News - South China Morning Post

Zheng Yongnian is a political scientist in China and a government adviser. His academic work is mainly about contemporary China, particularly politics, the country’s transformation and its external relations. This interview first appeared in SCMP Plus. For other interviews in the Open Questions series, click here. Many have offered a lukewarm assessment of the Xi-Trump summit in Washington, citing...

The US Air Force has removed its bombers stationed at a US-run military airbase in England used to strike Iran following an investigation into a planned terror attack at the RAF Fairford base. The bombers were redeployed back to their home bases in the United States, according to a Pentagon official who was not authorised to discuss sensitive military movements and spoke on Sunday on condition of...

Bosnian Serb nationalist politician Milorad Dodik has declared victory for his party in an election in Bosnia and Herzegovina on Sunday that was shaped by economic pressures, the prospect of the Balkan nation joining the European Union and ethnic tensions that have divided the country since its brutal 1992–95 war. Dodik is a staunchly pro-Russia politician who, despite not appearing on the ballot,...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered a security review of international flights to Israel on Sunday, after an attempt by an Omani co-pilot to crash an Israel-bound plane from Dubai. Netanyahu “has instructed the head of the National Security Council, Shmuel Ben Ezra, to appoint an examiner to conduct a thorough review of all security aspects of foreign civil aviation to Israel”, a sta...

Iran’s top diplomat insisted on Sunday that there would be no military solution to the United States’ war against the Islamic republic, with talks on ending the conflict apparently at an impasse. A campaign of heavy bombardment failed to bring a decisive close to the war launched by the US and Israel in late February, and Washington in recent weeks has dialled back military operations in favour of...

Up to 500 schools across France will be totally or partly closed on Monday because of a wave of pupil protests that has shaken the country, the education minister said. Lessons will be “totally or partly suspended” in some “400-500” high schools as the security conditions “have not been fulfilled”, said Education Minister Edouard Geffray on Sunday, adding that 24 schools had been “burned or ransac...

Police in Moscow detained about 60 people at a rally on Sunday held by Russia’s Kremlin-friendly Communist Party, the party said. The party said in a statement that the detentions happened as the rally was ending and that its Moscow branch was working to get those who were detained – mostly young people – released. The rally marked the anniversary of the Kremlin’s 1993 crushing of a parliamentary...

Brazilians queued to vote on Sunday in the first round of a tight election, following a campaign dominated by corruption scandals, economic anxiety and accusations of US meddling. The field of 13 candidates has been led by two clear front runners – leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, 80, who is seeking a fourth term, and Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, the 45-year-old son of former president Ja...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday ⁠he believed Russia ⁠may have shared jet-drone technology ⁠with its long-standing ally North Korea. In recent weeks, Russia has sharply increased its use of jet-drones against Ukraine, which so far has no effective means of countering them other than using ‌combat aircraft. Earlier in the war, North Korea supplied Russia with millions of artill...

The UK’s left-wing Green Party on Sunday voted to define Zionism as racism at the party’s annual meeting, drawing sharp backlash from British Jewish groups and the Israeli government. Members of the Green Party, which has five MPs in Britain’s 650-seat parliament and which enjoyed a boost in recent local and special elections, backed the motion at the party’s conference, with 1,022 votes in favour...

[The content of this article has been produced by our advertising partner.] Nine young construction competitors from the Construction Industry Council returned from WorldSkills Shanghai with three Medallions for Excellence, the strongest finish the CIC has recorded at the competition. The honours went to Law Chak-sum in painting and decorating, Tse Yu-lok in welding, and the concrete construction...

Hong Kong police officers were attempting to force their way into a flat at a Wong Tai Sin estate on Sunday night after a woman suspected of carrying a knife and wandering in the area was traced to the home during a search. Police received a report at about 6.50pm that a woman in her forties carrying a knife had travelled from Diamond Hill MTR station towards the nearby Plaza Hollywood shopping ce...

A march protesting against the imprisonment of former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan kicked off in northwest Pakistan on Sunday after talks to avoid the demonstration stalled. Authorities have been preparing for weeks for the possible arrival of demonstrators in Islamabad, with the march planned by supporters of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party originally slated for September 27 an...

