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How Thailand melted tariff barriers to become Asia’s...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/11/03

To stand out among the dizzying array of sweet treats that pack supermarket freezers from the likes of Haagen-Dazs and Ben & Jerry’s, an ice cream brand needs more than just flavour, says Thai entrepreneur Danupon Umnouypreechakul. It needs a story that sings. His company, Lamoon Group, is a boutique made-in-Thailand contender in an industry of global heavyweights. Its unique approach connects each flavour to the farmers who grow the ingredients, offering increasingly discerning – and higher...

China toddler, 3, chokes to death while drinking...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/11/03

The tragedy of a Chinese toddler who choked to death on the tapioca bubbles in his milk tea has sparked heated online discussion about parental responsibility. On October 24, the three-year-old’s father, surnamed Li, posted a surveillance video of a playground in a shopping centre in eastern China’s Zhejiang province. In the clip, the boy takes a sip of the bubble tea his mother bought him before playing on a trampoline on October 19. Li said his son passed out a minute later and despite his...

CEO of Singapore-owned Optus refuses to resign after...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/11/03

The CEO of Singapore Telecommunications-owned Optus apologised to Australia’s parliament for an emergency number outage that was linked to four deaths but declined to stand down, citing a need for stability. Stephen Rue started in the role a year ago following a massive cyberattack and separate half-day outage which resulted in the previous CEO leaving. On September 18, Optus said a failure of its “000” emergency line affected thousands of people and four died as a result of the inability to...

Mainland China robots join bomb squad to keep Hong...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/11/03

Hong Kong’s bomb squad has turned to tailor-made robots from mainland China amid geopolitical tensions, as it intensifies drills against home-made explosives in preparation for the National Games. Superintendent Andy Cheung Lap-tak of the explosive ordnance disposal bureau told the Post that bomb disposal officers had been advising authorities on potential security risks during the Games and would be present during the events to ensure overall safety. Cheung explained that organisers who

Trump doubles down on ICE raids: ‘they haven’t gone...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/11/02

Aggressive US immigration raids which have sparked protests and allegations of rights violations have not gone far enough, US President Donald Trump said in a CBS interview released on Sunday. Trump was interviewed on Friday by CBS’ 60 Minutes show, his first meeting with the broadcaster since it agreed to a US$16 million settlement with him. The Republican president had sued the Paramount-owned organisation over a 2024 pre-election interview with his Democratic opponent, former

Mexican mayor gunned down during Day of the Dead...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/11/02

A mayor in Mexico’s western state of Michoacan was shot dead in a plaza in front of dozens of people who had gathered for Day of the Dead festivities, authorities said. Local politicians in Mexico are frequently victims of political and organised crime violence. The mayor of the Uruapan municipality, Carlos Alberto Manzo Rodriguez, was gunned down on Saturday night in the town’s historic centre. He was rushed to a hospital, where he later died, according to state prosecutor Carlos Torres

UK police release 1 of 2 men over train stabbing...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/11/02

British police said on Sunday that one of two men arrested in connection with a mass stabbing attack that spread fear and panic on a London-bound train a day earlier has been released without charge, and that one person, a “heroic” member of the railway staff, remains in a life-threatening condition. In a statement Sunday evening, police said the only remaining suspect was a 32-year-old British man who remained in custody on suspicion of attempted murder. A second man initially arrested as a...

‘Won’t be extorted’: Trump vows no negotiation as US...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/11/02

The US government shutdown was poised to become the longest ever this week as the impasse between Democrats and Republicans dragged into a new month. Millions of people could lose food aid benefits, healthcare subsidies were set to expire and there were few real talks between the parties over how to end it. US President Donald Trump said in an interview aired on Sunday that he “won’t be extorted” by Democrats who were demanding negotiations to extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies that

Michael Sandel on Donald Trump’s rise, meritocracy...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/11/02

Michael Sandel is a political philosopher and the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government at Harvard University. His course on justice was the first at Harvard to be made freely available online and has been viewed by tens of millions of people. Sandel recently received the 2025 Berggruen Prize for Philosophy and Culture, which some have described as the Nobel Prize for philosophy. In this interview, Sandel discusses the roots of Donald Trump’s rise to power, the crisis in American...

Hong Kong must do more to empower women in the workforce

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/11/02

More than 200 C-suite women senior executives, including global chief executives and chief financial officers, are gathering in the epicentre of Hong Kong’s financial district for the city’s first ever Women Chief Executives summit today. The conference is symbolic as much as it is significant. Women in this city have progressed by leaps and bounds over the past decade. A recent report by one of the summit’s organisers, the Women Chief Executive Network, as well as KPMG and the Women’s...

