Alo Yoga takes over waterfront commercial space in Hong Kong as Asia play heats up American athleisure brand Alo Yoga has taken over a large waterfront commercial space in Hong Kong after it was vacated by a British luxury food retailer, with analysts saying “experience-led” wellness brands are emerging as rare bright spots in an otherwise uneven retail recovery. The local debut of the brand at the 7,000 sq ft, two-storey space at K11 Musea in Tsim Sha Tsui follows the exit of food retailer Fortnum & Mason on January 25. The move comes amid a prolonged retail downturn and a...

South China Morning Post

Alo Yoga takes over waterfront store space in Hong Kong as its Asia play heats up

Company moves into 7,000 sq ft, two-storey space at K11 Musea in latest example of success of ‘experience-led’ brands.

Man arrested over bomb hoax threat targeting Hong Kong’s Admiralty MTR station Hong Kong police have arrested a man for allegedly making a bomb hoax threat targeting Admiralty MTR station on an online war game forum. Inspector Luke Hung Sze-tat of the Central police district said on Saturday that officers had arrested a 31-year-old local man in his Sha Tin home on Friday evening and seized three imitation guns from the flat. “Although the crime only involved one person, his threat to place a bomb in one of the busiest and densest MTR stations in Hong Kong prompted us to...

South China Morning Post

Man arrested over threatening to bomb Hong Kong’s Admiralty MTR station

Police say they searched station and found no suspicious objects.

Hong Kong plans to revive privacy law mandating that firms report data breaches Hong Kong’s privacy watchdog plans to consult lawmakers this year about introducing mandatory data breach reporting and related penalties, the body’s chief has said. Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data Ada Chung Lai-ling on Saturday revealed details about the proposed legislative amendments to the city’s privacy ordinance, after authorities stalled the measures in 2024 due to opposition from the business community. “We really hope that we have some specific recommendations this year, so we...

South China Morning Post

Hong Kong plans to revive privacy law requiring firms to report data breaches

Privacy Commissioner Ada Chung says watchdog intends to consult lawmakers this year after legislative reform was put on hold in 2024.

India’s Modi hails ‘great news’ after US slashes tariffs as part of new trade deal Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday hailed an interim trade agreement with the United States, saying it would bolster global growth and deepen economic ties between the two countries. The pact cuts US “reciprocal” duties on Indian products to 18 per cent from 25 per cent, and commits India to large purchases of US energy and industrial goods. US President Donald Trump, while announcing the deal Tuesday, had said Modi promised to stop buying Russian oil over the war in Ukraine. The...

South China Morning Post

India’s Modi hails ‘great news’ after US slashes tariffs as part of new deal

The pact cuts US duties on Indian goods to 18 per cent and commits India to large purchases of US energy and industrial goods.

Taiwan wants to train an effective reserve force. Will live-fire drills do the job? Taiwan is moving to plug one-year conscripts directly into frontline combined-arms operations, mandating joint live-fire training with troops across all services to bolster resilience against a potential attack from Beijing. But the push is facing challenges, with experts saying that the inexperienced recruits could become a battlefield burden while the military also deals with training capacity issues and weakening public resolve on defending the island. The Taiwanese cabinet’s latest policy...

South China Morning Post

Taiwan wants an effective reserve force. Will live-fire drills do the job?

Challenges in forging conscripts into fighting force range from inadequate training facilities to eroding public will to defend the island.

Inside Indonesia’s inner circle: Hashim Djojohadikusumo on his brother Prabowo’s vision Hashim Djojohadikusumo is smiling almost beatifically, but the trademark feistiness is unmistakable. We are sitting down for a chat amid the turmoil gripping Indonesia’s capital markets and he says emphatically that “it’s good, it’s good” that it happened. This unvarnished answer is one of several he gives as we talk about his country, nearly two years after his elder brother, Prabowo Subianto, won the presidential election by a wide margin, securing 58.6 per cent of the votes on his third...

South China Morning Post

Exclusive | Inside Indonesia’s inner circle: Hashim Djojohadikusumo on Prabowo’s vision

The Indonesian president’s brother talks ‘fried’ stocks, ‘mosquito’ rivals and MSCI’s Turkmenistan insult in an exclusive interview.

31 killed in Pakistan mosque suicide blast: ‘extremely powerful explosion’ A worshipper at the Shiite mosque in Pakistan’s Islamabad, where dozens of people were killed in a suicide blast on Friday, described an “extremely powerful” explosion ripping through the building just after prayers started. Muhammad Kazim, 52, said he arrived at the Imam Bargah Qasr-e-Khadijatul Kubra mosque shortly after 1pm on Friday and took up a place around seven or eight rows from the imam. “During the first bow of the namaz [prayer ritual], we heard gunfire,” he said outside the Pakistan...

