An Afghan immigrant who previously worked with the US military in Afghanistan and later sought asylum in the United States died this weekend in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody less than 24 hours after ‌being detained in Texas, a US veteran-led advocacy group said on Sunday. Mohommad Nazeer Paktyawal, who was living in a Dallas suburb with his wife and six children while his asylum case remained pending, was arrested by federal agents outside his flat on Friday morning while...

The captain of the Iranian women’s football team which played in the Asian Cup in Australia has withdrawn her bid for asylum, state media said on Sunday, making her the fifth member of the delegation to change her mind. A former player and a Persian-language television channel based outside Iran said the players had been pressured to reverse their stance through threats against families back home. But Iranian authorities have in turn accused Australia of pressuring the players to stay. Captai...

The International Energy Agency said oil from a record stockpile release will be made available in Asia immediately as buyers in the region clamour to replace barrels lost to war-related disruptions in the Middle East. The agency released a statement after it said it received implementation plans from member states. Barrels for Europe and the Americas will only be made available from the end of March. The IEA last week said that the oil market is seeing the biggest supply disruption in histor...

Pope Leo XIV demanded a ceasefire in the Middle East on Sunday in his strongest comments to date, directly addressing the leaders who launched the war in Iran. “On behalf of the Christians of the Middle East and all women and men of good will, I appeal to those responsible for this conflict,” Pope Leo said. “Cease fire so that avenues for dialogue may be reopened. Violence can never lead to the justice, stability and peace that the people are waiting for.” Pope Leo did not cite the United Sta...

A new type of autonomous helicopter has been seen operating on the Type 075 amphibious assault ship, possibly improving the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) capabilities in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea. Mainland state broadcaster CCTV on Thursday released a video explaining the operational capabilities of China’s Type 075 amphibious assault ship. It showed a lightweight uncrewed helicopter parked on the ship with folding rotors that appeared to be slightly smaller than the PLA’s...

A 600-year-old brick bearing Hong Kong superstar Andy Lau Tak-wah’s name has gone viral on social media in mainland China. Three characters, identical to the actor and singer’s Chinese name, were carved into the city wall of Nanjing, the ancient capital of the early Ming dynasty (1368-1644). The inscriptions, carved into a brick now preserved at the Nanjing City Wall Museum, offer clues about the identity of the ancient namesake – whose name is pronounced “Liu Dehua” in Mandarin. The Ming-era...

The profile of one of China’s top nuclear weapons scientists has been scrubbed from the website of the nation’s engineering brains trust. Zhao Xiangeng, 72, was a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE), the nation’s highest academic body for engineering science and technology, but his profile page has disappeared from the CAE’s site. It is not known when the page was removed, but Chinese media reports noted the change on Saturday. Similar online references to other CAE academician...

Chinese carmakers, saddled with excess capacity and weak demand at home, are taking a new approach to global expansion: utilising idled facilities abandoned by international marques. By adopting an asset-light strategy, companies from Geely Auto to Great Wall Motor (GWM) can assemble their cars overseas at lower costs, broadening their influence on the global automotive sector, according to analysts. “Mindful of profitability as well as geopolitical and operating risks, Chinese carmakers are...

Hong Kong authorities have proposed replacing, rather than punishing, Medical Council members who underperform, after public outcry over a 15-year delay in an alleged medical blunder inquiry. Secretary for Health Lo Chung-mau also said the government had no plans to impose rigid deadlines for each stage of complaint handling by the quasi-judicial body, saying the requirement was “asking the impossible” and the council would “be required to” set time frames on their own. The ombudsman previous...

Moonshot AI is seeking to raise as much as US$1 billion in an expanded funding round that would value the start-up at about US$18 billion, more than quadrupling its valuation in just three months and underscoring growing interest in Chinese artificial intelligence developers racing to rival Silicon Valley leaders. The company behind the Kimi chatbot kicked off discussions for the latest round, people familiar with the matter said, after securing more than US$700 million earlier this year, whi...

