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WorldJun 26Hong Kong court places baby Danny in Social Welfare Department care for 3 yearsA Hong Kong court has granted the guardianship of home-born baby Danny to social welfare authorities for three years after his parents were earlier arrested for alleged child neglect. Danny’s father, Tsang Wai-bong, revealed on Friday that their two-month-old son would be under the Social Welfare Department’s care after the Juvenile Court granted the authorities’ application for a protection order at a closed-door hearing. Tsang and his partner Kwan Pui-sin, who previously failed to register...South China Morning Post
BusinessJun 26Hong Kong reports 36% rise in FDI inflows so far this year, InvestHK data showsHong Kong continued to draw US and European firms to expand their businesses in the city in the first half of this year, the latest data shows, adding new momentum to its superconnector role. A total of 413 companies either set up local entities or expanded their businesses in Hong Kong in the first six months of 2026, representing a year-on-year increase of 9 per cent, government investment promotion agency InvestHK said on Thursday. “[The firms] are expected to bring in over HK$53 billion...South China Morning Post
WorldJun 26Hong Kong beautician pleads guilty to luring 2 women into Myanmar scam factorySouth China Morning Post
DisasterJun 26Woman dead after fire at Hong Kong flat, 3 others hospitalisedA 50-year-old woman has died in the wake of a fire at a Hong Kong flat, with three others hospitalised. Police said the fire broke out at Valiant Court in Ho Man Tin at around 10.04am on Friday. Fire services were immediately deployed to the scene and the blaze was reportedly extinguished soon thereafter. The force said three women and a man were rescued from the building. They were rushed to Kwong Wah Hospital in nearby Yau Ma Tei but one of the women, aged 50, was later pronounced dead. The...South China Morning Post
BusinessJun 26CK Asset sells penthouse in Hong Kong’s Mid-Levels for US$48.5m, sets pricing benchmarkA penthouse at CK Asset Holdings’ luxury residential project in Hong Kong’s Mid-Levels has been sold via tender for HK$380.77 million (US$48.5 million), according to a statement from the flagship property developer of tycoon Li Ka-shing, underscoring the rebound in the city’s high-end residential segment. Unit 10 on the 20th floor of 21 Borrett Road in the upscale district in Central fetched HK$126,000 per square foot, the highest price for the development and for new home sales this year,...South China Morning Post
DisasterJun 26Hong Kong police arrest minibus driver after cyclist killed in collisionHong Kong police have arrested a minibus driver for dangerous driving after his vehicle fatally hit a cyclist in North district. Police received a report of the incident in Ta Kwu Ling at 6.27am on Friday. Emergency personnel found the man unconscious at the scene, having sustained serious head injuries. He was taken to North District Hospital in Sheung Shui, where he was pronounced dead at 6.59am. The 74-year-old minibus driver was travelling along Man Kam To Road towards Sheung Shui at the...South China Morning Post
PoliticsJun 26Hong Kong to raise share of lay members in Medical Council from 25% to 31%Hong Kong authorities have proposed overhauling the city’s medical watchdog by raising the proportion of lay members to more than a third and requiring the time frame for handling complaints to be made public, which may help slash the inquiry process from 42 to 29 months. Unveiling the proposed amendments to the Medical Registration Ordinance on Friday, Secretary for Health Lo Chung-mau said the reform aimed to foster more diverse participation in the city’s Medical Council. “We aim to maintain...South China Morning Post
PoliticsJun 26Why having more foreign-trained doctors in Hong Kong won’t threaten local onesAs Hong Kong marks the 29th anniversary of its return to Chinese rule on July 1, the South China Morning Post talks to the city’s senior officials about the administration’s achievements so far and what may lie ahead. Allowing all doctors without permanent residency to work in Hong Kong will not threaten the careers of local practitioners, the health minister has said as he defended a proposal to revamp the medical registration regime. In an exclusive interview with the South China Morning Post,...South China Morning Post
DisasterBreakingJun 26Hong Kong issues red rainstorm warning as education authorities suspend classesSouth China Morning Post
