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China
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How China’s ‘magic’ rice seeds are transforming the fortunes of Nigerian farmers

Beijing’s hands-off approach challenges traditional Western aid models, prompting Washington to counter with agribusiness interventions.

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Green Agriculture West Africa Limited's R1 rice variety has proved popular for its resistance to disease and ability to grow on diverse terrain. Photo: Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria

China Economy

China’s factory-gate prices growth slows to 3.5% in July amid lower fuel prices

China

Red alert: Shanghai cancels 80% of flights as Typhoon Dolphin closes in

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Health & Environment

Families cool off in snow parks and malls as helpers struggle in record heat

Observatory records highest temperature in 142 years in the afternoon, saying hot weather will continue until midweek.

Kids play at Magic Ice, an indoor snow park. Photo: Dickson Lee
Domestic helpers take shelter from the intense heat behind a bench at Tsuen Wan Promenade. Photo: Dickson Lee
Candy Cheung and her son cool off at a snow park. Photo: Kristen Cheung
Tourists visit Tsim Sha Tsui in scorching weather. Photo: Jelly Tse

Big Tech

Jevons Paradox: why China’s cheap AI models could be good for Silicon Valley

China’s open-weight models have led AI firms to slash prices, but they will also massively boost overall AI demand, analysts say.

The OpenAI logo is seen in this illustration picture created on June 11, 2026. Photo: Reuters

Middle East

Iran thinks it has Trump cornered – but what are the risks?

Dwindling US arms stockpiles, inflation woes and looming midterms mean time is on Tehran’s side. Trouble, however, is brewing at home.

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Pedestrians walk past a hoarding in Tehran in July depicting US President Donald Trump being grabbed by the neck alongside the message “Revenge is inevitable” in English and Farsi. Photo: AP

Politics

How Saudi-Turkey-Pakistan pact acts as ‘insurance’ over US disengagement

The Mecca deal may emerge as a third geopolitical ‘centre of gravity’ in the Middle East, with more members joining, analysts say.

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (centre), flanked by Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (left) and Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, signing a joint defence agreement in Mecca on Friday. Photo: Turkish Presidency Press Office/AFP
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (left), Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (centre) and Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif meet in Mecca on Friday to sign a joint defence agreement. Photo Turkish Presidency Press/AFP

Business

Chairman of global tech brand TCL sees digital future in ‘Screen Universe’

In partership with:TCL
Li Dongsheng, founder and chairman of TCL, discusses the concept of a “Screen Universe” at the World Economic Forum’s 17th Annual Meeting of the New Champions in China last month.

Politics

Is China’s Communist Party newspaper highlighting women’s role as mothers?

Analysis of 125,000 articles from People’s Daily suggests it is increasingly framing women in a domestic rather than public context.

Researchers found that official media consistently linked women to domestic roles, but the use of phrases connecting them to the professional sphere had dwindled. Photo: Getty Images

Companies

China races to develop brain-computer interfaces that can be inserted in minutes

The technology – which allows patients to control digital devices using their thoughts – can be implanted like a stent in just a few minutes.

Chinese start-ups are developing brain-computer interfaces that can be implanted via a vein in just 10 minutes. Photo: Shutterstock

Military

How Beijing’s hypersonic ‘carrier killers’ could distract US in a Taiwan conflict

Beijing said to be producing anti-ship missiles to hold US Pacific Fleet at distance so PLA can settle matters wherever contingency might be.

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Footage released by Chinese state media on July 29 shows a YJ-20 missile launching from a Type 052D destroyer at an undisclosed location. Photo: CCTV

Southeast Asia

‘I felt like ‌we weren’t going to survive’: how Thai school shooting unfolded

Eyewitness accounts reveal chaos as students barricaded classrooms and hid near the windows during the mayhem.

Relatives of a Thai teacher killed in the Debsirin Nonthaburi School shooting weep as they collect the body for funeral rites at a hospital in Bangkok on Saturday. Photo: EPA
The wife (centre) of a Thai teacher who was killed in a school shooting is led to an ambulance in Nonthaburi province on Friday. Photo: AFP
Policemen patrol outside the school in Thailand’s Nonthaburi province on Friday. Photo: AP
Children are evacuated from around the Debsirin Nonthaburi School on Friday. Photo: AP

Society

How are Hong Kong restaurants faring 1 month into the dog-friendly scheme?

Scheme has stoked controversy online but situation on the ground is not as bad, one industry expert says.

Kelvin Chan, owner of Wan Land Mori, a pet-friendly restaurant in Kowloon City. Photo: Dickson Lee
Wan Land Mori reported that pet-owner patronage has grown by about 30 per cent. Photo: Dickson Lee
Ken Chu, owner of Phaya Asura, a pet friendly restaurant in Kai Tak. Photo: Karma Lo

Australasia

Jetstar plane brakes suddenly to avoid colliding with Boeing 777 in Sydney

An investigation was launched into the ‘near collision’ that also injured a cabin crew member.

A Jetstar plane and a Qatar Airways flight were involved in a near miss at Sydney airport on Sunday. Photo: X/itsdanibrown

Science

What is a glueball? Chinese-led team finds rare particle made entirely of force

After 15 years of research, scientists discover definitive evidence of glueballs using the Beijing Electron Positron Collider II.

The Beijing Spectrometer III of the Beijing Electron Positron Collider II has helped prove the existence of “glueballs”. Photo: Institute of High Energy Physics of Chinese Academy of Sciences

Science

China’s lunar research station could be guarded by robot watchdogs: scientists

Custom-designed machines could identify hazards on the moon and help astronauts collect rock samples, source water ice, researchers say.