Ukraine wants money and technology in return for helping Middle Eastern nations defend against Iranian kamikaze drones, President Volodymyr Zelensky said, after Kyiv ‌sent specialists to four countries in the region. Zelensky told reporters in comments cleared for release on Sunday that each of the three teams sent to the Middle East consisted of dozens of people who will conduct expert assessments and demonstrate how drone defences should operate. Gulf states have ⁠expended large quantities ...

Senior officials from China and the United States have started a new round of trade talks in Paris, as the two sides seek to pave the way for US President Donald Trump’s expected visit to Beijing later this month. The delegations – led by Chinese Vice-Premier He Lifeng and US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent – arrived at the headquarters of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on Sunday local time. Tucked deep inside the residential and quiet 16th arrondissement o...

A survey showing workers in Indonesia as the happiest in Asia-Pacific has prompted discussions about the factors underpinning their positive attitudes relative to their regional peers. A workplace report published this month by employment marketplace Jobstreet by SEEK found 82 per cent of Indonesian respondents said they felt somewhat or extremely happy at work, the highest level among eight regional markets surveyed. The headline figure inevitably begs the question: does the result reflect...

Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto said he was “pretty surprised” by the US-Israel war on Iran, adding that he did not see any “rationality” in the military campaign. Prabowo, a retired general who now heads the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation, said in an interview that Iran recently told him they were wary of entering into negotiations with the US to stop the war because they felt “basically they have been tricked” twice. In an asymmetrical war, he added, “they really just have to...

Central Asian governments are leveraging the diplomatic fallout from the US-Israel war on Iran to assert their autonomy and reinforce their long-standing strategy of balancing major powers, according to analysts. For decades, the five former Soviet republics have been seen as Russia’s “backyard”. However, as the conflict in Iran deepens, these nations are moving to recalibrate their geopolitical ties, signalling a shift away from their role as a passive buffer zone for great powers. The shift...

With two weeks of Hong Kong arts month remaining, the city will continue to host a rich array of events, from a pop culture convention to a slew of art exhibitions. The South China Morning Post highlights some of the best shows taking place in the rest of March. From ComplexCon to classical concerts Pop culture festival ComplexCon will return to Hong Kong for its third edition on March 21 and 22, with headliners including Jennie from K-pop powerhouse Blackpink and American rapper Yeat, making...

Turkey’s powerful foreign minister said on Saturday that there is no serious initiative to resume negotiations between the United States and Iran but that he believes Iran is open to backchannel talks. The comments by Hakan Fidan came as Ankara is striving to stay out of the widening war in the Middle East. Ankara, which has good relations with both Washington and Tehran, had attempted to mediate a solution between them before the US and Israel attacked Iran two weeks ago, triggering the...

Hands knotted by a lifetime of hard work, Supon Haochareon says Thai farmers in his position do not get to retire. Instead, the 81-year-old and his wife Lamduan, 74, must tend more than 300 trees in Samut Sakhon, an hour west of Bangkok, agonising each year as prices slump and their coconuts grow smaller in the withering heat. This month brought the lowest prices on record: two baht (six US cents) per coconut – less than a stick of chewing gum – virtually wiping out all profit from their...

When people picture Hong Kong, they often imagine a relentless concrete jungle – a vertical city where glass and steel dominate the skyline. Yet a quiet revolution is beginning to reshape how our city develops. Last week, the Civil Engineering and Development Department and Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department jointly launched the Hong Kong Nature-based Solutions Design Guidelines. This landmark document signals a shift in how we think about infrastructure and urban planning. It...

For many of those rescued from Southeast Asia’s scam compounds, escape is not the end of the ordeal. They leave behind the locked gates, surveillance and violence, but often return home carrying injuries, trauma and the stigma of having been forced to scam others. Just as difficult is what comes next: trying to explain the experience to the people waiting for them. “Some of them are not able to tell their family members or their community what has happened,” said human rights advocate Andrey...

Hundreds of people turned out in London on Sunday for a pro-Palestinian march banned by the government after police said it was organised by a group “supportive of the Iranian regime”. Police said in a statement they had arrested 12 people and were investigating anti-Israeli chants allegedly made at the rally. Interior Minister Shabana Mahmood said earlier this week she had agreed to the ban to “prevent serious public disorder” in the context of the continuing conflict in the Middle East, whe...

