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News - South China Morning Post

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Beijing protests following reports of Taiwanese...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/13

Beijing’s embassy in Israel has protested following reports of a secret trip by Taiwan’s deputy foreign minister to the Middle Eastern country. Citing several anonymous sources, Reuters reported on Thursday that Francois Wu Chih-chung had travelled to Israel in recent weeks, though it was not disclosed who he met there. Taipei has not officially confirmed that the visit took place. On Saturday, the Chinese embassy in Israel commented on the visit, stating that Beijing firmly opposed official...

Gaza amputees desperate to walk again amid medical...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/13

Sitting in her wheelchair, Haneen al-Mabhouh dreams of rebuilding her family, of cradling a new baby. She dreams of walking again. But with her leg gone, her life in Gaza is on hold, she says, as she waits to go abroad for further treatment. An Israeli air strike in July 2024 smashed her home in central Gaza as she and her family slept. All four of her daughters were killed, including her five-month-old baby. Her husband was severely burned. Al-Mabhouh’s legs were crushed under the rubble,

China husband makes wife kneel, beg him to buy down...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/13

A video of a woman kneeling in a shopping centre in central China, pleading with her husband to buy her a down jacket, has gone viral on social media, igniting widespread outrage against the man. The clip was recorded in early December outside a clothing store in a shopping centre in Xiaogan, Hubei province. In the video, the woman is seen on her knees, begging her husband to purchase a 299-yuan (US$40) down jacket for her. Meanwhile, the husband berated her for several minutes, according to

Mexico’s Sheinbaum is standing up for indigenous...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/13

In the Mexican mountain town of San Isidro Buen Suceso, Virginia Veronica Arce Arce begins her days as she has for decades: seated at her vintage Singer sewing machine, guiding bright threads into intricate patterns passed down through generations. Arce is part of a group of talented female indigenous artisans who collaborate to create the colourful embroidered dresses and huipiles – traditional blouses worn by indigenous women – that have become a wardrobe staple for Mexican President

Hong Kong’s former commerce minister Gregory So...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/13

Hong Kong’s former commerce minister Gregory So Kam-leung has died at the age of 67. It was understood that So, a lawyer by trade who served as the city’s secretary for commerce and economic development between 2011 and 2017, had been in hospital for some time before he died on Saturday morning. He oversaw a number of thorny issues during his tenure, including broadcast regulation, intellectual property protection and a controversial bid for a free-to-air broadcast licence by outspoken...

Primary school near Hong Kong estate destroyed in...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/13

The principal of a Hong Kong primary school opposite the scene of the deadly Tai Po fire has expressed hope that the institution could relocate, saying the horrifying view of the charred buildings will put parents off and affect enrolment. Tai Po Baptist Public School head Siu Ting said the campus was still sealed off and there was currently no date set for when pupils might return. The school’s students had been learning in makeshift classrooms at two public universities for the past two

China’s green tech revolution will outlast...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/13

The global green energy transition is less about geopolitics and more about economic reality, according to Arif Aga, director of global renewable engineering consultancy SgurrEnergy. For many nations seeking to adopt clean energy, their priority remains the practical pursuit of lowering costs, a reality that has entrenched China’s leading role in the global clean power supply. According to the renewable energy technical adviser, the vast scale of Chinese manufacturing and its rapid

Fire breaks out in flat at Hong Kong’s Tin Shui Wai,...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/13

A fire broke out in a flat at a public housing estate in Hong Kong’s Tin Shui Wai early on Saturday, leaving a man severely injured and forcing more than 200 residents to evacuate. Authorities received multiple calls at 3.43am from residents reporting the blaze at Tin Chak Estate, with occasional sounds of explosions. Firefighters rushed to the scene and rescued a man living in the flat. He was found conscious but later fell into a coma after being rushed to Tuen Mun Hospital. He sustained

China’s copper heartland vows to build US$28 billion...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/13

A key industrial hub in eastern China is launching a push to transform itself into one of the world’s top copper-smelting bases, aiming to forge stronger supply chains for the strategic metal as prices flirt with record highs. In an implementation plan released on Tuesday, the Shandong provincial government pledged to expand its copper industry, with the next two years seeing rapid advancements. The move comes as geopolitical tensions and the race for technological dominance shore up copper’s...

