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News - South China Morning Post

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South Korean president set to visit China next month,...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/27

Lee Jae-myung is set to become the first sitting South Korean president to travel to China since 2019 with a visit scheduled for early January. Analysts said Lee was expected to engage Beijing on security issues, including North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and the enforcement of international sanctions, while seeking to build on his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in October. Neither side has confirmed the visit, but preparations are under way, highlighted by a recent strategic...

Singapore in 2025: election fever, courtroom drama,...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/27

Singapore saw plenty of drama unfold this year, from pickleball courts to the Supreme Court. The city state was gripped by election fever in May, when the People’s Action Party maintained its dominance at the polls. On the trade front, Washington’s imposition of a 10 per cent tariff on Singapore elicited a strong reaction from Prime Minister Lawrence Wong. The jury is still out on whether US President Donald Trump would introduce levies on pharmaceuticals and semiconductors, which could

2 killed in Japan as 50-vehicle pile-up leads to...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/27

A massive crash in snowy weather killed two people and injured 26 on an expressway in Japan late on Friday as the country kicked off its end-of-the-year holiday season. The Gunma prefectural highway police said on Saturday that the pile-up on the Kan-etsu Expressway started with a collision between two trucks in the town of Minakami, about 160km (100 miles) northwest of Tokyo. A 77-year-old woman from Tokyo died, while a body was found in the driver’s seat of a large truck, police said. Out

Hong Kong’s Operation Santa Claus strengthened by...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/27

Morgan Stanley’s fundraising drive for Operation Santa Claus (OSC) has kept the firm on course to remain the campaign’s top corporate supporter for the ninth consecutive year, extending a partnership of nearly three decades that has engaged employees across divisions, seniority levels and borders. According to Gokul Laroia, CEO of Asia at Morgan Stanley, the global financial services firm’s enduring support for OSC reflected its long-term commitment to giving back to the community, as...

Shorter quarantine time drives rise in pet imports...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/27

Hong Kong has seen an increase in applications to import pets after the city cut the quarantine period for cats and dogs from mainland China from 120 to 30 days. The Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD) also said that a greater number of quarantine units at its new Kai Tak complex had further reduced waiting times for pet owners relocating to Hong Kong and hoping to bring their animals with them. The department said it received 291 applications for pet quarantine in the...

Safety fears as Japan prepares to restart nuclear...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/27

Campaigners against nuclear energy have condemned Japan’s decision to resume operations at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa power plant, claiming that the facility will be unable to withstand a major earthquake as it was “built on tofu”. Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco), the operator of the Niigata prefecture plant, on Wednesday applied for a final examination of the facility to the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA). Approval is likely to be a formality as the prefectural assembly already gave the nod

Trump says Ukraine’s Zelensky ‘doesn’t have anything...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/27

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he expects to meet US President Donald Trump in Florida on Sunday in pursuit of a deal to end Russia’s nearly four-year invasion, though the latest comments from Moscow raise doubts about how close a final agreement really is. Zelensky told reporters on Friday that he would discuss sensitive issues with Trump including the future of the Donbas region in Ukraine’s east and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. The Ukrainian leader said he plans to...

China warns of foreign forces using AI deepfakes to...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/27

Foreign forces have used deepfakes and other artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to create public panic and obtain sensitive information, posing a threat to China’s national security, the country’s top intelligence agency has warned. Deepfake technology, which uses AI’s deep learning algorithms to simulate and forge images, audio and video, could be abused or used maliciously to endanger individual legal rights, social stability and national security, the Ministry of State Security

Genomic sequencing puts Hong Kong at forefront of...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/27

Genomic sequencing has helped Hong Kong identify the right treatments for cancer patients more quickly, according to an expert who also suggested that the city could be a “super-linker” between mainland China and the rest of the world in drug development. Aya El Helali, a clinician-scientist in medical oncology at the University of Hong Kong, praised how collaboration within the Greater Bay Area had opened up opportunities to run clinical trials faster and at lower costs – factors that

China teacher suspended for cursing at noisy pupils,...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/27

A primary teacher in China has been suspended from her job for cursing at “naughty” pupils and saying that she hoped they would all get the flu. The outburst appeared in a chat group and has gone viral online. The teacher, surnamed Li, is a music tutor at Gaoxin District Experimental School in Tongchuan, Shaanxi province, northwestern China, Jiupai News reported. Her comments in a matchmaking chat group with 100 members caused outrage. “The students are so naughty and so noisy. I feel sorry

Greater ambition: how Hong Kong and bay area...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/27

Wheels were turning in more ways than one at a packed Hong Kong Velodrome last month when cyclist Ceci Lee Sze-wing rode to her third gold medal of the 15th National Games. Roared on by home spectators, it symbolised the successful realisation of the decision for the city to co-host the Games alongside Guangdong and Macau, its partners under the Greater Bay Area development plan. It created a scene officials hope to see replicated on an even bigger scale: historic achievements in front of...

