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Labour MPs urge UK to protect Hong Kong BN(O)...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/19

A group of Labour Party MPs have urged the British government to ensure changes to permanent residency requirements do not undermine support for Hongkongers on a bespoke visa pathway or others admitted on humanitarian grounds. They have asked the Home Office to consider exempting the BN(O) routes from the government’s proposed overhaul of the wider settlement system as part of four requests to extend support for Hongkongers under the scheme. James Naish and 33 of his Labour colleagues sent a...

Hong Kong fire: authorities seek to dissolve Wang Fuk...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/19

Hong Kong authorities are seeking to dissolve the management committee of the Wang Fuk Court owners’ corporation and appoint a new administrator for the residential estate, in an unprecedented move following the city’s deadliest fire in decades. Secretary for Home and Youth Affairs Alice Mak Mei-kuen said on Friday that the government was intervening for the first time on record in an estate’s affairs by applying to the Lands Tribunal to dissolve the management committee of the owners’...

Chinese military tightens review of equipment and...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/19

The Chinese military is pushing for stricter rules on equipment purchases, including its pricing system, to stem corruption. According to a set of “professional ethics” released on Friday, the Central Military Commission’s (CMC) Equipment Development Department should foster “professional values in the new era”, with quality the top priority in equipment procurement. The department should serve the People’s Liberation Army with “integrity and clean practice”, the official PLA Daily quoted the...

Why Chinese ‘ask rice’ divination ritual involves...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/19

A mysterious and ancient tradition in China involves practitioners who try to predict the future and communicate with the spirit world via a ritual known as rice divination, or mun mai, in the south of the country. Its origins can be traced back to the Han dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD) and a belief that all things in nature followed patterns and cycles, which are closely connected to human fortune and misfortune. The term “rice divination” comes from the main component used in the practice, 1,080...

China’s military build-up could ‘seriously’ affect...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/19

China’s military build-up “could have a serious impact” on Japan’s security, Tokyo’s defence ministry has warned as tensions with Beijing spiral.Japan has closely monitored People’s Liberation Army (PLA) activities stretching across the first island chain, the ministry said in a report released on Thursday. “[China] is broadly and rapidly strengthening its military capabilities, centred on its maritime and air forces as well as its nuclear and missile forces ... Its active military

Hong Kong to exempt 90% of households from...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/19

The Hong Kong government will exempt 90 per cent of households from the year-long population census in 2026, opting instead for a “re-engineered” model that uses existing data to track the city’s demographics – a major break from decades of statistical tradition. Leo Yu Chun-keung, commissioner for census and statistics, said on Friday that the 2026 population census had been revamped to improve workflow. “To modernise the mode of Hong Kong’s population census, we will implement several...

Bank of Japan raises rates to levels unseen since 1995

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/19

The Bank of Japan (BOJ) raised interest rates on Friday to levels unseen in three decades and signalled its readiness for further hikes, taking another landmark step in ending decades of huge monetary support and near-zero borrowing costs. It also removed language that growth and inflation will stagnate due to the impact of higher US tariffs, underscoring the central bank’s conviction that Japan was on course to stably hit its 2 per cent inflation target backed by wage gains, and ready for a...

Hulk smash? Malaysian officer rips car door off...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/19

A Malaysian police officer’s superhero moment has gone viral after dashcam footage showed him wrenching open a suspect’s car door with his bare hands during a chase. The two-minute clip, widely shared on social media, shows a car being driven against the flow of traffic on a busy road in Kota Kinabalu, the capital of Sabah on Malaysian Borneo, before it is intercepted by police. In the video, the suspect’s vehicle screeches to a halt as an officer repeatedly orders the driver to step out.

Six years on, are we better prepared for the next...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/19

This week, exactly six years ago, as we were gliding cheerfully into the 2019 festive Christmas season, the Covid-19 virus was spreading in Wuhan, China. I was preparing for an important meeting in Australia in February (the last overseas trip I would make for three years), oblivious to the looming pandemic. The world in general had no inkling of the terrible three years that would follow, with death estimates ranging from 7 million to 36 million, over 700 million infections reported, an...

Tech pivot: Chinese AI, chip start-ups court global...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/19

More Chinese artificial intelligence firms and chipmakers are turning to Hong Kong for fundraising, testing the appetite of global investors following stellar onshore debuts of graphics processing unit (GPU) developers Moore Threads Technology and MetaX Integrated Circuits. GigaDevice Semiconductor is a step closer to its Hong Kong initial public offering (IPO) after passing a listing hearing, according to bourse operator Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX). The company is expected to...

