Hong Kong rat catchers have reported a 40 per cent year-on-year surge in the number of live rodents trapped, with about 89,600 captured in 2024, helped by AI-powered surveillance technology. The Food and Environmental Hygiene Department introduced thermal imaging cameras equipped with artificial intelligence (AI) to track rodent activity last year, ...

The evolving dynamics between China and India, the worlds most populous nations and rising economic powers, are at a critical juncture. Recent developments have shown encouraging signs in bilateral relations, with both sides expressing a willingness to re-engage constructively. Foreign Minister Wang Yi recently visited New Delhi, where he met Prime Minister ...

The citys finance chief has pledged to speed up plans to establish a trade office in the Saudi Arabian capital, Riyadh, stressing the need for Hong Kong to further tap Middle Eastern investors seeking to diversify outside the US and Europe because of geopolitical risks. Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po also noted on his weekly blog on Sunday that flights ...

A driver in China who spotted a white pillow scrawled with the emergency number 110 in blood during a food delivery has helped rescue a woman who was trapped in her bedroom for 30 hours without food or water. The incident unfolded on August 12, in Leshan, Sichuan province, southwestern China. The delivery driver surnamed Zhang, a university student working ...

Popular Chinese actress Fan Bingbing, who has been conferred the Darjah Pangkuan Seri Melaka (DPSM), has pledged to continue promoting the historic Malaysian city to global tourists. I will be here in Melaka next month to promote tourism and will travel here frequently, she said after receiving the honorary award, which carries the title datuk, similar to a ...

Four people remained missing on Sunday after a railway bridge collapsed in the northwestern Chinese province of Qinghai, killing 12 people. The central government has sent a task force to investigate the failure, which occurred on a section over the Yellow River at about 3am on Friday, according to state broadcaster CCTV. The report said 16 workers were on ...

Hong Kongs treasury chief has dismissed calls to set up a separate commission of inquiry to investigate officials roles in a bottled water procurement scandal, arguing that the governments auditors will be able to identify lapses in a professional and independent manner. Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Christopher Hui Ching-yu, the head of ...

Taiwans Quanta and HTC are seen as possible contract manufacturers for Googles imminent AI glasses, as such products are expected to emerge as essential mobile devices that will drive rapid expansion across the industry. Google is rumoured to have completed development of its first artificial intelligence-enabled glasses, which are reportedly to be made in ...

A court in China will hear a case involving a 17-year-old girl accused of selling her 19-year-old boyfriend to a scam hub in Myanmar for 100,000 yuan (US$14,000). The man, known as Huang, was released by the scam ring at the end of June after his family paid 350,000 yuan (US$48,000). He was held there for nearly four months, during which time he received ...

A team led by the Shanghai Museum will embark on a joint archaeological research project with Egypt in October at the Sekhmet Temple ruins, a complex on the west bank of the Nile River. The temple is part of the ancient Memphis archaeological site dating back over 5,100 years, at a site that was then the capital of ancient Egypt and the home of the god ...

A plan to build hundreds of luxury villas on an island in Indonesias Komodo National Park has sparked fierce backlash from environmentalists and residents over concerns that it could devastate the fragile ecosystem of the Unesco-listed sanctuary the only place on Earth where Komodo dragons roam wild. The project, backed by a government-linked developer, ...

British Airways remains committed to the Hong Kong and mainland Chinese markets despite reducing its service to the city and halting flights to Beijing, its customer chief has said, stressing that the carrier will revisit its schedules once geopolitical issues change. In an interview with the Post, chief customer officer Calum Laming emphasised that the ...

Chinas top envoy in Washington has rejected suggestions that Chinese ownership of US farmland is a national security threat, saying such claims are completely unfounded. Addressing a soybean industry event in Washington on Friday, Xie Feng, the Chinese ambassador to the United States, said Chinese investors owned less than 0.03 per cent of the total ...

Natos easternmost member states are grappling with a sharp rise in radio and satellite interference, with Baltic governments accusing Russia of positioning equipment for electronic warfare close to their borders. Since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Baltic Sea region has registered widespread signal ...

An Israeli hospital that has achieved a breakthrough in cultivating kidneys in laboratories is seeking funding, including from China, to advance into clinical trials, according to the projects lead researcher. Sheba Medical Centre, in collaboration with Tel Aviv University, said it had successfully grown a synthetic 3D organ culture, or organoid, that was ...

Hong Kong police are investigating whether a fire that led to a womans death in her flat on Sunday morning is linked to her smoking. Police said they had received a call around 7.43am from a security officer at Hoi Tat Estate in Cheung Sha Wan that smoke was emanating from one of the buildings units. Firefighters were deployed to the scene to extinguish the ...

This story has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMPs journalism by subscribing. New users who download our updated app get a seven-day free trial. All typhoon signals will be cancelled at 12.10pm on Sunday as Tropical Cyclone Kajiki moves further away from Hong Kong, according to the citys weather ...

A unit of Taiwanese consumer electronics giant Asus is developing a supercomputer, powered by Nvidia chips, that is expected to boost the islands computing capacity by at least 50 per cent, according to a senior executive. That infrastructure, a collaboration between Taiwan AI Cloud and the islands National Centre for High-Performance Computing, is expected ...

For decades, both New Zealand and Australia have been pretty slack on military spending, Wellingtons defence minister recently conceded in a striking admission that analysts say was aimed as much at Washington as at a sceptical public at home. Judith Collins told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on August 14 that she sympathised with the United ...

For Mariana Zobel de Ayala, the chance to help develop the Philippines tourism industry by boosting Ayala Lands investments in retail and hotel properties could not have come at a better time. As the senior vice-president for leasing and hospitality of one of the largest developers in the Philippines, Zobel de Ayala believes tourism will be a major driver ...

From public transport to postal services, the city of Beijing has tightened security in multiple ways for a rare military parade on September 3 celebrating a World War II triumph for China that will draw state leaders from around the world. The parade is among events that will mark the 80th anniversary of Chinas victory in the war of resistance against ...

More than 180 years after their first development, the historic cores on Hong Kong Island Central, Sheung Wan and Wan Chai and in Kowloon Yau Ma Tei, Tsim Sha Tsui and Mong Kok face an acute urban crisis. Once-vibrant neighbourhoods have become densely packed relics defined by ageing buildings, congested streets, poor sanitation and rising urban heat ...

A Singaporean woman who met an Italian man on the dating app Tinder later agreed to travel with him to Qatar via Dubai, thinking he was a wealthy man who wanted to marry her. However, she was later allegedly told that she needed to show US$10,000 as proof of funds before she could enter Qatar. According to the prosecution, the Italian man arranged for her ...

A shocking video which shows a mother calmly taking her toddler daughter to the hospital with a fruit knife lodged in the childs head has stunned social media. The incident came to light on August 15 when a netizen posted a video showing a mother and her three-year-old daughter walking as if nothing had happened into Dongchuan Peoples Hospital in Kunming, ...

Chinese smartphone maker Vivo unveiled a mixed-reality headset that resembles Apples Vision Pro in name, design and interface, but weighs about 35 per cent less and is likely to cost one third as much. The Vivo Vision is similar to the Apple gadget that is controlled with intuitive eye tracking and hand gestures, according to information published on Vivos ...