All coverage of Hong Kong, ranked by recency.
Tokyo’s implementation of a rule that requires all property buyers to declare their nationality is raising concerns among investors, according to analysts. Japan’s shift from an ultra-loose monetary policy to gradual normalisation of its interest rates was also likely to force investors to reconsider whether real estate assets were still attractive, they added. “Japan has had a really strong ru...
Canada’s defence minister said on Saturday that people were killed and injured in an incident at a military base in Alberta that caused a major fire. “I’m saddened to share that there have been both fatalities and injuries as a result of an incident on the base,” Defence Minister David McGuinty said. McGuinty did not provide casualty figures or details about what caused the incident. He said th...
From US threats to cut off intelligence support for Ukraine to a waiver of tariffs on Russian exports and a diesel deal that could help Russia fund its war, it has been a damaging week for ties between Kyiv and its most important ally, Washington. US President Donald Trump, frustrated by high energy costs he blames partly on Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries, has repeatedly criticised Uk...
As Hong Kong hosts the Apec Finance Ministers’ Meeting on Tuesday, this two-part series examines the summit’s significance and its implications for Beijing on the global stage. In part one, Simpson Cheung and Alfred Lam explore how the event could elevate the city’s status as an international financial centre at a pivotal moment. Beijing’s decision to have Hong Kong host the Apec Finance Minist...
US President Donald Trump is expected to drive hard bargains on tariffs and critical minerals in his return to the Asean summit in Manila next month, with Washington seeking greater economic and strategic concessions while remaining hawkish on China. The Philippines confirmed on Wednesday that Trump would fly in for the summit from November 16 to 18, before attending the Asia-Pacific Economic C...
Carrying an umbrella painted with the words “vote, power, people”, retired teacher Sabine Carlson said the lesson plan for Saturday’s “No King” marches was clear. “It’s great to voice your anger, and we have long lists of complaints, but the most important thing of all is to go and vote,” the 66-year-old Democrat from Washington’s suburbs said. At the demonstration near the country’s Capitol, C...
At least 19 people were killed and two dozen more injured on Saturday in eastern India after a stampede that occurred during sudden rainfall at a Hindu religious gathering, officials and Indian media said. West Bengal’s Chief Minister Suvendhu Adhikari told reporters the fatalities included a seven-year-old girl, adding that 25 other people were injured outside a pavilion “in a stampede” at the...
India’s youth-led Cockroach Janata Party founder Abhijeet Dipke was released from detention on Saturday, a day after his arrest during a police crackdown on protests against the election authority. Dipke, 31, was detained Friday in New Delhi as he headed to join a rally that the CJP protest movement had called in the capital’s central Connaught Place district. He walked out of a police station ...
Police in Albania fired what appeared to be rubber bullets at protesters on Saturday, the fifth day of mass student protests demanding Prime Minister Edi Rama step down. Reuters video footage showed police firing a shotgun towards crowds outside the education ministry during clashes with protesters. Reuters reporters found rubber pellets on the ground and pellets hit two Reuters journalists an...
Hong Kong authorities have ordered all lift contractors to review the design and construction of landing doors installed over the past 10 years, after a government investigation found missing fire-safety components in lifts in at least 78 private buildings and two public estates. The director of the Electrical and Mechanical Services Department issued the order in a letter following inspections...
Donald Trump was apparently captivated by the “beautiful” roses in the garden of the Communist Party’s leadership compound when he visited Beijing in May. It was a relaxed moment between the US and Chinese leaders – otherwise locked in disputes ranging from trade to technology and Taiwan – that led to a new opportunity for gift diplomacy between the rival powers. Strolling around the former imp...
Hong Kong’s legislature has for the first time used artificial intelligence (AI) to analyse lawmakers’ remarks during a three-day debate on the city’s first five-year plan and the latest annual policy address, with talent and the Northern Metropolis emerging as the most-discussed topics. Legislative Council president Starry Lee Wai-king said on Saturday that an overview of the six-session debat...
Britain has deported a Romanian man jailed for two years in June for arson attacks on two properties linked to then British prime minister Keir Starmer, the interior ministry said Saturday. Ukraine-born Stanislav Carpiuc was found guilty of the attacks alongside Ukrainian citizen Roman Lavrynovych, who was jailed for seven years over the May 2025 attacks on two London houses and a vehicle. “Thi...
In Shenzhen, drones are banned, shiny new hotels have opened their doors and taxi drivers are carrying devices that can translate nearly 150 languages. Since President Xi Jinping announced last year that China’s southern tech hub would host Apec meetings in November, the city has done all it can to get ready under the watchful eyes of the local, provincial and national authorities. While every ...
Many delegates to the International Monetary Fund’s steering committee walked out of a meeting on Saturday when Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov addressed the group in Russian, three sources familiar with the matter said. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has roiled the International Monetary and Financial Committee, preventing it from reaching consensus statements in the ...
