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Secretary of State Marco Rubio has technically been banned from visiting China by its communist government, but he accompanied President Donald Trump on his trip to Beijing on Tuesday using a bureaucratic loophole created by the Chinese to let him in. Rubio, the son of Cuban exiles to Florida who was elected to the Senate in 2011, was one of several congressional representatives banned from traveling to China in July 2020 because they spoke out against China’s brutal oppression of the Uyghur Muslims of occupied East Turkistan. The U.S. had previously sanctioned four Chinese officials for herding the Uyghurs into...

President Donald Trump divulged how Chinese President Xi Jinping responded to his inquiry about releasing Jimmy Lai, a Hong Kong businessman imprisoned after his outspoken criticism of the Chinese government. Lai, 78, is serving a 20-year sentence after the communist regime found him guilty of sedition and conspiracy to commit collusion with foreign forces. "I brought up Jimmy Lai. I would say the response to that was not positive. He said that he's been, you know, he said it's been sort of his worst nightmare," Trump told "Special Report" in an interview airing Friday. Trump said he spoke with Xi...

A Chinese virologist is now hiding in the US in fear Beijing wants revenge for her spreading theories that the COVID-19 virus originated in a lab, a new report said. Dr. Li-Meng Yan left her family and became a regular on conservative news programs for questioning the popular narrative around the coronavirus pandemic — but now she’s scared Beijing is using her relatives to lure her back and commit “the perfect crime.” Yan had been working at a prestigious lab at the University of Hong Kong with her husband when the coronavirus pandemic broke out, with the new virologist quickly...

Hong Kong has become a critical financial and logistical lifeline for Iran’s regime — helping move illicit oil, weapons technology and surveillance tools that fuel Tehran’s military machine and domestic repression, according to a bombshell report set for release Monday. The 26-page report by the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation, titled “Oil, Arms, and Cash: How Hong Kong Fuels the Iranian Regime,” alleges that dozens of Hong Kong-based companies have helped Iran evade Western sanctions while funneling billions of dollars into the hands of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its terror proxies. “Simply put, without Hong Kong’s...

A former CIA officer was indicted Tuesday on charges that he planned to give confidential U.S. government documents to the Chinese government, according to U.S. Department of Justice. Jerry Chun Shing Lee, 53, of Hong Kong, was indicted by a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia. He is charged with one count of conspiracy to cater or deliver national defense information to aid a foreign government and two counts of unlawfully retaining documents related to the national defense. Mr. Lee, who is naturalized U.S. citizen, was found to be in possession of two notebooks containing the true...

A Navy reservist from Virginia who was accused of murdering his wife after her body was found in their freezer was arrested in Hong Kong, ending a two-month international manhunt, authorities said Wednesday. David Varela, 38, is expected to be charged with first-degree murder after the "successful overseas apprehension," FBI Director Kash Patel said in a statement. Varela was apprehended late Tuesday in the former British colony and taken Wednesday to San Francisco, where he appeared before Magistrate Judge Alex Tse on Thursday. Tse ordered federal marshals to take Varela to the federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia....

US citizens traveling to Hong Kong are being warned that refusal to hand over passwords or access to their personal devices is now a criminal offense. The US Consulate General in Hong Kong and Macao issued a warning that the Hong Kong government has changed the rules relating to the National Security Law on March 23. The change applies to everyone in Hong Kong, including residents, visitors and travelers transiting through the airport. “It is now a criminal offense to refuse to give the Hong Kong police the passwords or decryption assistance to access all personal electronic devices, including cellphones...

LOS ANGELES - A disease that can cause neurological illness and meningitis in people, rat lungworm, has been found in wild opposums, rats and a zoo animal in San Diego County, indicating its establishment in California for the first time. Researchers reported their findings in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Supreme Court of Panama has annulled a contract for a Hong Kong company to operate two ports at either end of the Panama Canal, handing President Trump a victory for his security ambitions in the Western Hemisphere and denting China’s influence in the region. The high court said the terms under which CK Hutchison runs the ports of Balboa on the Pacific Coast and Cristobal on the Atlantic side were unconstitutional… (subscription required)

Chinese-Canadian billionaire Xiao Jianhua, who went missing in Hong Kong five years ago, was due to go on trial in China on Monday (Jul 4), the Canadian embassy in Beijing said. China-born Xiao, known to have links to China's Communist Party elite, has not been seen in public since 2017 after he was investigated amid a state-led conglomerate crackdown. The specifics of the probe haven't been disclosed by officials. "Global Affairs Canada, our home office, is aware that a trial in the case of Canadian citizen Mr Xiao Jianhua will take place today," a Canadian Embassy official told Reuters over...

Hong Kong pro-democracy activist and media baron Jimmy Lai on Monday was found guilty of sedition and collusion with foreign countries by a Hong Kong court. The 78-year-old was charged under Hong Kong’s controversial national security law, enacted by Beijing in 2020 after pro-democracy protests swept the region in 2019.

