With the rise of social media and generative AI, how much of what we see online is true? In this new series, SCMP Fact-Check, the Post investigates claims circulating online and debunks viral misinformation impacting the daily lives of Hongkongers. A daring daytime heist of jewels from the Louvre museum in Paris on October 19 made international headlines. During the heist, the thieves parked a truck with an extendable ladder under the museum’s Apollo Gallery, and used cutting equipment to get...

A bridge at a copper and cobalt mine in southeastern Democratic Republic of Congo collapsed due to overcrowding, killing at least 32 people, a regional government official said on Sunday. The bridge at the Kalando mine in Mulondo in Lualaba province fell on Saturday, Roy Kaumba Mayonde, the province’s interior minister, said during a press conference. “Despite the strict prohibition on accessing the site due to heavy rainfall and the risk of landslides, illegal diggers forced their way into the...

We have put together stories from our coverage last weekend to help you stay informed about news across Asia and beyond. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. Airlines offer Japan trip refunds as row over Takaichi’s Taiwan comments deepens 2. Nexperia civil war erupts as Chinese and Dutch arms trade blows 3. Why Singapore’s PAP is taking aim at opposition WP so soon after an election 4. Why China studies scholars in the West have been left in ‘crisis’...

Ecuadorian voters roundly rejected the return of US military bases to the country in a referendum on Sunday, a major political blow to Trump-friendly President Daniel Noboa. With three-quarters of the vote counted, about 60 per cent of Ecuadorans had voted ‘no’ to lifting a long-standing ban on foreign bases. The rejection effectively blocks the US military from returning to an airbase at Manta on the Pacific coast - once a hub for Washington’s anti-drug operations. US Homeland Security...

These are interesting times in Hong Kong politics. Rarely has the city seen the government get so involved in galvanising voters ahead of the Legislative Council election. These things have traditionally been the work of political parties and groups. And that is one prominent feature of the development of Hong Kong’s “patriots-only” political system. Before the overhaul of the election system, voter turnout was a barometer of sorts for the election outcome. Conventional wisdom was that the...

Chile was headed to a tense presidential run-off after a closely fought first-round vote on Sunday set up a showdown between a member of the Communist Party and an ultraconservative veteran politician, sharply polarising the country between the political left and right. Jeannette Jara, 51, the communist former labour minister and candidate of Chile’s centre-left governing coalition, won 26.8 per cent of valid ballots with almost 100 per cent of the vote counted, failing to pass the 50 per cent...

An Israeli strike killed a Lebanese man in the south of the country on Sunday, according to the Lebanese health ministry and the country’s main news agency. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to an Agence France-Presse query, but has previously said it reserves the right to strike militant targets in Lebanon it deems a threat. The ministry said the strike hit a car in the town of al-Mansouri, south of Tyre and just over 10km (6 miles) from the Israeli border, and “resulted in the...