China and the US ended the first day of trade talks in Paris on Sunday without any major developments. Talks will continue tomorrow when the US delegation is set to leave. The Chinese delegation will stay one more day before leaving on Tuesday. The first day of the sixth round of trade talks between the world’s two biggest economies – led by Chinese Vice-Premier He Lifeng and US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent – was rather uneventful for journalists waiting outside the venue, the headquarter...

Energy Secretary Chris Wright signalled the war with Iran may last several more weeks, with oil and petrol prices elevated as the US and Israel seek to destroy Iranian military capabilities. In television interviews on Sunday, Wright defended the Trump administration’s argument that Americans are facing short-term pain at the pump in a midterm election year for the larger goal of eliminating Iran as a threat to the Middle East. “I think that this conflict will certainly come to the end in the...

Online influencer brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate, who both face rape and human‑trafficking charges in Romania and the United Kingdom, were reported to have entered Hong Kong over the weekend, sparking heated discussion online. Andrew posted a photo of himself on a luxury boat in Victoria Harbour on X on Sunday, while other posts showed the brothers visiting the Lan Kwai Fong nightlife district and a crab restaurant in Causeway Bay. A video he posted a day earlier showed the brothers singing...

Fatima Nazha slept on the street for two days after she and her family fled their home in Beirut’s southern suburbs following an Israeli mass evacuation order. All of the schools the government turned into shelters were full, and the family could not afford a hotel or a flat, so she and her husband eventually moved into a tent in the country’s biggest stadium while their kids and grandchildren found shelter near the southern coastal city of Sidon. In just 10 days, more than 800,000 people in...

The Panamanian government has asked Chinese shipping giant Cosco to reconsider its decision to suspend operations at the Balboa port amid geopolitical tensions surrounding the strategic gateway and Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison Holdings. Panama’s Minister for Canal Affairs Jose Ramon Icaza told reporters on Friday that Cosco’s decision had caught the government off guard. “The Cosco issue has actually taken us a bit by surprise. All cargo is important, and certainly, Cosco cargo is important for u...

With the conclusion of China’s annual parliamentary “two sessions” meetings, emerging policy priorities suggest its relationship with the United States is entering a new technological era. This year’s government work report set an economic growth target of 4.5 to 5 per cent and announced increased fiscal support for science and technology, including a 10 per cent funding rise for research and development and over 16 per cent for basic research. More than routine budget adjustments, these figu...

Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has threatened Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with death, in a statement published on Sunday by Iran’s Fars and IRNA news agencies. Netanyahu would be pursued and killed, the IRGC statement said. The announcement followed mutual overnight attacks in the war between Iran, Israel and the United States. The current round of hostilities began when Israel and the US launched a large-scale offensive against Iran on February 28. Tehran...

Hong Kong police have launched an investigation after the body of a 60-year-old woman tied to bags of bricks was found floating off the public pier in Sai Kung, with officers describing the circumstances as “suspicious”. At about 6am on Sunday, a passer‑by reported seeing what appeared to be a human figure floating about five metres (16.4 feet) off the New Public Pier. Firefighters and marine police retrieved the body. It had been bound with nylon rope and attached to three plastic bags...

Chinese researchers have developed a wearable human-robot hybrid device that could transform soldiers into mighty “centaurs”, enabling them to push beyond their physical limits while walking and hauling loads in brutal environments. The People’s Liberation Army has already rolled out exoskeleton robot systems to boost soldiers’ stamina and mobility. But this new device, dubbed the “centaur robot”, promises to give an even greater extra push. The system, developed by a group at the Southern...

TikTok’s ⁠Chinese parent, ByteDance, has put ⁠on hold the global ⁠launch of its latest video-generation model, Seedance 2.0, after copyright disputes with major Hollywood studios and streaming platforms, The Information reported on Saturday, citing two people with direct knowledge of the situation. Reuters could not ‌immediately verify the report. ByteDance did not immediately respond to a request for comment. ByteDance said last month it would take steps to prevent the unauthorised use of...

