European Union leaders failed to convince Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Thursday to lift his blockade on a 90 billion (US$103 billion) EU loan to help Ukraine keep up its fight against Russias invasion. After a summit in Brussels, several leaders voiced deep frustration with Orban, who has cited a dispute over a war-damaged pipeline to justify ...

A US intelligence assessment warning of a potential threat from Pakistans prospective intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) has been challenged by nuclear non-proliferation experts, who say Islamabads defence programme is focused on regional deterrence rather than targeting the American homeland. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told ...

This story has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMPs journalism by subscribing. A public evidential hearing into a devastating fire that engulfed a residential complex in Hong Kong and killed 168 people enters its second day on Friday. Victor Dawes SC, lead barrister for an independent judge-led ...

By the time this column appears, the world will feel very different from when my previous column appeared earlier this month. In just days, a conflict that some in Washington seemed to believe would quickly topple Irans leadership has instead become a potentially long and uncertain war, with little clarity on how or when it will end. The front lines will ...

A Chinese woman who was abandoned in a toilet as a newborn by her grandfather has reunited with her biological parents 28 years after being adopted by a Dutch couple. Hong Yangli, 28, was born into a rural family in Nanchang, Jiangxi province, central China, as the third child, the mainland media outlet Daxiang News reported. Her mother, Yang Xiaoying, said ...

China has followed last years secretive high-orbit satellite-to-satellite refuelling test with another in-orbit servicing mission that is aimed at advancing docking and refuelling technologies, while also testing ways to speed up the disposal of satellites at the end of their usefulness. Hukeda-2, which lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in ...

Hong Kongs Baptist University placed a big bet when it told the government in 2023 that it was interested in moving its campus from the upmarket Kowloon Tong residential area to a proposed new academic town near the mainland Chinese border. The 70-year-old universitys move to the Northern Metropolis megaproject will mean giving up a prime site for a spot ...

Prime office vacancy rates in Hong Kongs main business district dropped to single digits for the first time in 26 months, lifting overall rents in the citys struggling office property market, according to JLL. The vacancy rate in Central for premium offices fell to 9.9 per cent in February from 10.1 per cent the previous month, the property consultancy ...

South Korea finds itself boxed in as Tehran moves to turn the Strait of Hormuz into a bargaining chip amid the US-Israeli war on Iran, leaving Seoul caught between its dependence on Middle East oil and its unwillingness to antagonise Washington. Economists note that South Korea relies on Washingtons security umbrella to deter threats from nuclear-armed ...

Irans missile and drone stockpiles will last another two or three months as US-Israeli strikes continue, while the US military is also depleting its interceptors, Chinese analysts have noted. However, how long the war lasts would depend less on stockpiles alone than on the effectiveness of new US deployments and President Donald Trumps political calculus, ...

My grandmother kept her banknotes under the mattress. Even after savings accounts became common and the money my siblings and I gave her began to accumulate, she still preferred to hide cash away at home. She loved saving and hated spending. I thought of her when Chinas leaders again emphasised the need to boost domestic consumption at this years two ...

Iran no longer has the capacity to enrich uranium or make ballistic missiles after 20 days of US-Israeli air attacks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a news conference on Thursday. We are winning, and Iran is being decimated, Netanyahu said, noting that Irans missile and drone arsenal is being massively degraded and will be destroyed. What ...

Allies of exiled Iranian royal Reza Pahlavi are signalling a potential reset in Tehrans ties with China and Russia, even as the 65-year-old increasingly positions himself as a central figure in Irans political future a claim that contrasts with Washingtons more cautious stance. Speaking at a media briefing in Washington on Thursday, Pahlavis chief of ...

US crypto advocates have increasingly pointed to competition with Chinas new interest-bearing e-CNY to demand legislative clarity on stablecoin yields, but China is charting a completely different course for the future of digital money, experts said. The worlds two largest economies are not so much competing in digital assets as they are pursuing very ...

A US F-35 fighter aircraft was hit by suspected Iranian fire and had to make an emergency landing on Thursday. This would be the first time Iran has hit one of the US$100 million planes since the US and Israel launched their attack on the country on February 28, according to CNN, which first reported the incident. The F-35 was flying a combat mission over ...

Contractors for a renovation project at the site of Hong Kongs deadliest fire in decades got away with covering up the use of substandard material because of systemic defects in government supervision, a public inquiry into the blaze that claimed 168 lives has heard. In the first of a series of evidential hearings, a judge-led independent committee was told ...

About two out of every five professionals in China expect no pay rise this year after more than half missed out on one last year, with both figures higher than the Asian average, according to survey data gathered by a recruiting firm a trend suggesting further pessimism among an already dissatisfied workforce. London-based recruitment firm Hays found that ...

A pro-Kremlin figure who unexpectedly denounced Russian President Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine in a social media post this week that went viral has been placed in a psychiatric facility, Russian media reported on Thursday. Ilya Remeslo made a career denouncing Putins critics until he became one himself, posting a manifesto late on Tuesday to his ...

Hong Kong is ready to discuss land, tax incentives and financial support for businesses setting up in the Northern Metropolis, the finance chief has told a trade seminar in Beijing, stressing a flexible and innovative approach will be taken with developing the megaproject. Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po on Thursday also met Xia Baolong, Beijings point ...

For decades, the US security umbrella was the bedrock underpinning the Gulf states prosperity and stability. Today, Iranian missiles and drones have paralysed the Strait of Hormuz and hit civilian airports, ports, hotels and refineries across every Gulf country, despite thousands of American troops and advanced interceptors on the ground. The armed conflict ...

Hong Kong conglomerate CK Hutchison has said it will pursue all available legal remedies through both national and international proceedings to resolve a dispute over its two Panama Canal ports which were seized by authorities in February. Amid the widening conflict in the Middle East which could further complicate its multibillion-dollar global ports sale, ...

A firefighter killed in Hong Kongs deadliest blaze in decades may have entered the wrong building amid the initial chaos at the scene and fallen from a height, the first day of a public hearing into the inferno has heard. More details surrounding the death of 37-year-old Ho Wai-ho, among the first batch of firefighters sent to tackle the blaze, emerged as ...

Two men appeared in a London court on Thursday accused of being tasked by Iran to carry out hostile surveillance on the Israeli embassy, Britains oldest synagogue and other Jewish targets. Nematollah Shahsavani, 40, a dual Iranian-British national, and Alireza Farasati, an Iranian national, 22, are accused of being involved in gathering information and ...

Hong Kong customs officers have arrested five people and seized 2,500 pairs of suspected counterfeit eyewear worth about HK$2.2 million (US$280,680) in a citywide operation. Officers from the Customs and Excise Department carried out the special enforcement action on Tuesday and Wednesday, targeting the sale of counterfeit goods. Officers raided five retail ...

Chinas central bank named the continued stability of the countrys capital markets as a priority for 2026, a goal taking on greater significance as global markets are tested by the reverberations of the escalating US-Israel war on Iran. The Peoples Bank of China designated the stability of stock, bond and foreign exchange markets as one of its major tasks ...