South China Morning Post

US President Donald Trump’s administration imposed sanctions on the International Criminal Court on Friday, hours after one of its former judges won the Nobel Peace Prize, putting Washington on a diplomatic collision course with European allies. The ICC’s deputy prosecutor, Nazhat Shameem Khan, condemned the sanctions and said they would not halt the tribunal’s work. The Trump administration has long been hostile to the court and has previously imposed sanctions on its prosecutors and judges....

Did Chinese AI companies secretly tap US models to close the technology gap? That is the central question hanging over China’s tech sector following a wave of allegations from Washington and American AI lab Anthropic. According to a joint advisory by the National Security Agency, FBI, and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency last month, Chinese AI developers have been systematically extracting capabilities from US frontier models to reduce their own computing, electricity and...

China’s cooperation with the Pacific islands is not part of a geopolitical competition, top diplomat Wang Yi told a delegation of politicians from the region on Friday. The comments come as Beijing and Washington vie for influence in the South Pacific. “China’s engagement with Pacific island countries is a form of South-South cooperation based on mutual assistance and support,” Wang said, according to a statement from the Communist Party’s International Department. “This cooperation does not...

China should avoid taking a “confrontational posture” over a new security pact between the United States, Denmark and Greenland as it might end up being excluded from engagement on the emerging Arctic order. That was the warning from Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s National Institute of Strategic Studies (NISS), a Chinese think tank, in a report released on Wednesday. It also said the US was unlikely to turn the northern polar region into its “exclusive strategic backyard”. The report noted that

The world’s wealthiest man has just been appointed to a Pentagon commission that will help decide what the future of warfare looks like. Elon Musk, alongside Anduril Industries co-founder Palmer Luckey and former House speaker Newt Gingrich, is to lead “Project Meridian”. It follows a strategy by this White House that moves government and the tech sector ever closer. Project Meridian goes much further than the influence of defence contractors in Washington. It marks the beginning of Silicon...

Elon Musk’s accusation that powerful Indian business interests are blocking Starlink’s entry into India has sparked a political row, but analysts say the dispute also highlights security concerns, regulatory hurdles and strategic calculations shaping the satellite service’s expansion across Asia. In a post on social media, Musk said Starlink was licensed in more than 165 countries and had spent five years complying with Indian laws and regulations. “So why still no licence? Is Ambani the real...

A video of a ride-hailing driver in southwestern China reassuring a blind passenger about his appearance has gone viral, touching hearts across mainland social media. The driver, surnamed Wang, recently picked up a visually impaired passenger in Chengdu, Sichuan province, and helped him into the car after the platform flagged the booking as requiring accessible service. Wang later clarified that passengers who register with disability certificates have their bookings automatically marked as...

Polar researchers have used a would-be Chinese rival to Elon Musk’s Starlink to make a satellite video call between the Arctic and Antarctic – the first publicly reported test of the Guowang constellation. The call highlights the growing capabilities of the country’s satellite constellations, according to state media. Beijing has been accelerating the development of its low-Earth-orbit constellations in recent years, particularly as the US-based Starlink showed its wartime value by helping...

The European Union and China have “reached an understanding” that will cut Chinese hybrid car shipments to the bloc by “more than a half”, in a temporary salve to trade tensions that have threatened to boil over into a full-blown trade war. Speaking after marathon trade talks in Beijing, EU trade chief Maros Sefcovic said the deal would see China slash its hybrid car exports “by several million cars” over a four-year period. “This is the first time that China has accepted to moderate its exports

Malaysia plans to spend 460 billion ringgit (US$112.6 billion) under its 2027 budget, expanding welfare assistance and tax relief while retaining fuel subsidies as households contend with higher living costs. Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who is also finance minister, presented the spending plan in parliament on Friday as his government faces pressure for an early election following a series of state poll defeats. Anwar said the budget should be judged on “whether more people can live with...