This story has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by subscribing. Hong Kong faces a damp week ahead as humidity is expected to peak at 95 per cent with the arrival of a seasonal coastal mist from Wednesday, according to the city’s weather forecaster. The Observatory said on Sunday daytime temperatures would climb to 26 degrees Celsius (79 Fahrenheit) in the middle of the week, with significantly more humid air arriving i...

A Hong Kong couple have been arrested after their one-year-old son fell to his death from a high-rise residential building in Tsuen Wan, the South China Morning Post has learned. Preliminary investigations showed that the living room windows in the family’s fifth-floor unit were neither locked nor fitted with grilles, according to a source. The parents, including the boy’s 47-year-old father, were arrested on Sunday on suspicion of ill-treatment or neglect of a child. The case is being...

Some trains were misaligned with the platform screen doors on the MTR’s Tsuen Wan line on the first day a new signalling system in Hong Kong was implemented, but such teething problems were rare in a launch that went largely according to plan. The MTR Corporation said on Sunday overall operations had been “smooth” following the departure of the first train at 6am, despite some “isolated” glitches. Some 200 staff were deployed to ensure that the line ran normally. “This morning we saw a few...

A pet shop owner from southwestern China discovered an abandoned cat with a note and cash, uncovering an elderly person’s final, loving gesture for their pet. On March 7, the woman surnamed Sun, who runs a pet shop in Chuxiong, Yunnan province, found a grey pet carrier outside her shop. Hearing a kitten meowing, she opened it to find a tabby cat surrounded by cat food. “I was furious, thinking an irresponsible owner had abandoned it,” Sun said. But as she looked closer, she found a crumpled...

Several years ago, prime ground-floor spaces in major shopping malls across Beijing and Shanghai’s business districts were commonly occupied by electric vehicle (EV) showrooms, with staff often escorting customers to car parks for test drives. Many of these stores have now closed amid sluggish EV sales – yet mall owners have not been left disappointed. Instead, a new retail landscape is emerging, filled with tenants who are proving to be even more effective at drawing crowds and boosting rent...

While hundreds of Hongkongers stranded in the Middle East have scrambled for flights home after the US-Israel war on Iran broke out, a devoted Christian from the city has chosen to stay, saying she has experienced far worse before. The outbreak of war was unsettling, but Gloria Mok Chong-ngar said she found a way to maintain her inner peace in Jerusalem’s bomb shelters. “The sirens kept ringing last week, sometimes as frequently as every few minutes, but I would play the harp in the bomb shel...

Japan has deployed its domestically produced long-range missiles near the East China Sea – a move that could be interpreted by Beijing as crossing a “strategic threshold”, analysts said. Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara said on Monday that the upgraded Type-12 surface-to-ship missiles would be deployed at Camp Kengun in the southwestern Japanese prefecture of Kumamoto by the end of this month. Army vehicles carrying the first batch of missile launchers were reportedly spotted...

Joe*, a 20-year-old Hong Kong student, began seeking emotional support for dating advice, family relationships and stress management a few months ago to ease his anxieties. He asked questions during his commute to school, while studying in the evening and even when he could not sleep late at night. His go-to chatbot: OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which he accesses through the artificial intelligence (AI) aggregator app, Poe. “To a certain extent, AI may know me better than my friends,” Joe said. Joe is...

The increasing military use of drones has raised questions about the future role of helicopters as countries such as China and the United States increasingly pivot towards the use of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS). Traditionally, helicopters have been used for a wide range of functions ranging from transport to surveillance, but these functions are now increasingly being taken over by pilotless aircraft. Both the Chinese and US armed forces are increasingly building up their UAS fleets –...

Gaza’s ⁠main gateway, ⁠the Rafah crossing with Egypt that was closed at the start of ‌the Iran war, will open on Wednesday for limited movement of people in both directions, Israel’s COGAT, the ⁠military body in charge of humanitarian ‌matters, said on Sunday. The crossing had reopened ‌in early February after being largely ⁠shut ⁠since May 2024, in the ‌early months of Israel’s war against Hamas ‌in ‌Gaza. Its reopening offered ‌some relief to Palestinians who ⁠want to leave Gaza for ⁠medica...

