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France’s Emmanuel Macron to meet Xi Jinping during...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/11/26

French President Emmanuel Macron will visit China next week and meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping, the Élysée Palace said in a statement on Wednesday.The three-day visit is scheduled to begin on December 3, with two stops in Beijing and Chengdu, according to the statement. “On this occasion, major issues relating to the strategic partnership between France and China will be addressed, as well as several major international matters and areas of cooperation aimed at tackling the global...

South Korea’s largest satellite launched on Nuri rocket

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/11/26

South Korea launched its largest satellite yet on its nationally developed space rocket early on Thursday, the fourth of six planned launches through 2027. The three-stage Nuri rocket lifted off from the country’s spaceport on an island off the southwestern coastal county of Goheung. Aerospace officials said the rocket placed a 516kg (1,137-pound) science satellite and 12 microsatellites into a target orbit about 600km (372 miles) above Earth. The Korea Aerospace Administration was expected

Poor fire retardance, alleged worker smoking among...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/11/26

Even as the devastating fire in Tai Po raged into the night, theories swirled around the possible causes of one of Hong Kong’s deadliest blazes in recent decades, with experts and residents suggesting that a combination of factors may have been involved. Authorities vowed to investigate the cause of the deadly No 5 fire, classified as posing the highest threat level, which claimed at least 36 lives, including a firefighter, and left 29 hospitalised. Another 279 others remain

Army officers say they have seized power in...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/11/26

A group of army officers said they had seized power in coup-prone Guinea-Bissau on Wednesday, on the eve of the expected announcement of results from a hotly contested presidential election. In a statement read on state television, the army officers said they had deposed President Umaro Sissoco Embalo, suspended the electoral process, shut borders and would enforce a curfew. Shortly after, Embalo told France 24 TV: “I have been deposed.” They said they had formed “The High Military Command

New prosecutor drops charges against Trump in Georgia...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/11/26

A judge on Wednesday dismissed the Georgia election interference case against US President Donald Trump and others after the prosecutor who recently took over the case said he would not pursue the charges. Pete Skandalakis, the executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, took over the case last month from Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who was removed over an “appearance of impropriety” created by a romantic relationship with the special prosecutor she...

At least 36 dead as huge fire rips through Hong Kong...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/11/26

At least 36 people including a firefighter were killed and 279 are still missing after a ferocious blaze ravaged a housing estate in Tai Po yesterday, as scorching flames engulfed bamboo scaffolding and ripped through seven residential blocks. Some 29 people were hospitalised, with seven in a critical condition, a grim-looking Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu reported in an early morning conference at Prince of Wales Hospital in Sha Tin while distraught families, fearing the worst, awaited

Trump, 79, hits back at report on his energy and health

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/11/26

US President Donald Trump raged on Wednesday at a New York Times report that focused on his age and growing signs of fatigue, insisting that he is full of energy and calling the woman author of the article “ugly”. “I have never worked so hard in my life. Yet despite all of this, the Radical Left Lunatics in the soon to fold Times did a hit piece on me that I am perhaps losing my Energy, despite facts that show the exact opposite,” the 79-year-old Republican posted on social media. Trump is

Hong Kong leader John Lee pays tribute to firefighter...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/11/26

Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu and top officials expressed sorrow over the death of a firefighter killed while battling a blaze at a Tai Po estate, paying tribute to his “gallantry and selfless devotion to duty”. Ho Wai-ho, 37, died while tackling the blaze at one of the blocks of Wang Fuk Court in Tai Po. The fire broke out on Wednesday and spread rapidly to other towers in the estate. Director of Fire Services Andy Yeung Yan-kin said Ho, from Sha Tin Fire Station, arrived at the...

China waits in the wings for opportunity as Trump...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/11/26

While Beijing has remained largely offstage during US President Donald Trump’s latest push to end the war in Ukraine, China still sees significant stakes in how any peace deal could reshape its strategic environment – from the global balance of power to post-war reconstruction opportunities, according to observers. A Trump-brokered peace plan to end the nearly four-year war, first reported last week, remains fluid, but the proposed settlement has reportedly been reduced to 19 points after the...

Accountability test for Philippines’ Marcos family as...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/11/26

A former prominent lawmaker now in hiding has released new videos accusing Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr’s family of orchestrating massive corruption, escalating a scandal that is fast becoming a test of accountability for one of Southeast Asia’s most politically influential dynasties. Observers told This Week in Asia that although Zaldy Co’s allegations remained unverified and required rigorous fact-checking, they struck at the core of a system where budget power, patronage and...

