Overseas expansion adds fuel to Chinese energy storage firms’ hunt for bosses Openings at overseas energy storage operations flood John Yang’s screen anytime he browses recruitment websites, with listed giants and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) alike offering salaries well above those typically found in China’s manufacturing sector. “Job seeking has never felt easier. The only worry is whether the new role could last beyond next year,” joked Yang, Thailand director at a Shenzhen-based energy storage firm. Yang’s experience reflects the recent, rapid overseas...

South China Morning Post

Overseas expansion adds fuel to Chinese energy storage firms’ hunt for bosses

Global hiring spree sees million-yuan salaries become the norm, but long-term prospects of smaller players called into question.

Man found dead by hiker 200 metres from summit of Hong Kong’s iconic Lion Rock A man was found dead about 200 metres from the summit of Hong Kong’s iconic Lion Rock on Saturday morning, police said. Police received a report at 10am on Saturday from a hiker, who had spotted the man collapsed in a mountain area near the popular peak. Responders from the Government Flying Service and the Fire Services Department arrived at the scene, but the man was pronounced dead. His body was later airlifted by helicopter to the Government Flying Service headquarters in Chek Lap...

South China Morning Post

Man found dead by hiker 200 metres from summit of Hong Kong’s Lion Rock

Hong Kong police received a report at 10am on Saturday from hiker, who saw man had collapsed in the mountain area.

2,600 student hostel spaces under way to match surging demand in Hong Kong Education authorities have received more than 10 applications to convert commercial buildings and hotels into 2,600 dormitory spaces, a move to address the increased demand after raising the cap for non-local students at Hong Kong tertiary institutions to 50 per cent. Secretary for Education Christine Choi Yuk-lin said on Saturday she was encouraged by the response to the “Hostel in the City” scheme, as it was only launched in July, together with the Development Bureau. “We have approved a few...

South China Morning Post

Rush to create 2,600 student hostel spaces to meet surging demand in Hong Kong

Government has received more than 10 applications to turn commercial buildings and hotels into dormitory spaces, education minister says.

US call centre act threatens Philippines’ US$30 billion outsourcing boom As dusk settles over Angeles City, Justin Cunanan prepares for another long night. While the rest of the Philippines sleeps, he joins millions of his compatriots powering a global industry that is now facing threats from both Washington and Silicon Valley. For the next nine hours, the 33-year-old will field customer service calls for a company based in the United States. The night shift is gruelling, but for Cunanan, who previously worked in hospitality, the benefits of a business process...

South China Morning Post

US call centre bill threatens Philippines’ US$30 billion outsourcing boom

Nearly 2 million Filipinos’ jobs are on the line, with the BPO sector under siege from US protectionism and the rise of AI.

Germany’s military conscription ‘draft lottery’ plan raises alarm Germany is seeking to boost military recruitment to deter a hostile Russia, but a proposed “draft lottery” has sparked a row in the ruling coalition and unsettled many young people. The flashpoint issue of bringing back any form of military conscription has rattled the government of Chancellor Friedrich Merz and the centre-left Social Democrats of Defence Minister Boris Pistorius. Merz, citing dangerous tensions between Nato and Russia and doubts about future US security commitment to Europe,...

South China Morning Post

Germany’s military conscription ‘draft lottery’ plan raises alarm

The controversial ‘lottery’ plan has split the ruling coalition as Berlin seeks to build Europe’s ‘strongest conventional army’.

Dying art in modern times: Hong Kong’s bone-setting trade nears breaking point In Hong Kong’s ageing neighbourhood of Cheung Sha Wan, an old street store stands out for its unusual charm. Against the backdrop of its pinkish walls and the classic black-and-white floor tiles, more than 20,000 skeleton figurines are on display, in striking contrast to the surrounding Chinese-style homes. The eclectic decor reflects the creative spirit of Leung Tin-chu, a 49-year-old bone-setting master determined to breathe new life into his decades-old family clinic passed down from his...

South China Morning Post

Dying art in modern times: Hong Kong’s bone-setting trade nears breaking point

Traditional Chinese treatment for sprains, bruises, bumps and injuries fails to lure younger customers as older masters retire.

Hong Kong may issue T3 on Monday as Tropical Storm Fengshen edges closer Hong Kong’s weather forecaster may issue the No 3 typhoon warning signal on Monday as Tropical Storm Fengshen moves closer to the coast of Guangdong, with temperatures set to fall to about 20 degrees Celsius (68 Fahrenheit). The Hong Kong Observatory said on Saturday that Fengshen, which means “the god of wind” in Chinese, would come within 800km (497 miles) of Hong Kong the following day and would be closest to the city on Tuesday. “With Fengshen edging closer to the coast of Guangdong later on...