South China Morning Post

32 killed in Pakistan mosque suicide blast: ‘extremely powerful explosion’

The attack was the deadliest in Islamabad since September 2008, when 60 were killed in a suicide truck bomb blast at the Marriott hotel.

US funeral home ‘monster’ sentenced to 40 years for stashing 189 bodies A Colorado funeral home owner who stashed 189 decomposing bodies in a building over four years and gave grieving families fake ashes was sentenced to 40 years in state prison on Friday. During the sentencing hearing, family members told Judge Eric Bentley they have had recurring nightmares about decomposing flesh and maggots since learning what happened to their loved ones. They called defendant Jon Hallford a “monster” and “vile” and had urged the judge to give him the maximum sentence of 50...

South China Morning Post

US ‘monster’ who gave grieving families fake ashes jailed for 40 years

Instead of cremating bodies entrusted to them, Jon and Carie Hallford left the corpses to rot around their funeral home, the court heard.

Hong Kong authorities repeal ‘flawed’ bus seat belt law Hong Kong authorities have repealed a law requiring bus passengers to wear seat belts through subsidiary legislation, after discovering it only applied to vehicles registered since late January. The government gazetted the Road Traffic (Safety Equipment) (Amendment) Regulation 2026 on Friday, which repeals section 8D requiring passengers to wear seat belts. Section 8D stipulated that “a person must not ride as a passenger in a passenger seat of a bus to which regulation 8AB applies on any road,...

South China Morning Post

Hong Kong authorities repeal ‘flawed’ bus seat belt law

Rule sparked complaints over uncomfortable restraints, hygiene risks and fears that unbuckling early before alighting would violate law.

China’s expat pilots, Indonesian woman faints after 140 lashes: SCMP’s 7 highlights We have selected seven stories from this week’s news across Hong Kong, mainland China, the wider Asia region and beyond that resonated with our readers and shed light on topical issues. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. USS Abraham Lincoln is in the Arabian Sea. So is a Chinese vessel A Chinese research vessel has been operating in Middle Eastern waters close to a US aircraft carrier, according to ship-tracking data, at a time of heightened American...

South China Morning Post

China’s expat pilots; Indonesian woman collapses after 140 lashes: 7 highlights

From a Chinese vessel shadowing US aircraft carrier to Hong Kong graduates’ job outlook, here are highlights from SCMP’s recent reporting.

China’s humanoid robot makers pivot from ‘body’ to ‘brain’ as commercial race heats up Chinese humanoid robotics companies are doubling down on developing intelligent models, as investors eye advances in robot “brains” as the next step towards real-world commercial use. Shenzhen-based Dobot said on Wednesday that it delivered its third batch of mass produced, full-size humanoid Atom robots, marking a shift from laboratory concept to an industrialised product. Dobot, listed in Hong Kong, said its self-developed Dobot-VLA, a vision-language-action model, enabled Atom to react to...

South China Morning Post

China’s humanoid makers pivot from ‘body’ to ‘brain’ as commercial race heats up

Dobot claims its self-developed vision-language-action model lets humanoid robots react to the real world rather than just perform preprogrammed ta...

US defends new minerals alliance, rejecting claims it targets China A senior US official on Thursday defended Washington’s new critical minerals push, telling the South China Morning Post that supply chain diversification is a national security measure, not an attempt to form an exclusive bloc as Beijing has claimed. Deputy State Department spokeswoman Mignon Houston, speaking a day after the launch of the Forum on Resource Geostrategic Engagement, or Forge, described the US-led global coordination of strategic minerals as a “prudent step”. She sidestepped...

South China Morning Post

Exclusive | US defends new minerals alliance, rejecting claims it targets China

Washington says the Forge initiative is about securing supply chains against shocks and price coercion, not building an exclusive bloc.

Malaysia bans e-waste imports: ‘not world’s dumping ground’ Malaysia has announced an immediate and full ban on the importation of electronic waste, as the government vowed the country would not be a “dumping ground” for the world’s waste. The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) said in a statement late on Wednesday that all electronic waste, commonly known as e-waste, would be reclassified under the “absolute prohibition” category effective immediately. This removes the discretionary power previously given to the Department of Environment to...

South China Morning Post

Malaysia bans e-waste imports: ‘not world’s dumping ground’

Authorities have intercepted hundreds of containers of suspected e-waste at Malaysian ports in recent years and returned them to exporters.

