40% of flights grounded in Shanghai as long-lived Typhoon Dolphin moves north

Shanghai airports cancelled nearly 40 per cent of all flights on Monday as heavy rain continued after Typhoon Dolphin made landfall in eastern China on Sunday evening and continued to move north.

According to a notice from the Shanghai government on Monday morning, there were 642 cancellations at Pudong airport and 301 at Hongqiao. Passengers were urged to check their airlines for updates.

Some trains began to recover on Monday morning, including services to Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang province, but four metro lines in the cities were


China releases powerful DNA-screening AI tool for free to help fight rare diseases

The team hopes the open-source AI framework will help decode rare diseases and provide equitable access to precision medicine

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A technician works at a genetic testing laboratory of BGI, formerly known as Beijing Genomics Institute, in Kunming, Yunnan province. Photo: China Out/Reuters

For people navigating rare diseases , which are mostly genetic in origin, the search for answers is a gruelling marathon often called the “diagnostic odyssey”.

Patients can spend years visiting specialists and undergoing inconclusive tests, while the underlying cause of their condition remains hidden within three billion base pairs of DNA


Hong Kong heatwave to persist before showers bring relief later this week

More frequent showers expected later this week should bring relief from Hong Kong’s extreme heat, the city’s weather forecaster has said, although scorching conditions will persist in the coming days, with temperatures in some areas forecast to reach at least 37 degrees Celsius (99 Fahrenheit).

The Hong Kong Observatory said on Monday that outer subsiding airflow associated with Tropical Cyclone Dolphin continued to bring extremely hot weather to Guangdong and Hong Kong. The heat is expected to persist until Wednesday or Thursday, with high temperatures increasing


Indonesia’s Mount Bromo wildfire put out but new fires threaten in unusually dry season

East Java disaster mitigation agency personnel deploy a water spraying drone to fight a wildfire at Mount Bromo National Park on Sunday. Photo: Reuters
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Man with knife arrested after allegedly injuring 2 at Hong Kong housing estate

Police receive call about young man attacking residents at Baguio Villa, while online clip shows topless assailant lunging at security guards

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An online clip of the incident shows the attacker, armed with a knife, approaching security guards. Photo: Handout

A man wielding a knife has been arrested in Hong Kong after allegedly injuring two people at a housing estate in Pok Fu Lam.

The force received multiple reports at around 9.20am on Monday

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China’s civil aviation ambitions gain some lift

With its first scheduled international route launching this month, the maiden flight of a high-altitude variant newly completed and a thumbs-up from European test pilots, China’s flagship C919 airliner is hitting new heights.China’s dream of a home-grown civil aviation fleet to rival Boeing and Airbus is coming closer with a national push to speed up certification of a domestically designed jet engine and smooth the development of a widebody C929 airliner, and combined orders of more than 1,

As China tightens its tax rules, can Hong Kong remain a magnet for billionaires?

Illustration: Dennis Yip

For decades, Hong Kong has been a magnet for the rich.

From wealthy Chinese setting up family trusts to millionaires migrating from across Southeast Asia, all of them have been sucked in by the city’s promise of free capital flows, a trustworthy legal system and extensive financial expertise.

But some worry this model could now come under threat. Over the


China is using AI facial ID to track migrating fish in Tibet’s largest river

China is using AI to identify and track fish populations travelling through a fishway at Zangmu Hydropower Station on the Yarlung Tsangpo River in Tibet. Photo: China Out/AFP

China is using an artificial intelligence -driven fish identification system to conduct round-the-clock tracking of species passing along a fishway on a dam on Tibet’s largest river.

Monitoring the route once relied on labour-intensive manual counts, but it now uses an AI-based “fish facial recognition” system to identify species unique to the Tibet autonomous region, according to a report published by Global Times on Tuesday.

Since the

Pakistan says ‘purely defensive’ Mecca accord is open to others

Egypt is likely to join the defence deal, signed by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey amid rising tensions between the US and Iran

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman shakes hands with Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif after signing a joint defence agreement in Mecca on Friday. Photo: Handout/Reuters
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John Lee is right about local governance. Now he must deliver

Chief Executive John Lee addresses the participants of a town hall meeting on August 2 to gather feedback on Hong Kong’s first five-year plan and the coming policy address. Photo: SCMP Pictures

Alice Wu is a political consultant and a former associate director of the Asia Pacific Media Network at UCLA.

Something unexpected happened at the town hall meeting held a week ago to gather public opinion on Hong Kong’s first five-year plan and the coming policy address. Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu spoke about the need to upgrade the city’s urban management systems.

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