South China Morning Post

Hong Kong may issue T3 on Monday as Tropical Storm Fengshen edges closer

Forecaster says it may skip T1 and directly issue T3 on Monday, adding temperatures will drop to around 20 degrees Celsius next week.

Chinese Nobel Prize-winning physicist Chen-ning Yang dies, aged 103 Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist Chen-ning Yang, died in Beijing on Saturday at the age of 103. He was often ranked alongside Albert Einstein as one of the 20th century’s greatest physicists. In 1954, he co-authored a set of equations with the American physicist Robert Mills that turned out to be as important to physics as Einstein’s theory of relativity. The resulting Yang–Mills theory described how three of nature’s four fundamental forces — the electromagnetic, weak and strong...

South China Morning Post

Chinese Nobel Prize-winning physicist Chen-ning Yang dies aged 103

Researcher whose contribution to science was described as ‘close to Einstein’ specialised in the study of subatomic particles.

Top US and China trade envoys set trade talks after ‘constructive’ phone call Chinese Vice-Premier He Lifeng and US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent held a phone call on Saturday morning and stated that trade negotiators from their countries would meet next week. “This evening, Vice-Premier He Lifeng and I engaged in frank and detailed discussions regarding trade between the United States and China,” Bessent wrote on social media on Friday evening in Washington. “We will meet in person next week to continue our discussions.” In a separate read-out, China described He’s...

South China Morning Post

Top US and China trade envoys set for talks after ‘constructive’ video call

Hours before call, US Treasury chief says negotiations with Beijing to take place in Malaysia, ahead of Xi-Trump summit in South Korea.

Alibaba Cloud claims to slash Nvidia GPU use by 82% with new pooling system Alibaba Group Holding has introduced a computing pooling solution that it said led to an 82 per cent cut in the number of Nvidia graphics processing units (GPUs) needed to serve its artificial intelligence models. The system, called Aegaeon, was beta tested in Alibaba Cloud’s model marketplace for more than three months, where it reduced the number of Nvidia H20 GPUs required to serve dozens of models of up to 72 billion parameters from 1,192 to 213, according to a research paper presented this...

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Alibaba Cloud claims to slash Nvidia GPU use by 82% with new pooling system

The new Aegaeon system can serve dozens of large language models using a fraction of the GPUs previously required, potentially reshaping AI workloads.

Chinese spy drama Silent Honour inspires praise for real-life agents The Chinese public has come out in force to pay tribute to Communist Party undercover agents who perished during the 1940s civil war, inspired by a television drama that gained a passionate following and sparked an outpouring of praise. The fervour centres on Silent Honour, the mainland’s first television series to chronicle the Communist Party’s espionage activities in Taiwan in the war’s final months when one of the party’s major intelligence operations was systematically crushed by the...

South China Morning Post

Chinese spy drama Silent Honour inspires praise for real-life agents

‘Sudden surge’ of visitors to memorial park and one agent’s family home comes as series about mainland intelligence operation in Taiwan ends.

New lending and repo plans accelerate the yuan’s challenge to the US dollar When Hong Kong businessman Sunny Yip Yuk-chik heard about a new scheme that would make it easier and cheaper to borrow Chinese yuan, he immediately called his staff on the Chinese mainland with the news. Earlier this month, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) launched a 100 billion yuan (US$14 billion) Renminbi Business Facility (RBF) that would enable business owners like Yip to borrow yuan from Hong Kong banks for up to 12 months at the onshore yuan interest rate, easing trade...

South China Morning Post

New lending and repo plans accelerate the yuan’s challenge to the US dollar

Hong Kong is the largest offshore yuan market worldwide, with 76 per cent of offshore yuan payments in August conducted in the city.

64 South Korean ‘pig butchering’ suspects return home from Cambodia Sixty-four South Koreans who had been detained in Cambodia for alleged involvement in cyberscam operations returned home Saturday. South Korea had sent a team to Cambodia on Wednesday to discuss cases of fake jobs and scam centres involved in kidnapping dozens of its nationals. “A total of 64 nationals just arrived at Incheon International Airport on a chartered flight,” a police official said. Seoul had said around 60 South Koreans had been detained by authorities in Cambodia over the alleged...

South China Morning Post

64 South Korean cyber scam suspects repatriated from Cambodia

The group includes both voluntary workers and people forced into Cambodia’s ‘pig butchering’ crypto fraud networks.

