Tai Po Fire: HKSAR government responds with accountability and reform

This ginkgo couple has been together for 500 years!

Swiss President arrives in Beijing as trade ties take center stage

Click here for more articles by Kormedi.com. Comedian Shin Bong-sun, who has drawn attention for her slimmer figure, turned down even a tempting snack to stay on track with her diet. Shin recently posted a photo of a black plastic bag on social media, writing, “Hotteok my older sister bought me from Namdaemun. I won't eat it.” She also shared a full-body photo taken at a gym, saying she was playing tennis and attending a personal training session. Shin previously revealed that she had lost 11 kilograms in just 100 days. She has since continued to exercise regularly and manage her diet. Hotteok: A calorie bomb with sugar and oil Hotteok is a snack made by filling wheat flour dough with a sweet filling and cooking it in oil. The carbohydrates in the dough, combined with sugar and oil, make the snack high in calories. Its calorie content varies depending on its size, filling ingredients and the amount of oil used during cooking. According to the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety's food nutrition database, hotteok containing nuts has 314 kilocalories per 100 grams. Eating a 150-gram hotteok

Hanwha Group has won its first contract to build a warship for the United States Navy after its acquisition of Philadelphia-based Philly Shipyard in December 2024, marking a tangible step forward in the Korea-U.S. shipbuilding cooperation initiative known as Make American Shipbuilding Great Again (MASGA). Hanwha Group said Sunday that Hanwha Defense USA has signed a $269 million (357.5 billion won) contract with TOTE Services to build a landing ship medium (LSM). TOTE Services is a vessel construction manager entrusted by the U.S. Navy with overseeing shipbuilding contracts and managing vessel construction. The construction of the LSM is expected to begin in the fourth quarter of next year, and the contract also includes options for three additional vessels. The LSM is an expeditionary landing vessel designed to support the U.S. Navy's operations in contested coastal areas, including the Indo-Pacific region. It is tasked with transporting and deploying Marine Corps personnel, equipment and supplies to coastal areas. The U.S. Navy aims to secure 35 LSMs. The vessel measures 100 meters in

Unionized workers at South Korean steelmaker POSCO will vote this week on a tentative wage agreement reached with management, the union said Sunday. The two sides have held 30 rounds of negotiations since June, while the union staged two partial strikes in September to demand higher wages and bonuses. Last week, the union said it would launch an "indefinite" strike from Nov. 2 unless the company presented an acceptable wage offer. On Friday, the union reached a tentative agreement on the company's latest offer, which includes a 2.6 percent increase in base pay, a one-off payment of 6 million won ($4,500) and improved benefits. Union members are scheduled to vote on the deal on Saturday. The union had initially demanded a 7.1 percent increase in base pay, a performance bonus equivalent to 600 percent of base pay, 50 company shares per worker and a holiday bonus equivalent to 200 percent of base pay. In addition to higher wages, the union cited staffing shortages and aging facilities as factors that could heighten the risk of workplace accidents. Management's previous offer included a 2.5 pe

Korea is shopping for real estate on the moon, and its newly established space agency has its eye on some of the lunar surface’s most forbidding neighborhoods. At a recent academic symposium, the Korea AeroSpace Administration (KASA) revealed a shortlist of prospective landing sites for two robotic missions scheduled for 2032. The agency is weighing 20 candidate zones for its flagship lunar lander and nine for a precursor soft-landing demonstration craft, signaling a decisive shift toward boots-on-the-surface ambitions for a nation long playing catch-up in deep-space exploration. Rather than sticking strictly to the lunar south pole — a crowded target for NASA’s Artemis program and rival missions seeking water ice — Korean scientists are eyeing a broader, strategically varied grid. The candidate list spans ancient impact basins, jagged basaltic plains, and deep pit craters that could house underground lava tubes. Among the standout targets for the early 2032 verification probe is Lacus Mortis, or the "Lake of Death," a pitted plain that scientists suspect holds collapsed lava tub

Russia’s influence has surged among young people across Africa in recent years, leaping over former colonial power France while still trailing China, a survey of African youths has found. Many young Africans now perceive Russia to be an ally, observers said, warning its rivals to take the shift seriously as the continent becomes increasingly critical to both Moscow and Beijing. According to the African Youth Survey commissioned by the South Africa-based Ichikowitz Family Foundation, 54 per cent...

