Hong Kongs section of the National Games torch relay will emphasise the citys financial and cultural characteristics while boosting local tourism, according to a sports official and a lawmaker. Yeung Tak-keung, head of the National Games Coordination Office in Hong Kong, said Sundays local relay route would showcase the skyline and Victoria Harbour, ...

Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara secured a fourth term with a commanding re-election win, according to provisional results announced on Monday, an outcome that was largely expected after his strongest opponents were deemed ineligible. The 83-year-old former international banker won 89.77 per cent of the vote, his third consecutive decisive victory ...

The latest peace deal between Cambodia and Thailand will be difficult to uphold, according to analysts, who point to previous ceasefire breaches, as they call for a regional observer team to be enlarged to include more military officials. Analysts also note the conspicuous absence of China from the arrangement despite its aspirations to be a major regional ...

Academics and students have paid tribute to Liu Haolin, a leading computer scientist who died at the age of 37 after a sudden illness. An obituary published online said that Liu, a professor at Xiangtan University in the central province of Hunan, had died in a hospital in Changsha on Saturday. The obituary added that a memorial ceremony had been held the ...

This month, the South China Morning Posts Xiaofei Xu sat down with Deng Li, Chinas ambassador to France. The conversation was wide-ranging enough to warrant a two-part story. Here is part one, covering Chinas European diplomacy. China would like to see France lead Europe to become a truly independent power to help build a stable multipolar world, Beijings ...

Taiwans army has renamed the main auditorium of its headquarters in what is widely seen as another move by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government to erase the legacy of late Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-shek and the islands historical ties to mainland China. The auditorium, known for decades as Chiang Kai-shek Hall, has been retitled Loyalty ...

China saw a remarkable increase in the number of ultra-wealthy individuals over the past year, driven by a bull market in stocks, with leaders of new economy companies emerging as the primary beneficiaries, according to the Hurun Research Institute. A record 1,434 individuals made it onto Huruns latest China Rich List, each having a net worth of at least 5 ...

Russia is looking to Southeast Asia for an economic boost after fresh sanctions from the United States hit its energy sector, with a senior minister saying Moscow sees mutually beneficial opportunities with Asean in nuclear technology, logistics and trade. Speaking on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and East Asia summits in Kuala ...

A cafe near Seoul Forest has come under fire after posting a No Chinese customers notice on its social media page, sparking accusations of racial discrimination. The districts mayor has pledged to intervene and convince the owner to remove the message. Seongdong district Mayor Chong Won-o said on Monday on social media that he was aware of the issue and ...

A Chinese man attempted a Trojan horse trick to infiltrate a residential building and steal gold worth 200,000 yuan (US$28,000) but was caught within a week. The 46-year-old man, surnamed Zhao, concealed himself in a wooden box and hired a delivery worker to transport the crate into the exit passageway of a building in central Chinas Hunan province on ...

Shanghai-based artificial intelligence chip start-up MetaX has stepped into the spotlight after winning approval last week from Shanghais exchange to list on the citys Nasdaq-style Star Market, underscoring both Chinas accelerating AI investment and its potential to challenge US chip giant Nvidia. Known in Chinese as Muxi, MetaX was founded in 2020 by three ...

Hong Kong authorities could suspend the sales of commercial sites for a second year due to a lack of demand, the development minister has said, while rejecting the notion that the government was pressured by developers to shelve the Lantau reclamation plan. Secretary for Development Bernadette Linn Hon-ho made the prediction even as the citys grade A office ...

AI-generated videos were clogging social media feeds on Monday as Hurricane Melissa surged towards Jamaica, diverting attention from critical safety information about the massive Category 5 storm. Agence France-Presse surfaced dozens of fakes most bearing watermarks for OpenAIs text-to-video model Sora as Melissa was set to pummel the Caribbean island ...

MiniMax, a leading Chinese artificial intelligence start-up, released on Monday the M2, which ranks as the worlds leading open model on a prominent leaderboard. MiniMax M2 achieved an unprecedented score for an open model on Artificial Analysiss overall intelligence index, placing it among the top five models globally. It surpassed Google DeepMinds Gemini ...

Air travel turmoil deepened with more than 4,300 flights delayed nationwide on Monday following more than 8,800 delays on Sunday, with air traffic controller absences surging as the federal government shutdown reached its 27th day. The Federal Aviation Administration cited staffing shortages affecting flights across the Southeast and at Newark Airport in ...

Few areas of China reflect the countrys decades-long economic transformation more vividly than its cities. Rapid development has made villages into dense urban landscapes and already sizeable metro areas into some of the worlds largest population centres. As the rate of urbanisation slows and the country transitions into a new economic era, we explore how ...

King Charles was heckled by a protester on Monday over his brother Prince Andrews ties to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein while greeting royal fans during a cathedral visit in Britain. How long have you known about Andrew and Epstein?, the man could be heard shouting as the monarch went on a walkabout outside Lichfield Cathedral in Staffordshire, ...

Chinas 15th five-year plan is more than a policy blueprint; it is a pivotal turning point. This plan and the next one will define an era of innovation-led growth, solidifying Chinas status as a major power and peer competitor to the United States. Since the reform and opening-up policy was launched, Chinas economic development has had distinct phases. The ...

Venezuelas Vice-President Delcy Rodriguez said on Monday that energy agreements with Trinidad and Tobago should be cancelled over what she described as hostile actions by the island nation. Trinidad is now hosting one of the US warships involved in a controversial campaign to destroy Venezuelan speedboats allegedly carrying drugs to the United States. On ...

A French cyclist freed after weeks in a Russian jail for illegally crossing the border on Monday described his time in the country as a rather strange experience but said the Russians he met were friendly. Sofiane Sehili, 44, was arrested on the Russian-Chinese border in early September while attempting to break the record for the fastest endurance cycle ...

Sami Hamdi, a British political commentator, was being held on Monday by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement after he was detained by ICE officers at San Francisco International Airport, according to federal officials. One senior US official said the detention was related to comments he has made about the Middle East. Hamdi, who is Muslim, was on a ...

German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul on Monday called for fair trade with China in chips and rare earth minerals, amid heightened tensions between China and the European Union. Wadephul, who last week was forced to cancel a planned visit to China, said he plans to speak to Chinese representatives by phone as soon as possible and reschedule the trip. Its ...

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Monday said London has signed an agreement with Turkeys Recep Tayyip Erdogan to sell Eurofighter jets to Ankara in a 10-year deal worth nearly US$11 billion. This is a really significant deal, because its 8 billion (US$10.7 billion) worth of orders these are jobs that will last for 10 years, making the [Eurofighter] ...

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday that his countrys ties with North Korea were developing as planned, as he hosted North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui in the Kremlin. Choe passed on warm wishes from North Korean leader Kim Jong-un after she had earlier hailed the spiritual closeness between Moscow and Pyongyang during a meeting with her ...