Former Malaysian minister Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad has confirmed that he was one of two individuals detained by the Selangor Islamic Religious Department (Jais) over an alleged khalwat case. Nik Nazmi, who helms Parti Bersama Malaysia, said he was at a residence in Petaling Jaya on Thursday with a woman after they decided to continue a discussion about a project there. “We had initially started the ...
Distinctive features will set Hong Kong apart from London, a major bullion hub, as the city accelerates efforts to develop an international gold and precious metals trading ecosystem covering the entire value chain, a minister has told the South China Morning Post. In an exclusive interview on Thursday, Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Christopher Hui Ching-yu said the city wou...
Coconut farmer Sombat Chuekrod travelled more than 200km (120 miles) to join hundreds on the streets of Bangkok on Friday demanding that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank change how they deal with the developing world. Finance ministers, central bank governors and other top policymakers gathered this week in the Thai capital for the IMF-World Bank Annual Meetings, as decision...
US President Donald Trump on Friday signed an executive order that puts on hold a sweeping new sanctions package targeting the Russian economy, telling Congress the pause was in the national interest. Named after late South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, the measure had sought to clamp down more quickly on the flow of financial resources fuelling the war against Ukraine. The move comes a week...
China and the Philippines recently traded accusations over the medical evacuation of a Philippine serviceman from a grounded naval vessel in the hotly disputed Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea. The incident has sparked renewed worries about potential armed skirmishes in a global artery of trade. But Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr was also quick to emphasise the economic dim...
A growing number of former senior government officials have joined the race for seats on Hong Kong’s Election Committee, a trend observers say will enhance the prestige and legitimacy of the body tasked with choosing the city’s next leader. As the two-week nomination period draws to a close next Tuesday, the Registration and Electoral Office had received 1,115 nominations for 982 elected seats ...
US President Donald Trump made a joke about the popularity of the name Mohammad in the Muslim world as he mocked Iran’s presidency during a campaign speech on Friday. “You know, if you’re in doubt about somebody’s name from the Middle East, just say ‘Mohammad’,” Trump told a crowd in Dalton, Georgia. “You have about a 65 per cent chance. ‘Hello, Mohammad.’ I’ve done it for years now. I’ve n...
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Saturday sent a ritual offering to Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, regarded by Japan’s neighbours as a symbol of the country’s past militarism, at the start of its three-day autumn festival. Takaichi, known as a conservative who routinely visited the Shinto shrine before becoming prime minister a year ago, was unlikely to visit the shrine during the festival, a source...
A new overseas non-permanent judge has been appointed to Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal (CFA) following a spate of resignations – and subsequent criticism from some former jurists – since the introduction of national security legislation. Court of Final Appeal. File photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP. Joining five other foreign jurists from common law jurisdictions serving on the top court, New Zealand’s ...
A US congressional committee has released details of investigations into dozens of researchers, many of them Chinese-American, revealing the scale of government scrutiny sweeping academia over alleged links to China. The documents – running to hundreds of pages – were released alongside a separate report by the House Select Committee on China. Titled “How to Stop China’s Theft of Taxpayer-Funde...
Paraguay’s technology minister said on Thursday that sanctions imposed on him by Beijing over his country’s ties with Taiwan would only accelerate joint projects with the island. Gustavo Villate, who heads the Ministry of Information and Communication Technologies, wrote in a lengthy social media post that the relationship with Taipei would “never be on the negotiating table”. He also suggested...
A Republican lawmaker is requesting the Pentagon blacklist 58 Chinese universities and 62 technology labs as national security threats, a move Beijing calls Cold War-style overreach and critics warn could freeze US-China scientific collaboration and ultimately undermine American innovation itself. In a letter to US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth, House Select Committee on China Chairman John...
Katie Zacharia was “let go” as White House press secretary on Friday, a White House official said, five days into a tenure dominated by questions over her claimed legal career in China, where she said she had passed a bar exam. Her exit came on the same day Beijing invited her to visit China more often, responding to her remark that the country “doesn’t even have proper toilets”. US President D...
Pope Leo spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone on Friday, calling for a ceasefire in a Russian-occupied city in southern Ukraine, as he recovers in hospital from a lung cancer operation. The Vatican said that Pope Leo “expressed his deep concern about the grave humanitarian situation in the city of Oleshky, in the Kherson region, and called for a ceasefire to allow the delivery o...
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday asked European Union leaders to provide Kyiv an extra 70 billion euros (US$79 billion) in funding next year to help it keep fighting Russia. “The war will cost 155 billion euros next year. And we need at least 70 billion euros more from you – for defence, for weapons and for our resilience,” Zelensky said in a speech at an EU summit in Brussels. ...