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Chinese researchers have drawn up blueprints that could see robot dogs helping astronauts scout hazards, collect rock samples and undertake detailed scientific work. Photo: CCTV

Politics

5-year plan to create more jobs, widen housing ladder for young people: John Lee

City leader says government has been diversifying housing ladder and Northern Metropolis presents opportunity for bigger homes.

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Chief Executive John Lee (centre) attends the second town hall on his policy address 2026 and Hong Kong’s first five-year plan. Photo: Handout
Chief Executive John Lee (centre) attends the second town hall on his policy address 2026 and Hong Kong’s first five-year plan. Photo: Edmond So

Economics

Vietnam pays the price at home for sending workers abroad

Between 130,000 and 150,000 Vietnamese go abroad to work annually, leaving seafood and garment sectors scrabbling for labourers.

Workers stitch clothes at a garment factory in Vietnam’s Thai Nguyen province last year. Photo: AFP

Politics

Maldives’ plea to restart South Asian bloc hits India-Pakistan brick wall

Calls for reviving Saarc are likely to fall on deaf ears as long as the two neighbours are at loggerheads, analysts say.

Pakistani hardline organisation Jamaat-ud-Dawa supporters burn a poster of then Indian home minister Rajnath Singh as he arrives in Lahore for a Saarc summit in Lahore on August 3, 2016. Photo: AFP
Indian army soldiers keep vigil near the Line of Control between Pakistan and India, in Poonch sector of India’s Jammu region, on May 20, 2025. Photo: AFP
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Focus

Why foreign workers are still climbing mountains of paperwork for a job in China

Beijing’s rigid visa points system and strict sponsorship rules frustrate young expats, but most are still undeterred in their job search.

Illustration: Kaliz Lee
OPINION
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Opinion |

Smart planning, not panic, must guide Asia’s data centre buildout

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Hong Kong’s 5-year plan can’t just be a laundry list

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Opinion |

South Asia’s Gen Z protests offer one lesson in common

9 Aug 2026 - 5:30AM
Jawad Khalid
Letters |

Passing a driving test in Hong Kong shouldn’t be an Odyssean ordeal

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Editorial |

A stacked sporting calendar gives Hong Kong the winning edge

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Opinion |

Behind the AI stock market bubble lies a weak yen

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Harry’s View | 9 Aug 2026
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Latest

Companies

China races to develop brain-computer interfaces that can be inserted in minutes

Big Tech

Jevons Paradox: why China’s cheap AI models could be good for Silicon Valley

Society

At least 12 taken to hospital after fire breaks out at Taikoo Shing flat

Today in Photos

Gallery | Lo Pan Temple ceremony in Hong Kong’s Kennedy Town: in pictures

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Typhoon Dolphin brings early end to AUBL, but future bright for NCAA-wannabe

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SCMP SeriesUS at 250

How America’s 250-year China dream became its greatest strategic challenge

Historians trace how US hopes of trade, reform and friendship gave way to rivalry with the power it once sought to transform.

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Did Trump’s tariffs paint the US into an economic corner?

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Politics over progress: how US-China tensions slow scientific advancements

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Open Questions series-
Global experts discuss US-China ties, the Chinese economy and more.

Open Questions | ‘Surprising’ how fast China’s military is closing US gap: analyst Lyle Goldstein

Beijing’s challenge is to resist temptation to build the PLA into a ‘hammer looking for a nail’, former US Naval War College professor says.

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Illustration: Brian Wang

Open Questions | China’s military goal is to stand neck and neck with US: ex-PLA colonel Zhou Bo

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Open Questions | Nobel laureate Simon Johnson on the AI race and China’s ‘over-automation’ risks

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Open Questions | Citic Capital’s Zhang Yichen on the ABCs of China’s markets: IPOs, M&As and AI

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Big Tech

Slapped with reality: why Huawei’s top chip scientist embraces war-hero mindset

In viral interview, Liao Heng talks navigating US curbs to make Ascend processors, placing innovation over nanometres for chip self-reliance.

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An image of a semiconductor displays the name of Huawei Technology’s chip-design unit, HiSilicon. Photo: handout

Companies

China races to develop brain-computer interfaces that can be inserted in minutes

Big Tech

Jevons Paradox: why China’s cheap AI models could be good for Silicon Valley

China Business

Global pharma giants turn to Chinese biotech to tap innovation, valuation growth

SCMP SHORTS
Indonesia holds military-style boot camps for minimarket workers as part of job training
Indonesia holds military-style boot camps for minimarket workers as part of job training
Myanmar’s Min Aung Hlaing breaks out of diplomatic isolation with Thai state visit
Myanmar’s Min Aung Hlaing breaks out of diplomatic isolation with Thai state visit
Residents sign directives as new end-of-life law takes effect in Hong Kong
Residents sign directives as new end-of-life law takes effect in Hong Kong
‘Lyrical Maverick’ Peter Lai, who wrote multiple hits for Cantopop stars, dies at 76
‘Lyrical Maverick’ Peter Lai, who wrote multiple hits for Cantopop stars, dies at 76
Bangkok airport apologises after boarding gate clash involving Chinese tourists
Bangkok airport apologises after boarding gate clash involving Chinese tourists
SCMP Spotlight

Military

In Focus | Why China’s military is laser-focused on ‘disruptive’ technologies

From artificial intelligence to quantum technology and hypersonic weapons, the PLA is in a race to define the next era of warfare.

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Illustration: Henry Wong

Military

Why is China’s Communist Party intent on control over the military?

26

Politics

Did the Ukraine war spark China’s ban on most civilian drone flights in cities?

Tech Trends

Insert token: how China’s surging AI use is turning compute into currency

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