A perfect purr-scription? How ‘pet doctors’ can help Hong Kong hospital patients One of the greatest wishes of Fung, an elderly patient hospitalised at Hong Kong’s Caritas Medical Centre for the past three months, is to see her pet cat, Silver. The internal medicine patient said it would be a “precious memory” if she could be reunited with her 13-year-old calico cat. “I miss Silver very much. My daughter will show me videos, but if I can see it face to face, I can hug and kiss it and say goodbye,” she said. “If we can have a final reunion, I can tell it to be obedient and...

South China Morning Post

A perfect purr-scription? How ‘pet doctors’ can help Hong Kong hospital patients

Hospital Authority to allow palliative care patients to spend time with pets and already has volunteer animals to comfort those in need.

Hamas sends Israel another hostage’s body, vows to return the rest Hamas handed over to Israel the remains of one more hostage on Friday night, after insisting it was committed to returning all the dead captives still unaccounted for under Gaza’s ruins after two years of war. “Israel received, via the Red Cross, the coffin of a deceased hostage who was returned” to its security forces in Gaza and would be identified at a medical analysis centre in Israel, the prime minister’s office said in a statement. Under a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas...

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Hamas sends Israel another hostage’s body, vows to return the rest

Turkey dispatched a team of specialists to help retrieve both Israeli and Palestinian remains buried under the rubble in Gaza.

Trump commutes sentence of ex-US lawmaker George Santos, orders him freed US President Donald Trump said Friday he had commuted the sentence of former congressman George Santos, who is serving more than seven years in federal prison after pleading guilty to fraud and identity theft charges. The New York Republican was sentenced in April after admitting last year to deceiving donors and stealing the identities of 11 people – including his own family members – to make donations to his campaign. He reported to Federal Correctional Institution in Fairton, in southern New...

South China Morning Post

Ex-US lawmaker George Santos walks free after Trumps commutes his sentence

The former New York congressman was sentenced to over seven years in prison for fraud and identity theft.

Trump and Xi’s shock tactics see trade war remain in a stalemate Blame games, tit-for-tat threats, off-again on-again meetings between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, and wild tariff swings seem to be the recent order of the day. According to former government officials and analysts, however, this should come as no surprise – it’s just the price you pay when diplomatic norms are brushed off. In the latest twist in the saga, Trump on Friday swung from tough to conciliatory, appearing to reverse threats made a week earlier to cancel...

South China Morning Post

Trump and Xi’s shock tactics see trade war remain in a stalemate

Former government officials and analysts believe this is the price you pay when diplomatic negotiation fails and compromise is ignored.

US-China tensions ease as Bessent confirms call with counterpart He Lifeng US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed plans to speak with Chinese Vice-Premier He Lifeng on Friday in a further sign of easing tensions ahead of a potential meeting between the two countries’ leaders. “The vice-premier, who is my counterpart, and I will be speaking this evening at around 8:30, 9 o’clock,” Bessent said at the White House on Friday. The Treasury secretary added that He will also join him and a delegation in Malaysia “probably a week from tomorrow” to prepare for a meeting...

South China Morning Post

US-China tensions ease as Bessent confirms call with counterpart He Lifeng

Talks resume after threats of 100% tariffs and rare earth curbs, signalling a pause in the trade fight ahead of Trump-Xi meeting.

Trump meets Zelensky, says he hopes Tomahawks won’t be needed to end war US President Donald Trump appeared cool on Friday on the prospect of sending long-range Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, suggesting to counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky during a White House meeting that they may not be necessary if he can broker a peace deal. Zelensky came to Washington looking for arms to bolster his country’s forces in Ukraine’s three-year-old conflict with Russia, but Trump frequently highlighted his peace summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a matter of weeks, as Trump...

South China Morning Post

Trump meets Zelensky, says he hopes Tomahawks won’t be needed to end war

The US president is also set to meet Putin, though some see this as a stalling tactic by the Russian leader.

US lawmakers urge Trump to attend key Indo-Pacific summits A bipartisan group of US lawmakers has urged US President Donald Trump to personally attend three major Indo-Pacific summits this fall, warning that his absence could hand China a strategic advantage as Beijing aggressively expands its influence across the region. In a letter released on Friday, members of Congress stressed that the Indo-Pacific region remains “vital to America’s security and prosperity”, and is at the centre of “strategic competition” with China. They called Trump’s...

South China Morning Post

US lawmakers urge Trump to attend key Indo-Pacific summits

Trump’s participation in summits would be a powerful response to Beijing’s diplomatic campaign in region, Congress members argue in letter.