Serbia tensions boil as riot police separate...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/11/02

Hundreds of riot police separated opponents and loyalists of Serbia’s autocratic President Aleksandar Vucic in central Belgrade on Sunday as political tensions boiled after a year of persistent anti-government protests. Several thousand people faced off on both sides of the police cordons with officers in full gear standing in several rows between the shouting crowds who threw bottles, flares and stun grenades. Tensions in Belgrade soared a day after tens of thousands of people joined a huge...

Taylor Swift fans swarm German museum to see Ophelia...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/11/02

Taylor Swift fans sang and danced on Sunday to her new hit “The Fate of Ophelia” at a German museum exhibiting a painting thought to have inspired the video for the chart-topper. Some came as Ophelia, in white dresses with flowers in their hair, while others donned sparkly outfits like those often worn by Swift, as they descended on the western town of Wiesbaden. They were attending a special event to see the painting by artist Friedrich Heyser, which shows Ophelia, a character in

Israel receives remains of 3 more Gaza hostages as...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/11/02

Israel on Sunday announced that the remains of three hostages had been handed over from Gaza and would be examined by forensic experts, as a fragile month-old ceasefire held. A Hamas statement earlier said the remains were found on Sunday in a tunnel in southern Gaza. Since the ceasefire took effect on October 10, Palestinian militants had released the remains of 17 hostages, with 11 remaining in Gaza, before Sunday’s handover. Israel’s military said official identification of these remains...

Paris Louvre heist suspects are petty criminals, not...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/11/02

The audacious daytime robbery of historical jewels worth US$102 million from the Paris Louvre museum last month was executed by petty criminals rather than professionals from the world of organised crime, the Paris prosecutor said on Sunday. On a Sunday morning two weeks ago, two men parked a movers’ lift outside the Louvre, rode up to the second storey, smashed a window, cracked open display cases with angle grinders, and then fled on the back of scooters driven by two accomplices in a heist...

Germany arrests Syrian suspected of plotting...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/11/02

German authorities said Sunday they had arrested a 22-year-old Syrian man in Berlin suspected of preparing a “jihadist” attack, without giving details of the alleged plot. The suspect, arrested on Saturday in the capital’s southern Neukoelln district, appeared before an investigating judge on Sunday and was ordered remanded in custody. He is suspected of “preparing an act of serious violence against the state” as well as “spreading propaganda material of anti-constitutional and terrorist...

Landslide and floods leave 26 dead in western Kenya

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/11/02

The death toll from a landslide in western Kenya’s Rift Valley has risen to 26, a government spokesman said on Sunday, following heavy rains on Saturday. Twenty-five people were still missing and 26 others had been rescued after devastating floods in Elgeyo-Marakwet County, government spokesman Isaac Mwaura said in a statement. Most of the rescued people were receiving treatment. The government has deployed military planes and disaster response specialists to conduct a search and rescue...

Trump says Xi understands ‘consequences’ if Beijing...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/11/02

US President Donald Trump said Xi Jinping understands the consequences if Beijing takes Taiwan, while refusing to specifically say the United States would defend the island, according to an extract of a CBS News interview broadcast on Sunday. Trump said Taiwan “never even came up as a subject” when he met the Chinese president in South Korea on Thursday for their first face-to-face meeting in six years. Asked on CBS’ 60 Minutes whether he would order US forces into action if Beijing moved...

Survivors of El-Fasher say Sudan’s RSF is detaining...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/11/02

A young man from one of the towns outlying the western Sudanese city of El-Fasher, Hussein was one of hundreds of men and boys captured and held by paramilitary forces that have overrun the area. “We were rounded up and taken,” he said on Sunday, explaining how he and roughly 200 other young men were detained for days by Rapid Support Forces (RSF) fighters in Garni, 25 kilometres northwest of El-Fasher, after they tried to flee. “They hit us with sticks and called us ‘slaves’,” said Hussein,

Nigeria urges meeting with Trump after US president’s...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/11/02

Nigeria on Sunday suggested a meeting between its president and US counterpart Donald Trump, after the US leader threatened military action over what he described as a threat to Nigerian Christians by jihadists. In an explosive post, Trump said on social media on Saturday that he asked the Pentagon to map out a possible plan of attack in Nigeria, one day after warning that Christianity was “facing an existential threat” in Africa’s most populous country. Nigeria, which is almost evenly

China’s updated sixth-generation fighter jets put US...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/11/02

Notable changes have been observed in both of China’s sixth-generation fighter programmes, with updated prototypes seen flying just 10 months after their first public appearance, indicating rapid progress as the country vies with the US for air supremacy. Photos circulating on Chinese social media since Tuesday showed what appeared to be Chengdu Aircraft Corporation’s sixth-generation fighter, bearing a tailless and three-engine design, conducting a test flight. Unofficially referred to as

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