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Guy Bradley takes helm as Cathay chairman, Patrick...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/05/13

Guy Bradley has assumed the role of chairman of Hong Kong flag carrier Cathay Pacific Airways and Swire Coca-Cola, succeeding Patrick Healy, who will retire from the group after more than three decades of service. Bradley, 60, is also chairman of Swire Pacific, John Swire & Sons (H.K.) and Swire Properties. He was appointed chairman of the conglomerate’s airline and bottling operations last December. He previously said that, as chair of the Cathay Group, he would focus on enhancing the

Headwinds ahead for India’s travel sector after Modi...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/05/13

India’s travel industry fears that an appeal by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to avoid unnecessary foreign travel will squeeze new bookings after inflationary pressure knocked down summer overseas inquiries by as much as 15 per cent, industry and analysts say. The pullback is set to hit the peak season for outbound tourism, when affluent families ‌seek cooler locations in Europe and Australia, during school holidays that run from April to June. “The prime minister has a great following, and...

Canvas reaches deal with hackers to return data,...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/05/13

Canvas, the education platform hit by a global data breach affecting 72,571 Hongkongers, has reached an agreement with the hackers to return all compromised data. Instructure, the parent company of Canvas, has said it would hold a webinar for its leadership on Wednesday to provide details of the attack and discuss measures to “harden the system”. The breach, which has been unfolding since last Thursday, is estimated to have affected about 9,000 institutions worldwide. In a statement on its...

Argentine city tries to shrug off hantavirus ship...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/05/13

Argentina’s city “at the end of the world” Ushuaia, the jump-off point for expeditions to the Antarctic, has been labouring under suspicion of being the source of the deadly hantavirus outbreak that killed three cruise ship passengers. The MV Hondius set sail from this spectacular Patagonian port, sandwiched between snow-capped mountains and the South Atlantic, on April 1. Five days later, a Dutch man who had travelled through South America on a birdwatching trip with his wife, developed...

Who is Abdul Halim Aman, Malaysia’s new...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/05/13

Malaysia’s anti-corruption agency got a new chief on Wednesday with the arrival of Abdul Halim Aman, a former High Court judge handed the task of steadying an institution that has spent years chasing political heavyweights while struggling to shake questions over its own independence. The 69-year-old took over as chief commissioner of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) after Azam Baki ended a six-year tenure marked by headline arrests, asset recoveries and repeated political...

‘Heavy’ hearts as residents of Wang Fuk Court’s only...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/05/13

Residents of the only block left largely unscathed in Hong Kong’s Tai Po fire have brought large suitcases, trolleys and cardboard boxes as they return home for a second time to collect their belongings. Homeowners on Wednesday also said they felt they had played a passive role and still had many questions about the government’s voluntary buy-back scheme for their flats after the November 26 fire engulfed seven of the eight blocks in Wang Fuk Court, killing 168 people and displacing nearly...

Chinese company that tracked US bombers over Iran...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/05/13

Chinese satellite imagery firm MizarVision, which rose to fame with its analysis of American military deployments in the US-Israel war on Iran, is treating its addition to the US sanctions list as a badge of honour in its hiring campaign. The open-source intelligence (OSINT) start-up, formally known as Meentropy Technology Hangzhou Co Ltd, specialises in analysing data from commercial satellites and has conducted several observations of US military movements in recent months. It was added to

Hong Kong halves tunnel tolls for commercial vehicles...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/05/13

Hong Kong will halve tolls for all commercial vehicles using public tunnels for two months from Sunday, in the government’s latest effort to ease business costs amid surging fuel prices driven by the war in the Middle East. Buses, goods vehicles, light buses and taxis registered with the Transport Department will benefit from the measure, while private cars and motorcycles are excluded, according to a government announcement on Wednesday. The temporary 50 per cent discount will apply at all...

Cosmic order, political authority: the messaging in...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/05/13

From Obama’s evening chats on Yingtai island in the grounds of Zhongnanhai to Trump’s tea reception in the Forbidden City, historic settings have long formed a symbolic backdrop to key moments in US-China diplomacy. As Trump prepares for his visit to China from Wednesday to Friday – the first by an American president in almost nine years – all eyes will not only be on the summit agenda, but also on the carefully choreographed details surrounding the reception, including sites featured in the...