While Washington’s efforts to block Chinese electric vehicles (EVs) were originally intended to protect its domestic automotive industry, they have sparked concerns the strategy is hurting America’s carmaking competitiveness. With a lack of a coherent industrial policy discouraging long-term investment, the protectionist approach was backfiring on Detroit’s EV transition, said David Zhang, a ma...
Police detained India’s ‘cockroach’ movement founder Abhijeet Dipke on Friday, lstudent leaders and supporters on Friday as hundreds poured into central Delhi, waving the national flag and demanding the resignation of India’s election chief. The youth-led ‘Cockroach Janta Party’ (CJP), opposition groups and student organisations have held almost daily protests this month demanding Chief Electio...
In talks with Israel’s president on Thursday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi called for an immediate easing of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and for Israel to reverse its West Bank settlement expansion. “The imperative priority is to fully open access routes into Gaza. Two million civilians must not be left to struggle on the brink of survival, nor can this humanitarian catastrophe be allow...
Over 93 per cent of Wang Fuk Court homeowners have signed a formal sales agreement to sell their flats to the government as part of a buyout scheme following the deadly fire almost a year ago. Wang Fuk Court on May 4, 2026. Photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP. A total of 1,850 homeowners from the Tai Po estate have completed the Agreement for Sale and Purchase (ASP), the government said on Friday. Some were u...
A Malaysian ruler known for being reserved has publicly berated his chief minister over efforts to unseat him, telling the politician to “go away” and withdraw his claim that the monarch no longer holds the throne. Negeri Sembilan, south of Kuala Lumpur, has been caught in a dispute since April over who is its rightful ruler, bringing down one state government aligned with Prime Minister Anwar ...
Beijing has invited White House press secretary Katie Zacharia to visit the country more often after she said in an interview that China “doesn’t even have proper toilets”. The newly appointed spokeswoman for the Trump administration made the controversial remarks in an interview on Thursday with conservative commentator Jack Posobiec, when talking about the perception around 2016 that “the gol...
European leaders on Friday rallied around Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky as Kyiv’s ties with US President Donald Trump have nosedived and worries grow that US leader is increasingly siding with Russia. Relations between Kyiv and Washington have soured since last week, when Trump eased sanctions on Russia in exchange for Moscow releasing large amounts of diesel onto global markets. Zelensky infuri...
European Union leaders supported creating a tool to potentially shut out Chinese goods as a growing flood of low-cost imports pushed the bilateral trade deficit to a record. Officials could start work on developing a trade “kill switch”, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen signalled to EU leaders at a Brussels meeting on Thursday, the South China Morning Post reported, citing uni...
Indonesia has spent months trying to persuade investors that its economy is on the right course. A weakening rupiah, mounting budgetary pressures and a series of contentious policy decisions have made that task harder. Doubts about the management of Southeast Asia’s largest economy have now coalesced around its central bank, whose independence has come under intense scrutiny recently as Preside...
Private healthcare providers in Hong Kong will have to make their charges more transparent under government measures to be introduced from August next year at the earliest, including requirements to publish bilingual fee schedules and annual billing statistics. The Health Bureau set out details of the proposed requirements for private hospitals and clinics in a document submitted to the Legisla...
Okinawa Governor Genta Koja said on Friday he accepts the deployment of US military MV-22 Osprey transport aircraft at the Futenma air station, reversing the southern Japan prefecture’s long-standing opposition to their presence. Previous prefectural governments, under governors critical of US bases, had opposed the deployment of the tilt-rotor aircraft since before they were first stationed at...
White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia, who was appointed less than a week ago, said China lacked “proper toilets” in an interview that aired on Thursday. Newly appointed White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia speaks during her first press briefing in the James Brady Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on October 13, 2026. Photo: Jim Watson/AFP. Zacharia, 41, is already ...
China’s central bank chief has said exchange-rate adjustments alone cannot resolve global economic imbalances, urging surplus and deficit economies to share responsibility for addressing them. He also pledged to promote yuan-denominated bonds as “eligible collateral widely recognised and accepted globally”. Speaking at the third G20 finance ministers and central bank governors’ meeting in Bangk...
Beijing has enlisted the support of its top internet watchdog to deepen the investigation into a car safety issue that put Chinese-made intelligent vehicles under the spotlight. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said on Thursday that a joint investigation team including officials from the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) and the State Administration for Market R...
Ukraine’s resumption of strikes on Russian refineries is a “disgrace” that keeps global energy prices elevated, US President Donald Trump told the Newsmax news outlet in an interview aired on Thursday. Ukraine struck a Russian oil refinery after President Volodymyr Zelensky declared that Kyiv was abandoning a ceasefire covering energy sites that Trump had announced, and criticised his willi...
