne responded after the incident overnight Saturday to Sunday in which the robot’s suspected 16-year-old owner and a 19-year-old companion were said to...

Hongkongers can be struggling with severe mental health problems but still not be considered urgent cases, according to mental health advocate Minal Mahtani, who wants community groups to play a bigger role before individual cases reach crisis point. Mahtani, founder of OCD & Anxiety Support Hong Kong, said better referrals between hospitals, community mental health services and specialist chariti...

Across China, a new breed of freelance “robot trainers” are wearing motion-capture gear to turn everyday household chores – picking up cups, opening bottle caps and washing dishes – into data that will teach tomorrow’s machines. The data is later converted into training sets to help robots work in settings ranging from kitchens and factories to supermarkets. Such roles are increasingly advertised...

Rising sovereign debt and borrowing costs have prompted a fresh warning from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) about risks to the fiscal health of member countries, with 24-year highs in US Treasury yields expected to become one of the focal topics for central bankers and finance ministers gathering in Bangkok this week. The average yield on 10-year government bonds across the Group of Seven e...

MTR Corporation trains on the Kwun Tong line are skipping Lam Tin station after equipment on a platform emitted smoke on Wednesday morning. The railway operator said it was providing free shuttle buses to Yau Tong, while KMB said it would increase services on routes 600, 601, 619 and 690, which link Kwun Tong district with Hong Kong Island. This was the second service disruption on the Kwun Tong l...

Saudi Arabia said on Wednesday that an attack on an Aramco building in the kingdom’s east sparked a “limited fire” and that debris from intercepted Houthi missiles wounded four people in the capital Riyadh. It came hours after the Saudi-led coalition battling Yemen’s Houthis said it had intercepted several missiles on Tuesday evening, including over Riyadh. A Saudi energy ministry official said an...

China has lifted nearly 800 million people out of extreme poverty, arguably the greatest achievement in poverty reduction in human history. Even so, no mainland Chinese economist has won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. Across the Pacific, the United States has produced about 75 per cent of Nobel economics laureates, even as its economy staggers under mounting public debt, chronic fiscal defi...

Two Taiwanese executives have been arrested for allegedly using mainland Chinese-made components in drones supplied to the island’s military. It is the second time in two months that a Taiwanese drone supplier has been investigated by the island’s authorities over the alleged use of prohibited mainland components. The case has intensified opposition scrutiny of the government’s efforts to build a...

The roar of plane engines and the hustle and bustle at Hong Kong International Airport’s Terminal 2 present a stark contrast to the pin-drop silence at the adjacent 11 Skies commercial complex. A South China Morning Post reporter who travelled between the two places in early October found minimal footfall at the shopping centre, with the bright and airy environment of the airport terminal replaced...

A growing number of Japanese regard the United States as the greatest threat to world peace ahead of traditional rival China, according to a new survey. The annual poll, released by the Japan Press Research Institute on Saturday, found 26.8 per cent of respondents named the US as the biggest threat to global peace. That was up 9.3 percentage points on last year and far above the 6.6 per cent recor...

The US Treasury Department said on Tuesday that it was imposing US$1.2 billion in fines on Bank of America for allegedly violating anti-money-laundering and sanctions laws. The fines on America’s second-biggest bank amount to the third-largest in the department’s history. “When a bank of this size fails to meet its anti-money-laundering and sanctions obligations, the consequences extend far beyond...

Kana Liu, a Chinese Canadian living in the US on a work visa, felt compelled to speak up. Faced with a Department of Homeland Security proposal to charge up to US$100,000 in fees for international students to work in the US after graduation under Optional Practical Training (OPT), she rushed to the government’s public comment portal. “I firmly oppose the proposed $70,000 initial OPT fee and $30,00...

⁠Russia’s FSB security agency said on ⁠Tuesday it had detained a Japanese journalist ⁠for alleged espionage, and Moscow’s foreign ministry said it regretted that Tokyo was using correspondents to carry out spying. In a statement on its website, the FSB said the Hokkaido Shimbun newspaper journalist was detained in the far eastern Sakhalin region on the day before he planned to leave Russia. It did...

The White House’s bid for a US “golden age” of science should put China on alert, Chinese analysts have warned, but they remain sceptical as to whether President Donald Trump’s alliance with Silicon Valley billionaires can pull it off. This comes as Trump, in another arguably unconventional move, handed the country’s highest science and engineering awards to top American tech bosses. Elon Musk, he...

Indonesia continues to battle some of its worst wildfires in years, spreading toxic haze to Malaysia and Singapore. Floods have devastated communities in Thailand, India and Nepal. Kathmandu is also seeking climate justice after a catastrophic collapse of rock and glacier ice near its border with China. Another environmental tragedy unfolds without such dramatic images. Across the world, millions...

Cornell University on Tuesday suspended fraternities’ parties and social events for the remaining academic year following outcry over an alleged gang rape at one of the elite college’s all-male clubs. The 2024 incident, as alleged in a graphic lawsuit filed last month, has drawn accusations that the Ivy League institution in New York state failed to properly punish the men involved. The accuser cl...

Katie Zacharia, US President Donald Trump’s newly appointed White House press secretary, faces questions about her legal credentials after telling reporters on Tuesday that she passed a bar exam “when I moved to China”, without identifying the jurisdiction. Zacharia, who has repeatedly described herself as a lawyer, made the remark after her first official White House press briefing. According to...

A planned US$844 million port in southern Peru has drawn interest from several foreign investors, including Chinese companies, a regional governor said on Monday, as the government began promoting the project abroad. “Several companies have approached us. We have investors from the US, China and India who are very interested,” Rohel Sanchez, the governor of Arequipa, told reporters after signing a...

Pope Leo was diagnosed with a common form of lung cancer after doctors removed a lower lobe of his right lung in surgery on Tuesday, the Vatican said in a medical bulletin. The 71-year-old pontiff has lung adenocarcinoma, with tissue tests conducted during the operation confirming what doctors had suspected from preparatory examinations, the bulletin said. The pope was admitted to Rome’s Gemelli h...

A former gang leader was sentenced to 40 years to life in prison on Tuesday for orchestrating the 1996 drive-by shooting death of hip-hop star Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas, capping the prosecution of a long-unsolved murder that shaped the golden age of rap music. Duane “Keffe D” Davis, 63, found guilty of first-degree murder in August, received the penalty during ‌a hearing in a Las Vegas courtroom....

Six Flags Entertainment Corp. said it would temporarily close 10 rides at its theme parks, including the Goliath ride that was involved in a fatal accident on Monday, amid a string of incidents at its facilities. “Out of an abundance of caution, we have temporarily closed similar attractions across our parks,” the company said in a statement. “The safety of our guests and team members is our highe...

New White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia made her briefing room debut on Tuesday by taking remarkably few questions from journalists while leaving no doubt who she believes has all the answers – Donald Trump. “I get to do what I was doing on the outside already, which was hoping to amplify, multiply and expand upon President Trump’s incredible agenda for the American people,” she said, descr...

Trump appointee Kimberly Guilfoyle, the US ambassador to Greece, has been asked to resign from her post after coming under severe criticism over allegations she has engaged in improper and possibly illegal conduct before and during her tenure in Athens, new White House press secretary Katie Zacharia said Tuesday. It wasn’t immediately clear if Guilfoyle had resigned. But Zacharia, in her first pre...