DisasterJun 26Worker dies after being run over by construction vehicle at Hong Kong sports groundHong Kong’s labour authorities are investigating a fatal accident in which a worker died after being run over by a construction vehicle at a sports ground. Police received a report at about 8.58am on Friday that a man had been hit by a vehicle at Kowloon Bay Sports Ground at Kai Lok Street and was trapped beneath it on the running track. The victim’s colleague reported the incident to emergency services. Firefighters arrived to free the victim, but he was pronounced dead at the scene after...South China Morning Post
BusinessJun 26Hong Kong’s big economic dreams: what’s the reality and where do the poor fit in?In the first of a two-part series on the economy as Hong Kong marks 29 years since its return to Chinese rule, Denise Tsang and Vivian Au look at efforts at transformation, including the city’s bet on the Northern Metropolis, and the challenges ahead. Molly Lam lives alone in a public housing flat in Tsuen Wan but fear is a constant companion as she worries about losing her job. The restaurant worker in her sixties has seen how her company is shrinking its operations amid an industry...South China Morning Post
HealthJun 26Hong Kong’s own drug regulator pushes ahead with hiring, seeks WHO recognitionAs Hong Kong marks the 29th anniversary of its return to Chinese rule on July 1, the South China Morning Post talks to the city’s senior officials about the administration’s achievements so far and what may lie ahead. Hong Kong is on a global talent hunt for its own drug approval body which is expected to be launched by the fourth quarter of this year as the city bids to achieve its international biomedical hub ambitions, the city’s health minister has revealed. In an exclusive interview with...South China Morning Post
BusinessJun 25IPO Connect pitched as Hong Kong’s next move to boost finance hub role. But hurdles loomHong Kong is seizing every opportunity to consolidate its role as a global financial centre, leveraging unique advantages and national strategies. This piece, the second in a miniseries focusing on the city’s financial industry ahead of the handover anniversary, explores the likelihood of an “IPO Connect” that could inject much-needed liquidity into the market and deepen international investors’ access to top-tier China assets. At every summer’s Lujiazui Forum, attended by China’s top financial...South China Morning Post
BusinessJun 25HKEX pushes deeper into index business as AI reshapes Hong Kong marketHong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) is expanding into the index business with plans to launch more proprietary benchmarks and related investment products, as traditional market gauges have lagged regional peers during the artificial intelligence-driven technology rally. The operator of Hong Kong’s stock exchange will debut the first exchange-traded fund (ETF) tracking its HKEX Tech 100 Index on Friday. The index, launched on December 9, tracks the 100 largest technology companies listed in...South China Morning Post
Sci & TechJun 25Why Hong Kong’s bilingualism is uniquely indispensable in the AI eraLast week, while preparing a lecture on the visual culture of the Global South, I caught Google’s Gemini in a double hallucination. Cross-referencing a historical event between English and Chinese data sets, I found the English AI to be authoritative but inventing citations. In Chinese, the fabrications vanished but so did global context, replaced by an insular perspective. Disturbingly, the system cloaked Chinese content in English citations, creating a deceptive authenticity that made the...South China Morning Post
WorldJun 25Hong Kong porn star Erena So arrested over promoting overseas gambling websiteHong Kong police have arrested model and porn actress Erena So Hoi‑lam on suspicion of promoting or facilitating bookmaking after she appeared in advertising videos for an overseas gambling website. Officers from the force’s West Kowloon regional crime unit detained So in Sham Shui Po on Thursday, saying they had uncovered an illegal betting website that had hired local personalities as brand ambassadors to attract gamblers. So was later released on bail and must report back to police in late...South China Morning Post
WorldJun 25Hong Kong is world’s most unequal society for wealth distribution, study findsHong Kong has become the world’s most unequal society in terms of wealth distribution, a study has found, as the core drivers of income inequality in the city have shifted from wage disparities to capital concentration, reducing social mobility. The findings of the study, which analysed the evolution of income and wealth inequality in the city between 1981 and 2021, were presented by Yang Li, a research fellow at the World Inequality Lab at the Paris School of Economics, during a seminar hosted...South China Morning Post