President Xi Jinping has pledged to “uproot sick trees” in the anti-corruption fight, according to a speech transcript published by the party’s flagship magazine ahead of a major party conclave later this month. The warning appeared on Thursday in the magazine Qiushi, which carried fresh details of a speech Xi delivered in January at the fifth plenary session of the Central Commission for Disci...
Indonesian officials, looking to alleviate poverty in their country and eyeing the rise of rural economies in China, are turning to Beijing for help that may include stoking the exports of a potentially lucrative durian crop. Indonesian Transmigration Minister Muhammad Iftitah Sulaiman Suryanagara began a seven-day visit to China on Monday, with Indonesia’s state-owned Antara news agency saying...
South Korea’s long-standing alliance with America is being tested by feuds spanning from investment deals to intelligence leaks, compromising Seoul’s ability to respond to North Korea. In a rare admission, Seoul’s top envoy to the US on Monday acknowledged an “issue” with Washington’s sharing of covert data. “There are limitations in our communication with the White House,” Kang Kyung-wha told ...
Download the PDF This is the fourth in a series of factsheets about Hong Kong’s first five-year plan and 2026 policy address. Part I – Hong Kong’s new chapter Part II – The story begins ... Part III – Sharpening Hong Kong’s edge Part IV – Tapping into tech and talent The series has been produced with support from the Hong Kong SAR government. To see the South China Morning Post’s coverage of th...
Download the PDF This is the third in a series of Factsheets on Hong Kong’s first five-year plan and 2026 policy address. Part I – Hong Kong’s new chapter Part II – The story begins ... Part III – Sharpening Hong Kong’s edge Part IV – Tapping into tech and talent The series has been produced with support from the Hong Kong SAR government. To see the South China Morning Post’s coverage of the fi...
Hong Kong police will conduct round-the-clock patrols in Wan Chai from Friday as part of enhanced security arrangements for the coming Apec Finance Ministers’ Meeting, as delegates begin arriving in the city, the South China Morning Post has learned. Delegates from the 21 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation member economies will travel to Hong Kong as early as Friday for preparatory work, althoug...
The most consequential outcome of President Xi Jinping’s Washington visit might be his US counterpart Donald Trump’s unusually lavish welcome. It told Beijing, US allies and global markets that, however fierce the strategic rivalry, China’s importance makes sustained diplomatic engagement essential. The airport greeting, lavish banquet at the White House and flyover by military aircraft restore...
This is the third in a series of Factsheets on Hong Kong’s first five-year plan and 2026 policy address. Part I – Hong Kong’s new chapter Part II – The story begins... Part III – Sharpening the city’s edge Part IV – Tapping into tech and talent The series has been produced with support from the Hong Kong SAR government. To see the South China Morning Post’s coverage of the five-year plan, click...
The coming Apec finance ministers’ meeting in Hong Kong will demonstrate “China’s voice” in regional stability, with the city uniquely placed to bring together regional leaders for important exchanges in a geopolitically charged world, the treasury chief has said. In an exclusive interview with the South China Morning Post on Thursday, Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Christoph...
Japan’s hopes for a visit by Donald Trump during his trip to Asia next month may be hanging in the balance as relations between China and the United States steadily improve. The US president spent three days in Japan ahead of last year’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, and his meeting with Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi was hailed as a sign of a “new golden age” in the countries’ relat...
Foreign domestic workers hired under a planned government elderly caregiving scheme should be paid more and allowed to complete training in Hong Kong rather than in their home countries, migrant worker activists have urged. Migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong. File photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP. The government announced during last month’s Policy Address that it would launch a “foreign domestic carers...
China said on Thursday that the recent government approval allowing American bank card payment giant Visa to operate in the country was the “direct outcome” of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s state visit to the United States last month. “The Visa card was granted permission to establish a banking card clearing institution,” said Qiu Wenxing, the Deputy Chief of Mission at the Chinese embassy in ...
White House press secretary Katie Zacharia has acknowledged that she never passed a bar exam, days after telling reporters she had passed one “when I moved to China”. In an interview with the conservative commentator Jack Posobiec on Real America’s Voice on Thursday, Zacharia said she sat the California bar exam after graduating from Pepperdine University’s law school in 2011 but did not pass. ...
Former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro insisted on Thursday during an appearance in a New York court that torture allegations in a rewritten drug-trafficking indictment against him and his wife were “false accusations”. Maduro, shackled at the ankles, was brought to court to face the new charges accusing the couple of leading a state-sponsored campaign of repression that tortured scores of ...
Singapore is looking into which companies may be responsible for the forest and peatland fires in Indonesia that have caused the worsening haze, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong said on Thursday. “Where warranted, we will take action under Singapore’s Transboundary Haze Pollution Act, and explore joint action with other countries,” he said in a social media post. The haze situation was worsened by ...
