Military escorts to protect tankers in the Strait of Hormuz are not a sustainable solution, according to the International Maritime Organisation (IMO). It reduces the risk, but the risk is still there, IMO Secretary General Arsenio Dominguez told the Financial Times. He said that a military deployment was not a long-term or sustainable solution. US ...

An independent committee set up to investigate Hong Kongs deadliest fire in decades has named 14 members of Wang Fuk Courts former owners corporation management group and seven residents as involved parties to give evidence at its hearings. The seven were among a list of 37 involved parties published on Tuesday by the committee ahead of the first of eight ...

Jiang Chaoliang, Communist Party chief of Hubei when Covid-19 first hit the province and a former prominent banker, has been indicted for accepting an especially huge amount of bribes starting in the 1990s. The investigation into his case, first announced in February last year, has closed, and the Nanjing Municipal Peoples Procuratorate has filed a public ...

The redeployment of US military assets from the Asia-Pacific to the Middle East has split security analysts, with some arguing that any strategic damage is largely psychological while others warn of a real and measurable gap opening in the regions defences. More than 2,000 marines and at least one amphibious assault ship have begun moving from Japan towards ...

Not only was he punched repeatedly by a peer, a Malaysian student at a secondary school in Kuching, Sarawak, was caned and forced to write a note admitting his mistake, China Press reported. Angered at how the case was handled, the boys mother shared the incident on social media and lodged a police report. The incident took place last Thursday when another ...

Hong Kongs conservation authorities captured eight wild boars in Wong Tai Sin on Tuesday following a report from residents. Police said staff from the Agricultural, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD) staff tranquillised the animals two large boars and six smaller ones before removing them. The force received a report at 10.07am of several wild ...

Even before the war in Iran sparked a surge in energy prices, Malaysia stood out from its Southeast Asian peers as the new-found darling of global investors. A rare stretch of political stability and investments in higher-value manufacturing and data centres lifted Malaysias appeal as some of its neighbours grappled with leadership changes and financial ...

Multiple explosions staged by suspected suicide bombers rocked the northeastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri, killing at least 23 people and wounding more than 100 others, police said Tuesday, . The three blasts, which struck on Monday evening, came after an attack on a military post overnight Sunday to Monday, which authorities blamed on suspected jihadists. ...

Chinese researchers have unveiled a new rare earth alloy so cold and efficient it could upend decades of reliance on helium-3 and send shock waves through the global race for quantum computers or ultra-sensitive detectors. A mini-fridge built with the alloy has achieved temperatures extremely close to absolute zero using no moving parts. And it comes at a ...

Hong Kong will continue its efforts to expand business opportunities in the Middle East despite recent geopolitical tensions, as the city remains a safe and stable investment hub amid global volatility, Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu has said. Despite his optimism, Lee conceded that the conflict in the Middle East had affected Hong Kong through a surge in ...

Hong Kong welcomed 9.95 million visitors in the first two months of this year, an 18 per cent increase from the same period last year, with the uptick primarily driven by mainland travellers visiting the city over the Chinese New Year period. Provisional figures released by the Hong Kong Tourism Board on Tuesday showed that 7.89 million mainland Chinese ...

Hong Kongs anti-corruption agency has charged a former university professor with allegedly accepting a HK$40,000 (US$5,100) bribe from a friend and offering red packets to colleagues to facilitate a students admission into a masters degree programme. The Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) on Monday revealed that the friend of Liu Hongbin, 63, ...

A man was charged on Tuesday with molesting and harassing an air stewardess on a Singapore Airlines flight on February 9. Akash Tiwari, a 36-year-old Indian national, is accused of using criminal force on the woman by using his body to make contact with the area around her buttocks. He is also accused of using threatening behaviour by following her to the ...

Hong Kongs Ocean Park has euthanised red panda Rou Rou after the 17-year-old endangered animal experienced degenerative joint problems and stopped responding to palliative care. Ocean Park said on Tuesday that its animal care and veterinary teams had provided Rou Rou with comprehensive care and monitored her geriatric conditions for five years, but could ...

A Taiwanese singer has sparked controversy for performing a vacuum belly workout routine at a concert in northwestern China. Videos of Ella Chen Jiahua showing her contracted belly, with her ribs prominently protruding, at her concert in Xian, Shaanxi province on March 7 have gone viral on social media, China Youth Daily reported. Chen, 44, tells her ...

Beijing is launching a pilot programme to expand industrial use of hydrogen energy, at a time when war in the Middle East is exposing the risks of global reliance on fossil fuels. Irans effective blockade of the Strait of Hormuz amid its war with the United States and Israel now in its third week has disrupted oil and gas supplies, prompting some nations ...

Malaysia charged two men on Tuesday and moved to bring back another from Thailand as authorities sought to contain a wave of religiously charged provocations that has sharpened tensions in the multicultural country. Controversial preacher Zamri Vinoth, 41, and activist Arun Dorasamy, 56, both pleaded not guilty in separate magistrates courts to charges ...

A suspected wartime mortar round has been safely detonated by bomb disposal officers at a Hong Kong construction site, with no evacuations needed. A source familiar with the matter confirmed to the South China Morning Post that the suspicious object workers discovered at 9.32am on Tuesday at a construction site at Kwu Tung North Multi-Welfare Services ...

Hong Kong authorities will announce arrangements this month for residents displaced by the deadly Tai Po blaze to return to their fire-damaged flats and collect personal belongings by the end of April, the citys leader has said. Chief Executive John Lee Kachiu on Tuesday also said the government would fully cooperate with an independent committee ...

A subsidiary of Hong Kong conglomerate CK Hutchison has accused Panama of missing a deadline for international arbitration initiated by the company, as it confirmed its offices had earlier been raided by alleged armed security forces. Panama Ports Company (PPC) on Tuesday also accused authorities of silencing the countrys press and disregarding the rule of ...

A Utah woman was convicted on Monday of aggravated murder after poisoning her husband with fentanyl and self-publishing a childrens book about coping with grief. Prosecutors said Kouri Richins slipped five times the lethal dose of the synthetic opioid into a cocktail that her husband Eric Richins drank in March 2022 at their home outside the affluent ski ...

Malaysia will wait for Washington to submit updated terms before deciding its next steps on their tariff deal, the countrys trade minister has said just days after he declared the agreement had been rendered null and void by a US Supreme Court ruling. The government began the week on the back foot as allies and critics demanded clarity on the status of the ...

We have selected seven stories from the SCMPs coverage of Asia over the past week that resonated with our readers and shed light on topical issues. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. As US missiles leave South Korea, the Philippines asks: are we next? 2. Nepal just elected a rapper for PM. His foreign policy has ...

Chinese and Chilean scientists have reached the bottom of the Atacama Trench, where light does not penetrate, in what they called the most ambitious deep-sea expedition ever conducted in the eastern Pacific. The joint mission to one of the deepest ocean trenches which runs parallel to the coasts of Peru and Chile took place from January 19 to March 5. It ...

Hong Kong authorities will set up a collaborative mechanism with the legislature to craft the citys first five-year plan to align with national development, according to Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu, who says the blueprint will be released by the end of this year. Lee also stressed on Tuesday that the new platform would reflect the citys executive-led ...