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More than 2.12 million people registered for China’s annual civil service examination that were held on November 28, 2021. The record number of applicants are competing for only 31,200 vacancies, giving them just a one-in-68 chance of success landing one of the government jobs. Also known as the guokao in Mandarin, …
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After its return to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, the Taliban promised to crack down on poppy plantations and the drug trade. But Western sanctions imposed on the country have brought the Afghan economy on the brink of collapse, with many Afghans once again turning to the profitable poppy trade. As the world’…
Residents were seen rushing to supermarkets to stock up on supplies as new Covid-19 cases continue to surge across the country. Some people waited for more than 2 hours to make their purchases. That, and more trending videos from China this week.
Myanmar is the world’s biggest source of jade, exporting more than US$420 million worth of the gemstone mineral between October 2019 to May 2020. The nation’s jade industry has long supported the financing of the military, which seized power on February 1, 2021, after staging a coup and detaining pro-democracy leade…
With more than seven million people crammed into a tiny land mass, Hong Kong is known as one of the most densely populated places in the world. But according to a number of sources including the United Nations and the World Bank, Hongkongers can expect to live longer than people in any other place on Earth. A number…
Residents were seen rushing to supermarkets to stock up on supplies in eastern China’s Jiangsu province as new Covid-19 cases continue to surge across the country. Some people waited for more than 2 hours to make their purchases.
A Chinese company has developed an exoskeleton that can help paralysed patients walk again. Developed by Hangzhou RoboCT Technological Development, the futuristic robot simulates the movement of a human stride. However, the exoskeleton is not expected to go on the market any time soon.
A notice released by the Chinese government on November 1, 2021, urged households to stock up on daily necessities ahead of winter in case of emergencies. The advisory was issued following a spike in vegetable prices and a growing number of Covid-19 cases which have prompted increasingly strict measures including lo…
Mainland China and Taiwan filed back-to-back applications to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (CPTPP) in September 2021. CPTPP is one of the world's largest trade agreements initially involving Pacific Rim countries. But the net looks set to be cast wider following the UK fi…
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Following the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021, local hospitals have been facing severe shortages in medical resources, including manpower after millions left the country, leaving just a handful of doctors and nurses to run hospitals. In the main children’s hospital in the capital Kabul, medical staff …
Huawei Technologies Co employees performed a dance and presented flowers to the company’s chief financial officer and executive director Meng Wanzhou as she returned to work on October 25, 2021. Meng arrived at the Chinese tech giant’s Shenzhen headquarters after completing quarantine for 21 days. Three weeks earlie…
Japan’s Princess Mako finally married her university sweetheart Kei Komuro on October 26, 2021, after years of controversy surrounding Komuro’s family’s alleged financial difficulties. The marriage was a low-key affair involving no elaborate ceremony, officiated on paper. Under the Imperial House Law, Princess Mako …
Shelves were emptying in many grocery stores across the US in late October 2021, because of a shortage of goods created by a deepening global supply chain crisis. The problem has been complicated by booming demand as the American economy recovers from the Covid-19 pandemic and the approaching Christmas holiday seaso…
Garment factories and street vendors in South Korea are racing to cash-in on the Squid Game craze ahead of Halloween. Factory workers have been scrambling to churn out thousands of green tracksuits and red jumpsuits featured in the Netflix hit series for street vendors to stock up in time for Halloween. Businesses w…
Over a hundred sacks containing packs of banknotes rolled up in plastic bags have been recovered from a hole in the floor leading to the coffers of a branch of the Iraqi central bank. The cash, found in the northern city of Mosul on October 20, 2021, is believed to be some of the several hundred million US dollars w…
A North Korean inmate was filmed escaping from a prison in northern China’s Jilin province. Zhu Xianjian, 39, was sentenced to 11 years and three months after committing a string of crimes, including crossing the country border illegally and stabbing a woman to steal cash and bank deposit books in 2013. When Zhu esc…
Japan is facing economic pressure due to a weaker yen and rising commodity prices that are threatening the cost of food staples, which have remained stable for decades. Wholesale prices have risen 5 per cent in the last three months, leaving small business owners such as 78-year-old Shizuo Mori worried. His coffee s…
In an exclusive interview with the SCMP, Hong Kong Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po said the financing model for the Northern Metropolis development will be tailor-made for the project, which will require a package of financing arrangements, including possibly the issuing of retail bonds. The proposed Northern Me…
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un spoke of his country’s “grim economic situation” on October 10, 2021, as the nation celebrated the 76th anniversary of the founding of the Workers’ Party of Korea. In his speech, Kim also called for the Party’s “single-minded unity” in developing the economy. He also promised “determi…
The Hong Kong Observatory is expected to raise its typhoon signal No 8 between 4pm and 6pm on October 12, 2021 as Tropical Cyclone Kompasu gathers strength. Kompasu is the second typhoon to hit the city in four days.. Ahead of the storm’s arrival, wet markets and supermarkets have been filled with people stocking up…
Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jnr is running for president in the 2022 election in the Philippines. A son of the late Philippine dictator, the younger Marcos filed his certificate of candidacy on October 6, 2021, saying he intended to provide “unifying leadership” so the country could “face the Covid-19 crisis and reo…
After years of intense media scrutiny and extended postponement, Japan’s Princess Mako will finally tie the knot with her commoner boyfriend, Kei Komuro, on October 26, 2021. The couple met as students at university and were engaged in 2017. The wedding was initially expected to take place in 2018, but was delayed b…
Chinese factories are having to shift work schedules to non-peak hours or halt production altogether as the country comes to grips with an electricity shortage. At least 20 of China's 31 provincial-level jurisdictions are rationing electricity to play catch-up, after being unable to meet the central government's ene…
With Afghanistan’s economy on the brink of collapse, farmers in the southern city of Kandahar are turning to the region’s most lucrative cash crop – opium poppies. Opium prices have risen three-fold after the Taliban promised not to become a narco-state and end its reliance on the opium harvest. For decades, the Tal…
China Evergrande Group has hit another bump on the road to ease its liquidity crisis after abandoning a plan to float its car-making business on the domestic market. There was little activity at the Evergrande New Energy Vehicle Group facility in Shanghai on September 28, 2021, two days after the indebted developer …
Tens of thousands of farmers in India took part in a 10-hour nationwide strike on September 27, 2021. The protest, which was supported by the country’s major opposition parties, came one year after lawmakers passed controversial agriculture reform laws. For months, farmers have been demanding the withdrawal of the m…
Few workers were seen at the Evergrande-funded Guangzhou FC football stadium under construction in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong on September 26, 2021. The debt-ridden property developer, which owes US$305 billion and is currently short of cash, insists the stadium’s construction will continue as normal…
Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s chief financial officer, was greeted by a hero’s welcome as she landed in the Chinese city of Shenzhen on September 25, 2021. The previous day her legal team had struck a deal with US prosecutors to end a high-profile fraud case that saw her detained in Canada for nearly three years. Her husba…
Huawei’s chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou was welcomed back to China by a 100-strong crowd gathered on the tarmac in Shenzhen, her company’s base, on September 25, 2021. Meng had spent nearly three years under house arrest in Canada, where she fought a lengthy court battle against extradition to the US on fraud …
Thailand is not unfamiliar with political turmoil. The country has seen 13 military coups since 1932, most recently in 2014. In 2019, the military-backed Palang Pracharath Party won a disputed general election and elevated former military general Prayuth Chan-ocha to prime minister. The latest round of anti-governme…
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The World Food Programme said on September 23, 2021, that only 5 per cent of Afghan families have enough to eat daily. This comes as the nation faces the second severe drought in three years. Complicated by other issues, including an economic crisis following the takeover of the Taliban as well as the Covid-19 pande…
Afghanistan’s crumbling health care system will see an injection of US$45 million from the UN Central Emergency Response Fund, according to the world body’s humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths. Announcing the release of funds on September 22, 2021, Griffiths said the move is meant to keep hospitals and other health …
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Police took away some of the protesters who had gathered outside the headquarters of the cash-strapped real estate developer China Evergrande Group. The removal on September 16, 2021, came as the country's second-biggest property developer wrestles with a liquidity crisis. Investors have been demanding repayment of …
The Taliban has marked the first month since sweeping back to power in Afghanistan on September 15, 2021. The insurgents seized the capital Kabul with barely a fight after the US announced its 20-year military presence would end on August 31. A month on, Kabul residents said security has largely improved, but the co…
CZ Zhao, the founder and CEO of crypto-exchange Binance, says that changes the trading platform operator is making are being done to win the approval of regulators. In an interview with the SCMP, Zhao also offered his views on the future of non-fungible tokens or NFTs, and central bank digital currencies.
Chaotic scenes erupted at the Shenzhen headquarters of the cash-strapped property developer China Evergrande Group on September 13, 2021. About 100 disgruntled investors crowded the office lobby to demand repayments of loans and financial products. The protest came amid worries that the country's most indebted devel…
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Working-class communities have been hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic, with many struggling to feed themselves and pay rent. Catering company Gingko House, which operates several restaurants in Hong Kong, started the fook faan or “fortune meals” programme in 2017. The restaurant emphasises giving people food options…
Shop owners in Kabul said business has been slowed since the Taliban took control of the capital city two weeks ago. Afghanistan’s economy has been pushed towards the brink of collapse. The value of the afghani currency has tumbled, and prices of necessities such as food and fuel have surged every day.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has announced plans to set up a new stock exchange in Beijing. In a short speech at the opening of the China International Fair for Trade in Services on September 2, 2021, Xi said China will support the innovative development of small and medium-sized enterprises. China has two existing …