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the younger brother ⁠of Britain’s King ⁠Charles, has benefited from £302,000 (US$399,000) in ⁠compensation after he was forced to end his mansion lease early over revelations about his ties to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Last year, Charles stripped Mountbatten-Windsor of his title of prince and forced ‌him out of his Windsor home, as the royal family sought distance from the Epstein scandal. Mountbatten-Windsor was later arrested on suspicion of misconduct.

The EU removed Panama from its tax havens blacklist on Friday after the country made progress on sharing tax information and reformed a “harmful” regime of exemptions for foreign-source income. Vietnam was also removed after undertaking a series of reforms. The updated list now contains eight “non-cooperative” jurisdictions: American Samoa, Anguilla, Guam, Palau, Russia, Turks and Caicos Islands, US Virgin Islands and Vanuatu. “This update reflects a positive trend in compliance with...

The Philippines is developing a national road map to combat child labour as part of a broader push across Southeast Asia, where poverty and insecure livelihoods continue to drive children into work despite government efforts to stamp out the practice. But analysts warn that policy commitments alone will not be enough without stronger support for vulnerable families, better access to education and more effective enforcement of child protection laws. On September 23 and 24, government officials,..

Saudi Arabia said on Friday that three people were killed including a pilot, in attacks on Riyadh’s international airport, after Yemen’s Houthis claimed a series of attacks targeting the facility. The conflict between the Houthis and Yemen’s Saudi-backed government has widened, with the Iran-backed fighters repeatedly attacking Saudi targets since they began a lightning offensive just across the border. While seizing large swathes of territory along the Red Sea coast in Yemen, the Houthis have..

Hong Kong’s securities watchdog is renewing its push to boost market liquidity, setting out further reforms as emerging markets grapple with capital outflow pressure amid a rally in US equities and a strengthening dollar. Speaking at a conference organised by the Asian Securities & Financial Markets Association (Asifma) on Friday, Julia Leung, CEO of the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), outlined measures ranging from extended trading hours and shorter settlement cycles to cross-market...

Hotel room rates across mainland China fell short of expectations during the National Day “golden week” holiday despite a tourism boom, as company officials and analysts called for stronger asset and revenue management to ease pricing pressure. Hotel tariffs remained largely unchanged from the previous month between October 1 and 7, even as bookings jumped, according to executives at hotel operators and travel agencies. “The days when hotels and resorts could expect a windfall during the...

Former UN human rights chief Navanethem “Navi” Pillay has won this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. The South Africa-born jurist was recognised for her efforts to promote peace and international law. The announcement was made by the Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo on Friday. Pillay joked that she might “share the prize” with US President Donald Trump if people kept applauding her. “If you clap a little bit more I may share this prize with Trump,” Pillay said in a video posted to social media by the..

China’s central bank rejected claims that the yuan is undervalued, rebutting a key European argument amid crunch negotiations ahead of a possible trade war. “China has no need or intent to gain competitive advantages through currency devaluation, nor has it ever resorted to competitive devaluation,” the People’s Bank of China said in a policy paper on Thursday, printed in both Chinese and English (see the full paper on SCMP Plus). “China’s trade growth is driven by its growing industrial...

While Russian authorities have denied the death of a woman who worked in a laboratory at an anti-plague institute in Siberia was connected with the pathogen, the incident has sparked global concern – including in China – over a potential spread of the disease and a lack of transparency. US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he planned to speak with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin after it emerged late last week that the 28-year-old female lab technician had been admitted to...

Thousands of Polish police officers visited schools nationwide on Friday in an effort to reassure pupils after two teenage stabbing sprees in as many days sparked rumours of a “Bloody Friday” of attacks. Social media in Poland has been filled with talk ‌of a supposed online challenge that could be behind the attacks and which would end with a bloodbath at schools on Friday, but police said their investigations had found no evidence of this. By midday, 24,000 police officers had been deployed to.