This story has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by subscribing. What we know so far: 44 people, including a firefighter, have died. Some 279 are still missing Among those hospitalised, 45 are in serious condition The eight residential blocks in the estate had been undergoing renovations since July 2024, sheathed in bamboo scaffolding and green mesh Authorities say the rapid spread of fire was “unusual”, with styrofoam material found in buildings Government will launch investigations, including criminal probes, to find cause of deadly blaze Blazes in three of the...

HONG KONG (AP) — Firefighters battled a blaze at a high-rise residential complex in Hong Kong for the second day on Thursday, as the death toll rose to 55 in one of the deadliest blazes in the city’s modern history.Thick smoke continued to pour out of the Wang Fuk Court complex, a dense cluster of high-rise towers housing thousands of people in Tai Po district, a northern suburb near the border with the mainland. Flames can still be seen inside the buildings Thursday evening.Hong Kong leader John Lee said contact had been lost with 279 people around midnight Thursday. Rescues...

Pray for search and rescue authorities in Hong Kong today. At least 36 people have died and 279 people are unaccounted for, officials say. Residents remain trapped on higher floors of the buildings. https://t.co/iclSJYO8p1 pic.twitter.com/FtoFH3FyZ5— CNN (@CNN) November 26, 2025Officials said 279 people are 'uncontactable.' Meanwhile, 29 people remain hospitalized, with 7 in critical conditions, officials said. The fire, which tore through bamboo scaffolding ubiquitous in the city, appears to be the most deadly blaze in Hong Kong in nearly three decades. 900 other residents have managed to flee to shelters. Clips of the fire look apocalyptic: BREAKING: At least...

HONG KONG, Nov 26 (Reuters) – A massive fire ripped through multiple high-rise residential blocks in Hong Kong’s northern Tai Po district on Wednesday, killing at least 14 people and injuring scores as authorities struggled to bring the blaze under control. Firefighters battled the orange flames into the night as thick black smoke billowed from the 32-story towers, which were sheathed in bamboo scaffolding – whose use the government began phasing out in March for safety reasons – and green construction mesh. The cause of the blaze was not immediately known.

Two Chinese nationals and two U.S. citizens have been charged with a scheme to illegally export advanced Nvidia chips to China in violation of U.S. export controls, the Department of Justice said on Nov. 20.In a file photograph, the logo of Nvidia Corporation during the annual Computex computer exhibition in Taipei, Taiwan, on May 30, 2017. Tyrone Siu/ReutersLi Cham, 38, a California resident, and Chen Jing, 45, who resides in Florida on an F-1 nonimmigrant student visa, are the two Chinese nationals accused of the illegal exporting scheme. The two U.S. citizens are Ho Hong Ning, 34, a Florida resident...

Thousands of people were evacuated from their homes in Hong Kong overnight so experts could defuse a large US-made bomb left over from World War II that was discovered at a construction site. Police said the bomb was nearly 5 feet in length and weighed about 1,000 pounds. It was discovered by construction workers in Quarry Bay, a bustling residential and business district on the west side of Hong Kong island. “We have confirmed this object to be a bomb dating back to World War II,” said Andy Chan Tin-Chu, a police official, speaking to reporters ahead of the operation....

The $1 million Hunter Biden’s Chinese business partner Patrick Ho wired him in 2017 is the subject of a separate bribery investigation. Recall that in 2017 the the FBI raided the offices and intercepted the communications of Chi Ping “Patrick” Ho, a Chinese national suspected of espionage who was a business partner with Hunter and Joe Biden’s slimy brother Jim Biden. Patrick Ho was later put on trial and found guilty of bribing government officials around the world to advance the interests of the Chinese Communist Party. The crooked Department of Justice hid Hunter Biden’s connections with Patrick Ho during...

Chinese property giant Evergrande's shares were taken off the Hong Kong stock market on Monday after more than a decade and a half of trading. It marks a grim milestone for what was once China's biggest real estate firm, with a stock market valuation of more than $50bn (£37.1bn). That was before its spectacular collapse under the weight of the huge debts that had powered its meteoric rise. Experts say the delisting was both inevitable and final. "Once delisted, there is no coming back," says Dan Wang, China director at political risk consultancy Eurasia Group. Evergrande is now best-known for...

A federal judge denied a motion Monday for a new trial in the case of a Chinese-born engineer convicted of conspiring to export U.S. defense technology to China. U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney rejected Chi Mak's motion after a hearing that included testimony from several defense witnesses. Carney set Mak's sentencing for March 24. Mak could face up to 45 years in prison. Mak, 67, was convicted last May of conspiring to export U.S. defense technology to China, including data on an electronic propulsion system that prosecutors said could make submarines virtually undetectable. A jury also found him guilty of...