Towering traditions: Hong Kong’s centuries-old Kam...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/13

Once every decade, villagers in Kam Tin build a nearly 30-metre (100-foot) tall bamboo structure – large enough to hold almost half the capacity of the Hong Kong Coliseum – to stage rituals and Cantonese opera performances for an audience of residents, deities and spirits alike. The colossal structure, adorned with vibrant plaques and a flag, is the largest of its kind in Hong Kong and serves as the centrepiece of the HK$20 million (US$2.6 million) Jiao Festival organised by the indigenous

China’s fake name scandal sparks warnings about...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/13

Multiple documents on websites run by public institutions in China were found to feature fake names and people, a pattern state media warned could harm government credibility and provide a haven for corruption. The series of blunders unfolded when internet users on December 3 found that a tender document listed what appeared to be a fake judging panel, with the names of all five members coinciding with the first five entries on Baidu’s “10,000 Popular Chinese Names” archive. The proposal was...

Role reversal: Meta adopts Qwen as Chinese AI becomes...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/13

When US tech giant Meta Platforms released its flagship Llama family of artificial intelligence models in February 2023, they were open-sourced, a move that singled it out among global AI model developers at the time. That September, one of the many derivatives of Llama was announced: Alibaba Cloud’s Qwen. The first generation of Qwen adopted Llama’s training process and cited Meta's seminal research findings in its accompanying technical report. Out of deference, the Chinese researchers even...

How China is building a great green wall to protect...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/13

After decades of human activities and overgrazing, desertification has accelerated at an alarming speed in China, resulting in sandstorms, flooding and drought. The economic repercussions are potentially affecting more than 400 million people. In the past, Chinese kingdoms and empires erected the Great Wall to prevent steppe nomads from invading from the north. Now, the government is planting a whole new kind of wall to protect from encroaching deserts.

McDonald’s Hong Kong named Company of the Year at...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/13

McDonald’s Hong Kong was voted Company of the Year at the 2025 Business Awards organised by SCMP Live, a highlight for the company as it marks half a century of operating in the city. The restaurant chain’s CEO Randy Lai and chairman Zhang Yichen received the award from SCMP’s CEO Catherine So during a lunch ceremony in Hong Kong on Friday. The toned-down ceremony replaced the black-tie gala dinners that traditionally capped the annual awards since their establishment in 1990, as a sign of...

Korean man sues wife for ‘malicious abandonment’...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/13

A South Korean man sued his wife for “malicious abandonment” and filed for divorce after she refused to donate part of her liver to save him, sparking heated debate on Chinese social media. The couple, both in their early 30s, had been married for three years and were raising two daughters – a two-year-old and a newborn just one month old at the time of his diagnosis. Last winter, the husband was diagnosed with primary biliary cirrhosis, a rare liver disease, and doctors warned that without a...

Hong Kong inferno exposes regulatory silos, lax...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/13

Ambiguous rules, lax supervision and uncoordinated policies involving at least four departments are among some deep-rooted problems contributing to the inferno that killed 160 residents in Hong Kong, analysts have said, as the Post reviewed what went wrong. Some industry insiders also questioned whether housing authorities, who oversee a lesser-known independent checking unit, should have played a bigger role in supervising the renovation of Wang Fuk Court, a subsidised housing estate in Tai

Christine Choy, who made documentary on racist...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/12

Christine Choy, a trailblazer for Asian-Americans in independent film and whose documentary on the fatal beating of Vincent Chin was nominated for an Academy Award, has died. She was 73.Choy died on Sunday, according to a statement from JT Takagi, executive director of Third World Newsreel, a filmmaking collective Choy helped establish in the 1970s. No cause of death was given. “She was a prolific filmmaker who made significant films that helped form our Asian-American and American film...

US green tech retreat echoes mistake of China’s Qing...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/12

In 1865, when a British entrepreneur built a demonstration railroad near Beijing, Empress Dowager Cixi saw not progress but danger – of disruptions to feng shui, imperial graves and rural order – and had the tracks torn up. Two decades later, when a Chinese-built coal line threatened to steam too close to sacred grounds, Cixi’s solution was not innovation but regression. She ordered that the locomotive be replaced with horses. By clinging to tradition in the face of technological

Only true repentance from Japan can resolve East...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/12

During a trip home, I took my daughters to the Nanking massacre memorial hall. It is not an easy place to visit. In shadowy rooms, photographs of victims line the walls. The names of the dead stretch across black stone. In glass cases lie bones unearthed from mass graves. I wanted my children to learn history honestly, to understand what war does to people. I shared stories my grandma had told me: as she fled town, a bomb fell on a nearby street. One neighbour vanished. Only bits of her

King Charles shares ‘good news’ that his cancer...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/12

King Charles said on Friday that his doctors can reduce his treatment for cancer in the new year, describing the moment as a “blessing” and testament to remarkable medical advances. Charles, 77, was diagnosed with an unspecified form of cancer last February, and made the latest announcement in a televised broadcast as part of a national cancer awareness campaign in Britain. “I am able to share with you the good news that thanks to early diagnosis, effective intervention and adherence to

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