Malaysia plans new insurance scheme for Singapore cross-border workers A new insurance scheme will be created for Malaysians working in Singapore to ensure they remain covered even during their daily cross-border commute, says Human Resources Minister R. Ramanan. The new scheme will ensure that the nearly 400,000 Malaysians who cross the border daily from Johor are not left out of social security protection after working hours. “What happens when you are travelling from your workplace back to your home? Where is the coverage during this period? That coverage is not...

South China Morning Post

Malaysia plans new insurance scheme for Singapore cross-border workers

The scheme will cover the nearly 400,000 Malaysian commuters who cross the causeway daily for work, minister says.

Defence argues Tiananmen vigil activists’ actions ‘lawful’ exercise of rights A disbanded alliance behind Hong Kong’s Tiananmen Square vigil had only intended to promote democracy and greater political freedom when it advocated the abolition of the mainland’s one-party rule, a defence lawyer has said in a high-profile national security trial. Defence counsel Erik Shum Sze-man on Wednesday said ending the Communist Party of China’s one-party rule would have been a solution to the political crisis after Beijing’s military crackdown on pro-democracy protests on June 4,...

South China Morning Post

Defence argues Tiananmen vigil activists’ actions ‘lawful’ exercise of rights

Defence lawyer says Hong Kong group aimed to promote democracy and greater political freedom, not oppose or topple Communist Party leadership.

‘For the world’: Trump launches his Board of Peace that some see rivalling UN US President Donald Trump on Thursday inaugurated his “Board of Peace” to lead efforts at maintaining a ceasefire in Israel’s war with Hamas, insisting that “everyone wants to be a part” of the body that could eventually rival the United Nations - despite many US allies opting not to participate. In a speech at the World Economic Forum, Trump sought to create momentum for a project to map out a future for the war-torn Gaza Strip that has been overshadowed this week, first by his threats to seize...

South China Morning Post

‘For the world’: Trump launches his Board of Peace that some see rivalling UN

The US president signed the board’s charter at a ceremony at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

As history makes clear, a powerful China is not expansionist Beneath the “China threat” thesis, often heard in Western policy circles, is the assumption that China will become expansionist as it grows more powerful. But history gives us little reason to treat that as inevitable. At moments of peak strength, China has not consistently converted power into the kind of overseas colonialism, expansionism or conquest that marked the ascent of Western great powers. There are three often-cited reasons to suggest China’s rise might lead to expansionism. First,...

South China Morning Post

Opinion | As history makes clear, a powerful China is not expansionist

China was an unmatched power in the Song and Ming dynasties, with greater concentrated authority. But it consolidated, rather than colonised.

US strikes at Isis fighters in Syria after 3 Americans killed US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth on Friday announced the start of an operation to “eliminate Isis fighters, infrastructure and weapons sites” in Syria following the deaths of three US citizens. “This is not the beginning of a war – it is a declaration of vengeance. The United States of America, under President Trump’s leadership, will never hesitate and never relent to defend our people,” he said on social media. Two Iowa National Guard members and a US civilian interpreter were killed on...

South China Morning Post

US strikes at Isis fighters in Syria after 3 Americans killed

At least five Isis members were killed in a ‘large-scale’ strike hitting 70 Isis targets across central Syria.

The quiet US-China tech contest for the future Power shifts begin in places most people never see – on assembly lines making batteries and robots, along transmission lines feeding data centre clusters, in local offices selling land and in labs training artificial intelligence models. The United States and China are using these quiet levers to construct different futures. The contest will be decided not by slogans but by who builds the most productive, trusted and durable infrastructure. Those choices will shape billions of lives. The global...

South China Morning Post

Opinion | The quiet US-China tech contest for the future

The competition will be decided by who builds the most productive, trusted and durable infrastructure. Those choices will shape billions of lives.

Chipmaker CXMT eyes US$42 billion Shanghai listing, sources say Chinese memory chipmaker ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) plans an initial public offering (IPO) in Shanghai as soon as the first quarter of next year, eyeing a valuation of up to 300 billion yuan ($42.12 billion), according to two sources briefed on the matter. Founded in 2016 with government backing, CXMT leads China’s strategic push to build a foothold in a global DRAM market long dominated by companies from Japan, South Korea and the United States. China’s leading manufacturer of dynamic...

South China Morning Post

Chipmaker CXMT eyes US$42 billion Shanghai listing, sources say

IPO plans come as China’s semiconductor stocks surge, with the benchmark CSI CN semiconductor index rallying 49 per cent year-to-date.