More than 1,500 Hong Kong residents toured the revamped Huanggang Port border crossing on Sunday as authorities pushed ahead with preparations for its opening. A Security Bureau spokesman said that participants took franchised buses or cross-boundary coaches from various districts to reach the crossing and were shown the new port building in groups. “The event effectively enhanced participants’ un...

Losses linked to the abrupt closure of Hotstone Yoga have risen to nearly HK$8 million (US$1 million), with close to 700 reports filed by affected customers in Hong Kong, according to authorities. The Customs and Excise Department said that as of 6pm on Sunday, it had received 694 reports relating to the yoga chain, involving service contracts worth about HK$7.8 million. The Consumer Council said...

Beijing has been urged to do more to protect its overseas interests with a call for diplomatic engagement to reshape international rules and deeper security cooperation with other countries. As China’s expanding global footprint comes under pressure from geopolitics and restrictions from the West, a Chinese analysis posted on the Global Security Research social media account has called for a major...

China Eastern Airlines has reported a male passenger to the police for allegedly disturbing order, after a flight attendant was filmed kneeling in a cabin aisle to apologise for bumping his elbow with a service trolley. In its second statement on the incident, the carrier said on Saturday that it believed the actions of the passenger amounted to disturbing order aboard a civil aircraft and had sev...

The Hong Kong Observatory has issued an amber rainstorm warning, with the signal expected to remain in place until 10pm on Sunday. The weather forecaster issued the warning at 8.20pm. “A few squally thunderstorms are expected to occur over Hong Kong,” a spokesman for the Observatory said. Showers would be heavy at times in the evening. The forecaster also warned that intense gusts reaching 70km/h...

For American and Chinese people interested in the outcome of the latest summit between China’s President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump, their conclusions could not be more different if they turn to the media and pundits for guidance. Chinese state media spared no superlative, echoing the official description of the summit as: forging the right way for the major powers to get along and w...

Hong Kong health authorities will deploy on-site staff and step up support via a dedicated hotline for patients visiting Kai Tak Hospital amid booking and transport queries as the city’s largest public hospital begins its phased opening. From Monday, Kai Tak Hospital’s family medicine integrated centre will start operations, while specialist outpatient services and automated features in the hospit...

Thousands of young protesters and opposition parties staged protests in the national ⁠capital and Mumbai on ⁠Sunday, demanding the resignation of Election Commission Chief ⁠Gyanesh Kumar, as police detained demonstrators for a third consecutive day. Opposition leaders Raj Thackeray and Uddhav Thackeray led protests in Mumbai calling for the scrapping of revisions to the electoral roll and Kumar’s...

A 60-year-old Hong Kong woman has lost more than HK$21 million (US$2.7 million) in a cryptocurrency scam after a fraudster posing as an investment expert she met online duped her. The clerk reported the case to police on Saturday, saying she had befriended an individual claiming to be an investment specialist on “Baby Kingdom”, a popular online parenting forum and community website, on March 15 th...

Nearly 1,500 Myanmar nationals who were sent back from Malaysia arrived in the country’s largest city on Sunday despite warnings from the UN refugee agency and rights groups that conditions for return remain unsafe. Myanmar has been in turmoil since the military seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi on February 1, 2021, triggering widespread opposition and plunging large par...

Authorities in the Chinese capital are releasing more than a billion parasitic wasps and encouraging caterpillar-catching competitions to try to contain the spread of the invasive North American fall webworm. The caterpillars have blanketed trees in Beijing and surrounding areas this summer, spinning clouds of greyish-white webs as they eat their way through foliage. The insects are the fuzzy larv...

In the third instalment of a four-part Health Matters series on traditional Chinese medicine, Aidyn Fitzpatrick speaks to a Hong Kong fencer studying TCM and local practitioners to see how athletes, both elite and amateur, are using TCM alongside Western medicine for smarter injury recovery. Fresh off helping Hong Kong clinch a bronze medal in the women’s foil team event at the 2026 Asian Games in...