A Vincent van Gogh painting not shown publicly for more than 60 years recently drew hundreds of people to Sotheby’s Hong Kong. Painted in May 1890, Châtaigniers en fleurs (Chestnut Trees in Flower) is a major work from his Auvers-sur-Oise period and could set an auction record. For three days, Sotheby’s opened the private collection to public viewing in Hong Kong. Its brief stay raises a question about the city’s art hub ambitions: what lasting expertise can be built around a masterpiece that...

A two-day meeting of the Group of 20 (G20) foreign ministers ended in Atlanta on Saturday without a joint communique, as participants failed to reach consensus on major global geopolitical and economic security issues amid the Ukraine crisis and the US-Iran conflict.

Van driver Wong Siu-po, 48, felt life was becoming more difficult than ever as rising fuel prices cost him an additional HK$5,000 (US$640) a month, about a third of his monthly income. With an 11-year-old daughter and an unemployed wife to support, he feels the pressure mounting. “I need to work three hours longer per day to make up for the loss of income,” he said. “I will cut down on air conditioning to save costs.” Wong’s plight echoed survey findings showing that nearly 98 per cent of...

When Zhuhai hosted its inaugural air show in November 1996, the event showcased the J-8IIM fighter, a second-generation fighter equipped with Russian radar and weapons, alongside a limited line-up of home-made aircraft. Imported planes were the focus and Chinese audiences curiously studied the much more advanced foreign designs. They crowded around two Russian fourth-generation Su-27 fighters and were wowed as the jets performed their famous cobra manoeuvre, sharply braking in mid-air. At the...

What kind of living space can truly be called a “home”? That was the question on my mind when I visited United Court, a transitional housing estate in Tung Tau, Yuen Long, run by the Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui Welfare Council. While there, I shared my thoughts on building a mental health-friendly community. Nine years ago, I took part in a community-based poverty study and interviewed residents in inadequate housing. I still remember families describing their living space as little more than a...

The Chinese electric vehicle automaker Geely has announced it’s coming to Canada. The company says that it has assembled a local team and begun building out a retail and service network.

As Washington seeks to loosen China’s dominance over critical minerals, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio urged other members of the Group of 20 (G20) to strengthen supply chains and secure strategic trade routes as the group’s foreign ministers’ meeting drew to a close in Atlanta on Saturday. Rubio said there was a “universal recognition” among the G20 members over the importance of issues like critical minerals, supply chain security and freedom of navigation. “The first step is at least some...

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Saturday that the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or the Quad, was not an “anti-China” coalition, as the grouping’s top diplomats finalised preparations for the leaders’ summit in the Philippines next month. Rubio’s statement comes just weeks before US President Donald Trump is scheduled to meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Shenzhen, China. “It is not an anti-China or anti-anybody coalition,” Rubio said at a press conference on the sidelines of the...

A Hong Kong man believed to have accidentally fallen from a height struck a domestic helper on the podium of a luxury housing estate in West Kowloon on Saturday, with the pair sent to hospital. Police said they received a report at 7.43pm that the man had fallen at 1 Austin Road West and landed on the podium, hitting the woman. A police spokesman said both were conscious at the scene, with the man taken to Queen Elizabeth Hospital and the woman sent to Kwong Wah Hospital. He added that...

