Chinese team builds first commercial ‘3-lane highway’ in optical fibre to boost capacity

News - South China Morning Post June 13, 2026 at 9:00 AM

China activated the world’s first three-band optical fibre communication system early this month, technology that its developers say could expand the carrying capacity of future AI networks. According to the project team, a single fibre can carry more than five times the traffic of conventional systems, while transmission capacity per core increases by nearly half. The project, completed in Qingdao in the eastern Chinese province of Shandong, was jointly developed by state-owned...

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Philippines’ Duterte to undergo another health check to determine fitness for ICC trial

News - South China Morning Post June 13, 2026 at 8:39 AM

The International Criminal Court ordered a medical assessment of former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte to determine whether he is fit to stand trial, with proceedings set to start in November. It is the second time that Duterte, who is facing charges of crimes against humanity over his drug war that killed thousands of people, will undergo a health check ordered by the court. The ICC’s pre-trial chamber found in January that the former leader, who ruled the Philippines from 2016 to 2022,...

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G7 summit offers Trump, Modi chance to reset ties after US strikes kill Indian sailors

News - South China Morning Post June 13, 2026 at 7:49 AM

A possible meeting next week between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump offers a chance to reset ties following a year of strained relations over tariffs, Pakistan, and now, the Iran war. US forces this week attacked three Indian-crewed vessels in the Gulf of Oman region, killing at least three sailors and prompting protests from New Delhi. Modi and Trump would likely want to contain the latest tensions and avoid derailing efforts to get relations back on track...

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Hong Kong cancels amber rainstorm warning for second time

News - South China Morning Post June 13, 2026 at 7:37 AM

This story has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by subscribing. The Hong Kong Observatory cancelled the amber rainstorm warning for a second time on Saturday, after the city was hit by heavy showers and thunderstorms under the combined influence of a southwest monsoon trough and a low-pressure trough. The earlier downpours prompted the forecaster to issue an amber rainstorm warning – the lowest in the three-tier system –...

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Out of the shadows: Huawei’s ‘chip queen’ steps back into the spotlight with scaling law

News - South China Morning Post June 13, 2026 at 7:00 AM

After seven years working in the shadows, He Tingbo stepped back into the limelight last month. The head of Huawei Technologies’ secretive semiconductor business – widely dubbed the company’s “chip queen” – had been out of the public view since 2019, when Washington severed the Chinese company’s global access to advanced technology, including semiconductors. Her retreat into the background became a symbol of Huawei’s battle for survival. That all changed last month on a global academic stage in...

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Trump says ‘swift and lethal’ US strike kills leader of Venezuelan prison gang

News - South China Morning Post June 13, 2026 at 6:31 AM

President Donald Trump said late on Friday that a “swift and lethal kinetic” US strike has killed Tren de Aragua gang leader Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores. “At my direction, ‌the United States Southern Command delivered a swift and lethal kinetic strike to successfully execute Nino Guerrero, the infamous leader of Tren De Aragua, one of the most bloodthirsty Terrorist Organisations on Planet,” Trump said in a post ⁠on Truth Social on Friday evening, referring to Guerrero Flores by his...

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Why Japan’s Russia outreach could fuel G7 concern over unity: ‘bad signal’

News - South China Morning Post June 13, 2026 at 6:30 AM

As Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi heads to the G7 meeting in France next week, she is expected to hear rumblings of discontent over Tokyo’s apparent diplomatic outreach to Moscow. With European Union member states and most Nato nations united in their resolve to push back on Russia’s ongoing aggression against Ukraine and isolate Moscow, Japan’s very different approach to Vladimir Putin’s regime has not been overlooked. Senior officials from Japan’s foreign and trade ministries travelled...

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When a Chinese auntie met the right uncle

News - South China Morning Post June 13, 2026 at 6:30 AM

Let me pick up where I left off in a previous column. On sabbatical in China, I was reeling from being pored over by parents at the Shanghai marriage market, and judged to be too old and overqualified. But if no vigilant parent would have me for their offspring, perhaps someone in my more permanent home of London would? So I began again. Although nine months away from British dating apps had not changed them, something in myself had changed. The algorithms may rely on Photoshop and well-meaning...

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Can 150kg drones carry cement and bricks? Hong Kong is putting them to the test

News - South China Morning Post June 13, 2026 at 6:00 AM

Hong Kong’s Development Bureau will test whether heavy-duty drones, weighing nearly 150kg (330.6lbs) each, can carry essential items across up to six sites over the next 12 months, the South China Morning Post has learned. In response to queries from the SCMP, the bureau revealed it was partnering with two companies to test whether the devices could carry heavy materials such as cement and manhole covers for construction work. Other potential applications include clearing drains and cleaning...

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Chinese woman reunites with family 22 years after running away over broken shower gel bottle

News - South China Morning Post June 13, 2026 at 6:00 AM

A woman in eastern China has been reunited with her birth family 22 years after running away as a child, fearing punishment for breaking a bottle of shower gel. Liu Xiuhong, from a rural family in Ganzhou, Jiangxi province, was nine years old when she moved with her migrant-worker parents to Jieyang, Guangdong province, where they lived in a cramped rented room, according to the mainland outlet Shicheng Media. While playing at a friend’s home in 2004, Liu accidentally smashed a glass bottle of...

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US judge reprimanded for having sex in chambers apologises: ‘I have no excuse’

News - South China Morning Post June 13, 2026 at 5:43 AM

A US federal judge who was disciplined after an investigation found that she had sex with a police officer in her chambers and then lied about it wrote a letter to a former law clerk apologising for her “harmful, offensive, and unprofessional behaviour”. An investigation initiated last year by the chief judge of the 11th Judicial Circuit found that US District Judge Eleanor Ross had sex in the courthouse with a high-ranking uniformed police officer within earshot of staff, attended a partisan...

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Asean at 60: peace, prosperity and polite paralysis

News - South China Morning Post June 13, 2026 at 5:00 AM

Dan Rae Hugo has never heard of the Asean Petroleum Security Agreement. All he knows is that his diesel costs have doubled, his profit margins have evaporated and the rice on his neighbours’ tables now costs 20 per cent more than it did before the Iran war. The 43-year-old has been farming the fields of Iloilo, the Philippines, for 18 years. He has never worked harder for less. “It’s all the inputs: the diesel, the labour for operating the machines, the transportation when we harvest … It’s the...

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Indians grieve and demand action after US strike kills sailors

News - South China Morning Post June 13, 2026 at 4:38 AM

Sushila Devi sat sobbing on the floor of her house in Deoria, northern India after authorities told her that her husband was one of three sailors killed in a US attack on a ship off Oman. “If he had told us about the dangers, I would have called him back,” she cried out as women from the family gathered around to console ‌her. “The government should not allow people to go there.” India on Friday took the rare step of lodging a second protest with the US over the strike that took place more than...

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Pay cut for Japan Airlines boss after crew members hid preflight drinking

News - South China Morning Post June 13, 2026 at 4:30 AM

Japan’s transport ministry on Friday reprimanded Japan Airlines and urged it to compile preventive measures by July 17 after an incident in which two cabin attendants drank the day before a flight in May, delaying a scheduled flight for about 40 minutes. The female JAL employees had falsely reported in an internal investigation that they had not consumed alcohol in violation of company regulations, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. The ministry determined...

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