The brother of the man who attacked a Michigan synagogue last week, who was killed earlier this month in an Israeli air strike, was a Hezbollah commander, Israel’s military claimed on Sunday. Ibrahim Ghazali was killed in Lebanon along with three other of the attacker’s relatives on March 5 - a week before authorities allege Ayman Mohamad Ghazali drove his car into a major synagogue outside Detroit and killed himself after security fired at him. The FBI’s Detroit office, which is investigatin...

Hong Kong authorities were searching on Sunday for a 68‑year‑old man who has been missing for two days after leaving his home in Tai Po. Lau Kin‑pong left his residence at Wan Tau Tong Estate at around 3pm on Friday. His family became unable to contact him and filed a missing‑person report on Saturday. He was last seen that afternoon on Shan Tong Road in Tai Po. Lau is described as about 1.7 metres tall (5 feet, 7 inches), weighing 60kg (132lbs), of thin build with short white hair. He was la...

More than 300 homeowners from the fire-ravaged Wang Fuk Court in Tai Po have signed a petition to be sent to Hong Kong’s leader, demanding a face-to-face meeting with government-appointed Hop On Management Company over unresolved issues. The letter to the Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu, obtained by the South China Morning Post on Sunday, bore 336 signatures – or 15 per cent of homeowners – who raised concerns in seven areas. These include the use of remaining renovation funds, the handling ...

A Hong Kong researcher has called for stricter regulations and urged the public to use electronics more responsibly after a study found toxic pollutants from laptops, televisions and smartphones in the bodies and brains of endangered dolphins and porpoises that washed up on the city’s beaches. Yuhe He, an associate professor at City University of Hong Kong and one of the study’s authors, said he was alarmed to find that liquid crystal monomers (LCMs) – the pollutants identified in the researc...

A total ⁠of ⁠62 ⁠people including eight children have died since heavy rains and flooding hit Kenya’s capital ‌Nairobi and other areas late last week, police said on Saturday. The capital was the worst hit with ⁠33 deaths, the force said in ‌a statement on X that updated the official ‌tally of casualties. More than 2,000 ⁠families ⁠have been displaced across Kenya and ‌intense rain was continuing in several ‌regions, it ‌added. Aid workers started pulling ‌bodies from floodwaters across Nairo...

A passenger bus carrying Indian pilgrims slipped off a mountain road and rolled down its slopes in central Nepal, killing seven people and leaving nine more injured, police said Sunday. All seven killed were Indian pilgrims, and seven other Indian pilgrims on board were injured and taken to nearby hospitals to get medical treatment. The other two injured in the crash, which happened on Saturday night, were the Nepali bus driver and his assistant. The bus was returning after the pilgrims visit...

Chinese and Vietnamese personnel will carry out a joint naval patrol and training exercise in the Gulf of Tonkin this week, extending a practice that has continued despite long-standing competing maritime claims. The joint manoeuvres will take place as part of the China-Vietnam Border Defence Friendship Exchange, which will include medical and cultural exchange events, China’s defence ministry said on Sunday. They will be conducted in waters off China’s Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region and...

News of black rain falling on Tehran felt all too familiar to Nejat Rahmanian as he scrolled through alerts on social media feeds and tried to contact relatives on March 8. Israeli drone strikes hit giant oil depots and refineries on the outskirts of the Iranian capital a few hours earlier, setting fuel on fire and releasing columns of black smoke, which mixed with rain clouds that poured toxic chemicals onto the city later in the day. The descriptions reminded the Iranian researcher of a...

An Iraqi journalist, who is also an online celebrity in China and was once praised by China’s foreign minister Wang Yi, has become engaged to a woman from the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. Ameen Muneer Mohammed Al-Obaidi, who is better known by his Chinese name, Fang Haoming, boasts about 5 million followers on social media. He works as a China correspondent for the Dubai-based China-Arab TV. Fang, 26, joined other foreign journalists to perform the popular Subject Three street dance at a...