Alibaba's Qwen to integrate into Apple Intelligence in landmark deal

A leading Hong Kong telecommunications carrier has confirmed that an order requiring it to justify its operation in the United States has been ceased, after the company reportedly agreed to wind down its business under pressure from a US regulatory agency over national security concerns. A spokeswoman for Hong Kong Telecom (HKT) told the South China Morning Post on Saturday that the Order to Show Cause issued by the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in October requiring it to justify...

China is further narrowing access to a key government recruitment programme for overseas-educated graduates, limiting their pathways into the country’s civil service and party-state system. More than a dozen provincial-level regions, including Beijing and Shanghai, opened applications for the 2027 xuandiaosheng recruitment rounds in September and October. Xuandiaosheng, or the “selected graduates” system, is designed to select and train university graduates to become elite cadres and officials...

China Coast Guard patrols around China’s Taiwan island

Chinese archaeologists are set for a hi-tech turn, with the latest five-year blueprint aiming to deploy AI and deep-sea robots to trace Chinese history, decipher the origins of East Asian humans and expand the country’s cultural soft power. Scientists will develop technologies such as remote sensing, ancient DNA analysis, underwater archaeology robots and artificial intelligence (AI) models for virtual restoration of excavated artefacts, according to the 15th five-year work plan for...

Chinese first lady Peng Liyuan hosted her German counterpart, Elke Budenbender, in Beijing on Friday for a tea reception in a bid to showcase Beijing’s soft power and foster closer bilateral ties. Peng stressed the rich cooperation with Germany in areas including education and culture, according to official news agency Xinhua. She also expressed hope that people from the two countries would “visit each other more often, continuously deepen mutual understanding and foster closer people-to-people...

Vendors at Hong Kong’s Wine and Dine Festival reported a stronger turnout and signs of improving business on Saturday as the annual event entered the weekend, coinciding with Halloween celebrations and extended opening hours until 1am. Some exhibitors said visitor numbers had increased noticeably compared with the first two days of the four-day festival, while others expressed cautious optimism about sales amid a challenging retail environment. Henry Leung, a staff member at food and beverage...

A video showing people fleeing a shaking building was falsely shared on social media as footage of the magnitude-7.0 earthquake that struck southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region in October. Fact Hunter traced the clip to a gym in Pereira, Colombia, filmed in August, nearly two months before the earthquake even happened.

Top scientists debate AI at World Laureates Forum

America’s push for 2027 combat readiness in the Indo-Pacific is raising questions over whether a year that US military officials linked to a possible People’s Liberation Army attack on Taiwan has instead become a planning benchmark. The preparations come despite a US intelligence assessment published in March that mainland Chinese leaders “do not currently plan” to attack Taiwan in 2027, “nor do they have a fixed timeline for achieving unification”. General Ronald Clark, commander of US Army...

Beijing and Washington have been urged to foster a new generation of talent to bridge gaps between the countries and strengthen people-to-people exchanges amid growing frictions and concerns about a lack of China expertise in the US. Academics and experts from the two countries gathered in Shanghai on Friday at the China-US Intergenerational Dialogue 2026. They were seeking a new crop of “bridge builders” like Henry Kissinger, the former US secretary of state who helped to engineer the historic...

Fu Chengyu, the former chairman of leading oil giants Sinopec and China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), is under investigation for corruption by the country’s top watchdogs. The Communist Party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) was investigating Fu for alleged “serious violations of discipline and law”, a euphemism for corruption, state news agency Xinhua reported on Saturday, quoting a notice posted on the commission’s website. He is “currently undergoing...

Revellers packed Lan Kwai Fong dressed as golden Buddhas, Lipton tea drink cartons and bottles of ketchup and mustard, with bars expecting a business bump of more than 50 per cent as Hong Kong’s first “Halloween Month” roared to a close on Saturday. By 7.30pm police were urging revellers to celebrate elsewhere as the area in Central was packed. There was a 45-minute wait for visitors inside the departure hall at Huanggang, according to the Security Bureau. Party-goers travelling from mainland...