Hong Kong’s beloved Ding How noodle brand to cease...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/11/26

Hong Kong instant noodle brand Ding How, which has long been served in local cha chaan tengs, will cease operations next month after 57 years. Kam Yuen Food Company announced the news online on Wednesday, immediately drawing comments from scores of internet users who lamented the loss of another piece of Hong Kong’s collective memory. “We have decided to cease the operation in December this year after thorough consideration,” the company said on its social media. “We want to extend our

Ex-president Sarkozy’s conviction upheld by France’s...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/11/26

France’s top court on Wednesday upheld Nicolas Sarkozy’s conviction for illegal campaign financing of his re-election bid in 2012 in another blow to France’s former president’s legacy and reputation. The decision by the Court of Cassation makes definitive Sarkozy’s conviction to a year in prison, half of it suspended, for fraudulently overspending on the failed campaign. Under French law, the sentence can be served at home, monitored with an electronic bracelet or other requirements set by a...

How Cleopatra’s bath loofah may help PLA jets to...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/11/26

Over 2,000 years ago, in a secluded bath chamber along the banks of the Nile, Queen Cleopatra of Egypt may have reached for an unlikely luxury: a fibrous, spongelike gourd – the loofah. This porous plant was prized by ancient Egyptian royalty as a natural exfoliant, a symbol of purity and refinement. Light as a feather, yet strong and intricately structured, the loofah scrubbed away impurities – both physical and spiritual – in rituals that blended hygiene with holiness. Today, this

UK’s Reeves unveils tax plan amid embarrassing budget...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/11/26

Britain’s unpopular centre-left Labour government sought to seize the political narrative on Wednesday with a tax-raising budget that it hopes will boost economic growth by fostering a stable debt outlook, reduce child poverty and ease cost-of-living pressures. But the entire contents of the budget were leaked half an hour before Treasury chief Rachel Reeves delivered the budget statement in the House of Commons, in a sign of the chaos that has engulfed the government during weeks of mixed...

How some Chinese exporters benefit from US...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/11/26

The growing influence of stablecoins is beginning to reshape how some Chinese firms conduct cross-border settlements. In this explainer, the Post outlines four roles that US dollar-backed stablecoins play in China’s overseas trade, based on a recent analysis by Zou Chuanwei, the president of the Jiangsu Jinke Research Institute on Digital and Technology Finance, published in Tsinghua Financial Review. How are Chinese traders using US dollar-backed stablecoins? First, some overseas importers

China’s private defence firms; Beijing sets yuan fix:...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/11/26

Catch up on some of SCMP’s biggest China stories of the day. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. China’s private defence companies see opportunities amid growing conflicts Escalating global conflicts could create opportunities for China’s private defence companies as customers, both at home and abroad, seek affordable and reliable military equipment, according to industry insiders. 2. Why China’s space sector is grabbing attention – including from

Beijing demands clarity from Japan on one-China...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/11/26

Beijing intensified its pressure on Tokyo and demanded a clear declaration of its stance on the one-China principle as the two countries continued to clash on Wednesday over Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comments on Taiwan. On Tuesday, the Japanese cabinet adopted a written response to a lawmaker’s question about Takaichi’s remarks, noting that they “do not change the government’s consistent position”. Such statements were “far from enough”, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao...

Average waiting time for a public rental flat in Hong...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/11/26

Hong Kong’s average waiting time for public rental housing rose to 5.5 years as of September, despite more flats being allocated, with authorities attributing the marginal rise to longer waits for homes in urban districts. The Housing Bureau said on Wednesday that the latest waiting time for general applicants – family or elderly households – in the past 12 months was slightly higher than the 5.4 years recorded at the end of June. Between July and September, 5,600 general applicants were...

AI scaling hasn’t reached a dead end yet, Chinese...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/11/26

There remains considerable potential to enhance artificial intelligence models by scaling up computing power and data, according to Yao Shunyu, a senior research scientist at Google DeepMind and former researcher at US AI start-up Anthropic. Amid heated discussions in the AI community about the future of scaling – the process of increasing computational resources and training data to develop better AI models – Yao said the method was still expected to yield results for at least a year “until

How AI, quantum and space technologies will define...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/11/26

History rarely announces its turning points. More often, we wake up to find that the world we assumed was fixed has begun to shift beneath our feet. That is happening now. Artificial intelligence, quantum technologies and space infrastructure are advancing at a pace that stretches our political instincts – even our imagination. Each is transformative on its own. Together, they are becoming the new architecture of global power, an engine that will determine which nations shape the century

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