DisasterJun 25Hong Kong police bomb squad dispatched to check suspicious object in Quarry BayHong Kong police’s bomb squad has been called in to investigate a suspicious object discovered in Quarry Bay, with a source saying it was likely to be “mud, a rock or concrete”. The force was alerted at 4.52pm on Thursday to a suspicious object discovered on Pan Hoi Street in Quarry Bay. “The explosive ordnance disposal bureau has been summoned to investigate the object,” a spokesman said. A source said the object was not a bomb. “It could be mud, a rock or concrete - something of no value,” the...South China Morning Post
BusinessJun 25Hong Kong exports rise by nearly 41% in May as AI keeps fuelling demandThe recent bumper growth in Hong Kong exports spilled into May, expanding by 40.8 per cent year on year, as artificial intelligence-related products continued to fuel already robust demand overseas. Provisional figures released by the Census and Statistics Department on Thursday showed that the total value of exports rose to HK$611.2 billion (US$77.95 billion) last month, following a nearly 43 per cent increase in April. The May figure marked the second month in a row that export growth exceeded...South China Morning Post
BusinessJun 25UBS prepares to open its next chapter of growth with a new Hong Kong home in West KowloonWith the formal handover of its new Hong Kong premises already complete and plans well under way to start moving all local staff there in the fourth quarter of this year, UBS, the world’s largest wealth manager, is showing long-term confidence in the city’s future as an international financial centre. The new headquarters is located near the West Kowloon Cultural District, one of the world’s largest cultural and arts quarters spanning 40 hectares (99 acres) and home to renowned institutions such...South China Morning Post
WorldJun 25Hong Kong parents plead as baby Danny held in care and daughter may not return from SwedenHong Kong social welfare authorities have classified baby Danny as a “high-risk” child and recommended he remain in protective care, while Sweden has moved to permanently transfer custody of his elder sister Lily to a foster family, according to the children’s parents. The developments come ahead of a hearing at West Kowloon Juvenile Court on Friday over a protection order for Danny, the two-month-old whose home birth and delayed registration triggered a child neglect investigation earlier this...South China Morning Post
BusinessJun 25Southbound Stock Connect flows surge to record US$152b driven by Hong Kong’s IPO revivalSouthbound Stock Connect flows, through which mainland Chinese investors buy Hong Kong listed shares, hit a record high in the past year, reflecting strong confidence in the city’s market on the back of a booming pipeline of initial public offerings (IPO). In the 12 months to March this year, mainland investors snapped up HK$1.19 trillion (US$151.8 billion) worth of shares in Hong Kong, according to the Securities and Futures Commission’s (SFC) annual report published on Wednesday. Average daily...South China Morning Post
PoliticsJun 25Power of Hong Kong’s new national security regulation must be exercised prudentlyThe recent enactment of the Safeguarding National Security (Procedural Matters) Regulation has generated significant interest and commentary on Hong Kong’s legal landscape. It is recognised that maintaining national security is of paramount importance and that there is a constitutional responsibility on the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region to do so. Under the Basic Law, that responsibility falls to a large extent on the city’s chief executive. It is also recognised in many common law...South China Morning Post
BusinessJun 25Hong Kong can take the regulatory high road amid US-China AI decouplingThe market realignment over the past week starkly captures the self-defeating logic of America’s technology containment strategy. The momentum began on June 15, when the shares of Chinese artificial intelligence pioneer Zhipu AI, which trade in Hong Kong under Knowledge Atlas Technology, surged by 48 per cent intraday after it announced the open-source release of its GLM-5.2 foundation model. The rally continued this week, with Zhipu’s shares trading at an intraday high of HK$2,980 (US$380) in...South China Morning Post
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