Ambassadors from the EU’s 27 member states will huddle in Brussels this week to thrash out a memorandum on critical minerals with the United States. Underpinning the debate will be a tension that girds many elements of the bloc’s dealings in 2026: capacity versus trust. Envoys will negotiate in the shadow of a new trade threat from US President Donald Trump, who last week shocked Brussels with a tariff investigation linked to overcapacity and forced labour of 60 economies including China, the...

Hong Kong police seized HK$20 million (US$2.55 million) worth of suspected cocaine in a village house in Sha Tin and arrested a 28-year-old man in an anti-drug trafficking operation on Saturday. Senior Inspector Conrad Chan Yuen-fun, of the police narcotics bureau’s operation division, said on Sunday that the raid stopped the drugs from reaching the market. The operation followed an investigation revealing the house in Sha Tin was being used to store illicit drugs, Chan said at a briefing on...

Hong Kong’s terrorism threat level remains moderate amid the escalating conflict in the Middle East, the city’s security chief has said, urging residents to stay vigilant in the globally connected city. Secretary for Security Chris Tang Ping-keung said on Sunday there was no intelligence suggesting an imminent attack, but Hong Kong needed to “be prepared”, urging the public to report anything suspicious to police. “The Russia-Ukraine war is not over, and there is conflict in the Middle East,”...

Since the Iran war began late last month, it has threatened shipping across the Middle East’s two most important maritime chokepoints – the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb – through which much of Asia’s energy imports and manufactured exports flow. For Gulf states and their major trading partners in Asia, the conflict is forcing a hard question: what, if anything, can protect supply chains if US security guarantees can no longer be taken for granted? Analysts say the usual answers –...

The conflict in the Middle East could divert new capital to Hong Kong due to the city’s stability and regulatory certainty, the treasury minister has said, while pledging to keep markets operating smoothly amid energy price shocks caused by the war in Iran. Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Christopher Hui Ching-yu said on Sunday that the government would step up efforts to attract family offices and become a commodity trading hub as investors increasingly factored in politica...

What does the world’s digital economy rest on? Thousands of kilometres of fibre-optic cable lying on the ocean floor and, increasingly, in the crosshairs of great-power rivalry. The confluence of recent subsea cable disruptions, gaps in the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos) and intensifying great-power competition has elevated this underwater infrastructure from a technical and commercial concern to a security issue – characterised as “this century’s hidden battleground”. It h...

For Hong Kong’s Topaz Family Office, investing in hotels in Japan holds up as a sound decision even as a Middle East war clouds the macroeconomic environment. The wealth manager has made Japan a central plank of its pivot into hospitality and real estate over the past two years, driven by a sharp post-pandemic tourism rebound. The investment thesis now looks increasingly robust thanks to multiple structural tailwinds and a growing pool of institutional capital flowing into the same trade. “Ja...

A budget bubble tea chain from China best known for its cheap ice creams and drinks may soon be adding roller coasters and immersive shows to its menu. Mixue, boasting more stores than McDonald’s and growing rapidly outside China, is planning to build a theme park at its headquarters in Zhengzhou, the capital of central China’s Henan province. The park will be based on its Snow King mascot, a singing snowman that has become one of Chinese retailing’s most recognisable intellectual properties...

A wave of “cyber heartbreak” has swept social media in China as young people “mourn” loving artificial intelligence (AI) partners suddenly “cancelled” by system upgrades or entirely wiped out by server shutdowns. The bizarre phenomenon, dubbed “cyber widowhood”, sees devastated users write eulogies on social media as the tech industry pivots away from emotional companionship towards cold, calculating efficiency. Falling in love with AI often begins out of curiosity or simple entertainment. B...

There are places in the world where you expect war to intrude. And then there are places where its arrival feels surreal. For me, the Sri Lankan city of Galle has always belonged firmly to the latter category. The old fort, perched above the Indian Ocean, has the feel of a tropical cousin to Cartagena’s walled city. Inside its ramparts is an improbable mix: Western expatriates, boutique hotels, a long-standing local Muslim community and wealthy Sri Lankans who have restored colonial houses in...