Israel strikes Lebanon as 380 reported killed since...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/05/13

Israel hammered south Lebanon with strikes on Tuesday ahead of talks between the two countries in Washington, as Beirut reported 380 people killed in Israeli attacks since an April 17 ceasefire took effect. Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem vowed to turn the battlefield into “hell” for Israeli forces, and insisted his Iran-backed group’s weapons would not be up for discussion at the talks on Thursday and Friday, after the US had called for its disarmament. Israel has intensified its attacks on

China-US trade talks kick off in Seoul ahead of...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/05/13

Senior officials from China and the United States have started a new round of trade talks in Seoul, South Korea, hours ahead of US President Donald Trump’s scheduled arrival in Beijing. The delegations – led by Chinese Vice-Premier He Lifeng and US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent – arrived at Terminal 1 of Incheon Airport around noon on Wednesday Seoul time. The two officials had both paid courtesy calls to South Korean President Lee Jae Myung in the morning. This is the seventh round of...

Vietnam asks US to allow ‘extremely important’ oil...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/05/13

Vietnam’s state oil company urged the US to let a supertanker pass through an American naval blockade outside the Persian Gulf, saying the shipment is critical to the Asian country’s economy. The very large crude carrier Agios Fanourios I, managed by Athens-based Eastern Mediterranean Maritime, performed a mid-ocean U-turn on Monday at around the point where the US blockade begins. It had only just cleared the Strait of Hormuz, holding 1.99 million barrels of Iraq’s Basrah Medium crude, when

What Hong Kong’s planned ride-hailing regime could...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/05/13

Hong Kong authorities have finally begun laying out details on how they plan to regulate ride-hailing platforms such as Uber, Tada and Didi Chuxing, months after lawmakers passed the city’s first legal framework for the sector in October. Officials have provided more information on enforcement powers, penalties and licensing arrangements, although the key issue of how many ride-hailing vehicles will ultimately be allowed on the road has yet to be resolved. The South China Morning Post tackles...

Japan’s Takaichi backs aide over smear claims against...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/05/13

Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi appears to have sidestepped a potentially embarrassing political landmine by publicly backing a close aide accused in media reports of running a smear campaign against her rivals, while stopping short of flatly denying his possible role. The allegations, first reported in weekly tabloid news magazine Shukan Bunshun, claim that members of her own camp produced videos critical of rival candidates during last year’s Liberal Democratic Party leadership race,...

Nvidia’s Jensen Huang joins Trump’s trip to China at...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/05/13

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has joined US President Donald Trump on his trip to China this week – boarding Air Force One during a stop en route to Beijing – with Trump dismissing earlier reports that the tech leader had been snubbed as “incorrect”. The White House confirmed that Huang had boarded Air Force One during a refuelling stop in Anchorage, Alaska. It added that Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk was also travelling on the presidential plane. “Jensen is attending the summit at the invitation

How ByteDance plans to turn OpenClaw craze into a...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/05/13

ByteDance’s Volcano Engine, the cloud unit that released an OpenClaw-based cloud agent tool ArkClaw, is betting that the next phase of artificial intelligence will hinge on cheaper tokens, higher inference efficiency and longer context windows. “Agent-related token consumption still accounts for a single-digit percentage of total token usage, but it is growing,” said Li Guodong, chief architect of ArkClaw, on Tuesday on the sidelines of OpenClaw’s first mainland China event since the

Hong Kong-listed biotech firm uses AI to produce...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/05/13

Shares of METiS TechBio surged 173 per cent on their Hong Kong debut on Wednesday as the AI-driven drug design start-up’s initial public offering drew strong demand from investors amid buoyant sentiment for AI-related stocks in the city. Its stocks first traded at HK$28.68, significantly higher than its offering price of HK$10.50 each. Co-founder and CEO of METiS TechBio, Lai Tsai-Ta, who obtained a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US, said artificial intelligence had...

Singaporeans refute lack of hunger stereotype, warn...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/05/13

Azizul Kamal has spent a decade building his legal career in Singapore, but half of the time, he was hopping from one contract role to another in the industry. “Every company seems to only want to hire contractors, because we’re cheaper for balance books. It’s very hard to find a full-time role,” the 38-year-old Singaporean said. Azizul did not secure a third extension as a lawyer at his previous firm, after it found a permanent replacement based in Kuala Lumpur, he said. With bills to pay,

US’ scientific self-harm will only help China

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/05/13

After the Louisiana Purchase from France in 1803, which almost doubled the size of the United States’ territory, US president Thomas Jefferson commissioned the legendary Lewis and Clark expedition, which surveyed new routes from the Missouri river to the Pacific coast. It also carried out work in agriculture, ethnography (with indigenous peoples) and geography. Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, that was the kind of science the US government was willing to pay for – practical,...

Thailand to review visa rules after spate of tourist...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/05/13

Thailand is poised to overhaul its liberal visa rules as the government ramps up a crackdown on foreigners who illegally run businesses or commit transnational crimes. Possible measures include reducing the 60-day visa-free stay for tourists to 30 days and reviewing the criteria for categories, including investment, long-term stay, student and digital nomad visas, according to officials. Visitors from 93 countries currently are eligible for the 60-day waiver. Prime Minister Anutin

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