Market rates set Hong Kong’s HK$150,000 subsidy for...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/19

Hong Kong authorities took market rates into account before setting a two-year annual subsidy of HK$150,000 (US$19,278) for flat owners displaced by the Tai Po fire, the city’s home affairs minister has said, amid calls for the government to monitor whether the new measure will further drive up rents in the area. Under the new measure, homeowners of the fire-damaged Wang Fuk Court will each receive the subsidy to rent homes in the private market, at a total cost of HK$1.2 billion. Both flat...

Hong Kong police arrest 5 over stealing HK$1.8...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/19

Hong Kong police have arrested five men on suspicion of posing as Mandatory Provident Fund (MPF) account holders to withdraw HK$1.8 million (US$231,300) from the city’s new online pension fund platform. The scam also prompted the Mandatory Provident Fund Schemes Authority, which manages the pension scheme, to immediately suspend its paperless verification process, known as eKYC, for registering online platform users. It apologised for any inconvenience caused. Chief Inspector Lee Chun-man of

Hong Kong court orders trial to compensate Mo Li,...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/19

A Hong Kong court has ordered a trial to determine the compensation an employer must pay to a dancer who was paralysed from the neck down in an accident at a concert featuring the popular boy band Mirror. District Court judge Phillis Loh Lai-ping said on Friday she believed that Studiodanz, Mo Li Kai-yin’s employer at the time of the accident, was “evading civil responsibility” as its representatives had failed to attend any hearings in the case and had been uncontactable. Loh noted that Li’s...

US launches review of Nvidia’s H200 chip sales to...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/19

US President Donald Trump’s ‌administration has launched a review that could result in the first shipments to China of Nvidia’s H200 chips, five sources said, making good on his pledge to allow the controversial sales. Trump this month said he would allow sales of Nvidia’s H200 chips to China, with the US government collecting a 25 per cent fee, and that the sales would help keep US firms ahead by cutting demand for Chinese-developed chips. The move drew fire from China hawks across the US...

UN says Sudan’s RSF killed 1,000 civilians in...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/19

More than 1,000 civilians were killed in a three-day attack by the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group earlier this year on the largest displacement camp in western Sudan, the UN Human Rights Office said in a report released on Thursday. RSF stormed Zamzam camp in April as part of its siege of the city of El-Fasher, the provincial capital of North Darfur province. In the attack, hundreds of people were summarily executed, according to the report. People were killed in house-to-house raids...

How China cracked the US ‘super code’ that controls...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/19

China is no longer using American software to run its power grid. The Southern Regional Electricity Market (SREM) – the world’s largest unified power market – has switched fully to Tianquan, a solver developed by Chinese engineers with speeds 14 per cent faster than American products, according to a report by the official Science and Technology Daily. It follows recent reports that the State Grid, Huawei and many other leading Chinese companies have abandoned US solvers. If China no longer

China still targeting US-based researchers for...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/19

China is still trying to recruit US-based researchers despite years of heightened scrutiny, members of Congress were told on Thursday at a hearing where multiple science agencies warned that tighter security measures must go hand in hand with efforts to retain foreign talent. “Just in the past week, I have received three emails that were forwarded to me from researchers in the community who had been approached for recruitment by Chinese malign foreign talent recruitment programmes,” said

Hong Kong Santa Hash run spreads festive cheer and...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/19

Dressed in festive outfits, nearly 140 people dashed through Hong Kong’s streets on Sunday for the annual Santa Hash charity run, raising vital funds in the process. The event began at Lockhart Road Playground in Wan Chai and covered a 6km (4 miles) route past landmarks including the Hong Kong Observation Wheel, Chater Garden, St John’s Cathedral, the Peak Tram and Hong Kong Park, before looping back to the finish. Participants navigated the trail in true “hash” style – a mix of running and...

Trump suspends US green card lottery after Brown...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/19

US President Donald Trump suspended the green card lottery programme on Thursday that allowed the suspect in the Brown University and MIT shootings to come to the United States. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a post on the social platform X that at Trump’s direction she is ordering the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to pause the programme. “This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country,” she said of the suspect, Portuguese national...

Chinese rookie cop resembling Taiwan actor Eddie Peng...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/19

A Shanghai police officer who looks uncannily like the famous Taiwan actor Eddie Peng Yu-yan has trended on social media. A video clip of the officer, who only joined the force quite recently, has racked up over one million likes. Officer Gu Chenhan, who is in his early 20s, patrols underground stations across Shanghai accompanied by a police dog nicknamed Fries, according to a report by Shanghai TV. Gu first attracted attention in September 2023 when, as a police university student, he was

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