Ukraine kept up its heavy drone assault on Russia, setting fire to a major oil refinery in the south and killing at least two people, Russian authorities said on Sunday, as President Vladimir Putin acknowledged his country is going through a “difficult period”. Ukraine has markedly stepped up its long-range attacks on Russian military industries and energy facilities in recent months, aiming to cut Moscow’s revenue for its invasion – now in its fifth year – and make Russians feel the...

Turkish police on Sunday detained at least 50 people, including a journalist, during a Gay Pride event in Istanbul that went ahead despite a ban by local authorities and the lockdown of the city’s main gathering point, organisers said. Police stepped up security around Istanbul’s famed Taksim Square, erecting iron barriers, while local officials banned demonstrations in key rallying areas, including the Asian-side district of Kadikoy. The governor’s office also restricted subway transport in...

Israel was shaken on Sunday by an unusual series of suspected criminal acts of violence that left five members of Israel’s Arab minority dead in a single day. Two people died in explosions involving car bombs in the Tel Aviv district of Jaffa and in the suburb of Holon. Three others were killed in two separate killings in Israel’s Arab communities. All four incidents are linked to organised or criminal violence, according to the police’s findings so far. Criminal violence has escalated among...

The Hong Kong University Students’ Union publication Undergrad, founded more than 70 years ago and one of the city’s longest-running campus news outlets, has ceased operations after failing to recruit enough members to form a new editorial board. In a statement on Sunday, the student union’s 2025 editorial committee said it had twice attempted since last September to recruit members for this year’s board, but in vain. As a result, the publication stopped operating with immediate effect. “Today,...

Hong Kong school pupils as young as seven are being referred for addiction counselling for online gaming, with requests for help involving increasingly younger children, a digital habits workshop has heard. Crystal Leung Chui-yee, officer-in-charge of the Sunshine Lutheran Centre, a counselling and treatment centre for problem gamblers, revealed the alarming frontline trend at the workshop organised by Young Post and the South China Morning Post’s student business, SCMP Learn, which about 70...

Chinese firms joined their global competitors at Eurosatory, the recently concluded arms fair, where the latest air defences were the centre of attention in a market made more important by the drone warfare seen in Ukraine and the Middle East. Experts said China could anticipate sales from the Global South thanks to its cost efficiency, but geopolitical constraints would continue to bar it from US-allied countries that were looking for combat-proven and interoperable systems. China’s largest...

Elon Musk’s recent record-breaking SpaceX IPO has thrust the space economy into the financial mainstream, but mainland China’s trillion-yuan commercial space sector remains strikingly underinsured – a gap industry insiders say presents a rare opportunity for Hong Kong. On the mainland, only third-party liability insurance is mandatory for commercial space activities. Coverage for research and development, manufacturing, testing, launches and in-orbit operations remained largely optional,...