‘Lost my future’: Myanmar’s ‘charade’ election dims...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/27

Taya says her life was looking up as Myanmar crept out from decades of isolation.She had a job in marketing, enough money to shop in Yangon’s new malls and fuel her quiet dreams of opening a small bakery, as her generation enjoyed unprecedented economic and personal freedoms. But that was before Myanmar’s short-lived experiment with greater democracy ended in a coup in 2021. With the military once more in charge, the economy is in free fall, and inflation has surged to well over 20 per cent....

Trump says he ordered Nigeria strike delayed by a day...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/26

US President ‌Donald Trump said on Friday that a US military strike targeting Islamic State militants in Nigeria was originally supposed to take place on Wednesday but he ordered it delayed by a day. “They were going to ‍do it earlier,” Trump told Politico in an ‌interview. “And I ⁠said, ‘nope, let’s give a Christmas present’. … They didn’t think that was coming but we hit them hard. ‌Every camp got decimated.” Thursday’s strikes marked a major escalation in an offensive that the West African...

Chinese chipmaker CXMT in crosshairs of South Korean...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/26

Prosecutors in South Korea have indicted 10 people, including former Samsung Electronics executives, for allegedly leaking the company’s technology to Chinese chipmaker ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT). The Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office on Tuesday said five people had been arrested, including a former Samsung executive who allegedly recruited key personnel and leaked the company’s proprietary technology to CXMT, according to a report by Yonhap News Agency. They face charges

The Cure guitarist and keyboard player Perry Bamonte...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/26

The Cure guitarist and keyboard player Perry Bamonte has died aged 65, the legendary British dark rock band announced on Friday. Bamonte, who became a full member of The Cure in 1990, “passed away after a short illness at home over Christmas”, according to a statement published on the band’s website. “It is with enormous sadness that we confirm the death of our great friend and bandmate Perry Bamonte,” it said. “Quiet, intensive, intuitive, constant and hugely creative, ‘Teddy’ was a warm...

Wild goose chase? France works to rouse China’s...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/26

From luxury handbags to vintage Bordeaux, China’s consumers have long associated French products with fine living. Now, France aims to hook the country’s expanding middle class on another local speciality: foie gras. China placed tight restrictions on imports of the iconic French goose liver pate amid Europe’s bird flu epidemic, but there are signs that things could change, with Beijing recently vowing to get more produce “from French farms to Chinese tables”. Paris and Beijing also signed a...

Police arrest suspect after man stabs 3 women in...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/26

French police on Friday arrested a man suspected of stabbing three women in the Paris Metro as the capital’s end-of-year festivities were in full swing, prosecutors said. The three victims were attacked at three different locations along the Line 3 Metro track that runs across central Paris, the RATP authority that runs the transit service said. An Agence France-Presse journalist at the Republique station saw a security team treating a woman who had been wounded in the leg and appeared to be

Hong Kong should offer an international DSE to boost...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/26

Interest in Hong Kong’s Diploma of Secondary Education has increased steadily in recent years. The government is committed to strengthening the city’s role as an international education hub, not just in tertiary education but also in basic education. Following this directive, the Education Bureau recently invited all Direct Subsidy Scheme schools to apply to increase their intake of non-local students. Hong Kong’s education sector offers biliteracy and trilingualism, and provides a broader

US airlines cancel more than 1,000 flights due to...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/26

Airlines in the United States have cancelled or ‌delayed thousands of flights on Friday, according to flight tracking website ‍FlightAware, due to winter storm Devin during peak holiday travel. A total of 1,382 flights were cancelled and 4,685 delayed on Friday afternoon, the website said. The National Weather Service (NWS) predicted snowfall across the upper Great Lakes region through the day, with the storm’s focus moving towards the northeast. “Road conditions will be treacherous for those...

Harvey Weinstein accuser Kaja Sokola is being sued...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/26

Two sisters testified at Harvey Weinstein’s most recent criminal trial. Kaja Sokola accused the disgraced movie mogul of sexual assault. Ewa Sokola was called as a witness to boost her claims but ultimately ended up helping the defence. Now, Ewa Sokola is suing Kaja for defamation, alleging in a lawsuit filed on Tuesday in Manhattan federal court that the psychotherapist and ex-model’s public remarks amount to libel and are damaging Ewa’s reputation and business as a cardiologist in

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