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 ...

A former top-ranking scientist in the Chinese military and one-time nuclear test site commander, Liu Guozhi, has been removed from the website of the countrys top national research institute. In 2016, Liu was named head of the Science and Technology Committee of the Central Military Commission Chinas top military decision-making and command body a ...

China has pledged to work with Southeast Asian countries on energy security as the war in the Middle East continued to take its toll on global oil and gas supplies. China stands ready to strengthen cooperation and coordination with Southeast Asian countries and jointly address energy security issues, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian told a ...

Europe woke on Thursday to another energy shock, as military attacks on critical infrastructure in Qatar and Iran sent oil and gas prices across the continent soaring to levels unseen since Russias invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The continents benchmark natural gas price, the Dutch TTF, climbed above 70 (US$80) per megawatt hour in Thursday morning trading ...

Hong Kong police have arrested 16 more people, including paralegals, over traffic accident compensation claims worth more than HK$3.6 million (US$459,290) tied to a wave of crash-for-cash scams. The suspects, 11 men and five women aged 28 to 65, included three paralegals at a law firm in Mong Kok that was raided last month, the force said on Thursday. The ...

Namita Joshi made a New Years resolution in January to tackle one of her long-standing problems: being overweight. A key part of her slimming journey is her weekly weight-loss injections. While the 29-year-old interior designer has made changes to her diet and increased her workouts, she said the medication has helped her lose up to 6kg (13 pounds) in the ...

With the US-Israel war on Iran entering its third week, the world faces the risk of a more severe oil shock as military strikes expand to major energy infrastructure, heightening fears of a prolonged conflict. In this explainer, the South China Morning Post examines the latest developments and factors driving oil price volatility and assesses the potential ...

Grammy-nominated rapper Afroman won a defamation lawsuit filed by seven Ohio sheriffs deputies who sued him over music videos in which he used home security footage to mock their raid of his home. We did it, America! Yeah, we did it! Freedom of speech! Right on! Right on! the 51-year-old rapper, born Joseph Foreman, shouted outside the courthouse after the ...

The ripple effects of the war in the Middle East are hitting home hard for Filipino jeepney driver Toni Prado, whose daily earnings have been gutted by soaring fuel prices. He was one of thousands of jeepney drivers who took to the streets across the country on Thursday to protest a more than doubling of local diesel prices after global oil prices surged ...

A recession mindset took hold among global investors after strikes on energy infrastructure in the Middle East heightened fears that disruption to production and distribution would keep oil prices elevated for longer, darkening the global economic outlook. Crude prices staged a comeback on Thursday after Iran attacked a liquefied petroleum gas site in Qatar ...

Hong Kongs market regulator will soon begin inspection of investment banks to assess their roles as sponsors of listing candidates, in its latest effort to uphold the quality of new listings amid a booming market. The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) said the inspection would focus on whether banks had complied with its January circular, which ...

Shanghai certified 30 new regional headquarters of multinational corporations and 15 research and development centres funded by overseas entities on Wednesday a sign of continued interest in the Chinese financial hub despite an overall decline in the countrys foreign direct investment (FDI). Of the companies whose headquarters and R&D centres were ...

Growing disinformation in the Philippines and distrust in authorities could have led to a sharp drop in public support, particularly among Gen Z Filipinos, for the International Criminal Courts (ICC) proceedings against former president Rodrigo Duterte and his deadly war on drugs. Only 32 per cent of Filipino respondents of different age groups approved the ...

European Union experts have arrived in Ukraine to assess the condition of the Druzhba oil pipeline, state energy firm Naftogaz said, after its closure in January caused a row with Hungary that is blocking an EU loan to Kyiv. The EU last week proposed sending a mission to inspect the pipeline. Ukraine later said it had accepted the EU offer of technical ...

Long before calorie counting and healthy diets, women in ancient China were already under intense pressure to stay slim, even swallowing cacti or silk in pursuit of what was perceived as perfection. Many assume ancient Chinese women prized fuller figures, but the reality was more nuanced. The Tang dynasty (618907) is often cited as the classic example, ...

Recent mishaps involving the USS Gerald R. Ford suggest Americas military is overstretched and its industrial base has been weakened, according to Chinese analysts. The warship the worlds most advanced nuclear-powered aircraft carrier has been supporting the US operation against Iran in the Red Sea. But US media reported this week that it would head to ...

Sir Anthony Mason, one of Hong Kongs first and greatest justices to sit on our Court of Final Appeal, passed away on Tuesday at the age of 100. Not only was he a towering jurist in the common law world, but his contribution to Hong Kongs legal system, particularly in its formative post-1997 years, was both profound and enduring. Sir Anthony served on the ...

Tokyos meteorologists declared the start of the much-loved cherry blossom season in the Japanese capital on Thursday, as residents prepare to host outdoor picnics under dazzling floral displays. The cherry season for Tokyo starts when the official sample tree at Yasukuni Shrine opens at least five flowers. Today, the blooming of the Somei Yoshino cherry ...

CK Hutchison Holdings, one of the flagship companies owned by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shings family, reported a 7 per cent increase in underlying profit for 2025, as the company predicted its businesses would face new and perhaps unforeseen challenges in 2026. The ports-to-telecoms conglomerate said on Thursday that underlying profit reached HK$22.3 ...

As war rages in the Middle East thousands of miles from the Philippines, a senior military official has urged Manila to reflect on its own vulnerabilities, stressing that military modernisation should not be mere lip service. Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jnr earlier this week called on the country to strengthen its air defences, particularly systems ...

Beijing has accused Taiwanese leader William Lai Ching-te of glorifying Japanese colonial rule in a recent speech. The Peoples Liberation Army also stepped up the number of sorties by aircraft around the island after Lai made the comments on Saturday at an event to mark the 30th anniversary of Taiwans first direct elections. Lai, from the ...