2 h. ago Hong Kong authorities to review medium of instruction in schools after major study

Hong Kong education authorities will review the policy on the medium of instruction in public secondary schools for the 2028-34 cycle after looking at the results of a three-year evaluation study and consulting the sector, the Post has learned. The review comes as a council representing subsidised secondary schools urged the government to allow more institutions to teach subjects in English to better prepare pupils moving on to higher education programmes conducted in the language. The Education...

Culture

14 h. ago Infrequent yet unforgettable: Hong Kong’s rare cases of police opening fire on duty

Hong Kong police officers rarely fire their guns, but when they do, it grips the city’s attention. On Thursday, officers shot dead a man who had taken a woman hostage while brandishing a 30cm knife at a shopping centre in Tuen Mun. Under police guidelines, officers may open fire to protect anyone – including themselves – from death or serious injury. They may also use lethal force against anyone believed to have committed a serious or violent crime and who is attempting to evade arrest. Firearms...

Events

14 h. ago Hong Kong’s rare cases of police officers opening fire on duty

Hong Kong police officers rarely fire their guns, but when they do, it grips the city’s attention. On Thursday, officers shot dead a man who had taken a woman hostage while brandishing a 30cm knife at a shopping centre in Tuen Mun. Under police guidelines, officers may open fire to protect anyone – including themselves – from death or serious injury. They may also use lethal force against anyone believed to have committed a serious or violent crime and who is attempting to evade arrest. Firearms...

Events

16 h. ago Murder suspect who fled to mainland China handed over to Hong Kong police

A murder suspect who fled across the border late last month after allegedly killing his girlfriend in a public housing flat has been handed over to Hong Kong police following his capture by mainland Chinese law enforcers. The Hong Kong identity card holder, 28, was wanted in the city in connection with the murder of a woman, 35, whose body was hidden in the storage compartment of a bed in his Ngau Tau Kok flat. He was arrested by Hong Kong police on Friday and is expected to be charged with...

Events

23 h. ago Hong Kong police arrest another man with knife, days after earlier case in Tuen Mun

Hong Kong police have arrested a man who brandished a knife in an apparently disoriented state near a McDonald’s in Tsuen Wan, just two days after officers shot dead another blade-wielding attacker elsewhere in the city. Police said they received a report at 8.42am from a passer-by that a man was seen holding a knife in the area near a McDonald’s on Tai Ho Road in Tsuen Wan. On arriving at the scene, officers immediately subdued the man, with no injuries reported. According to local media...

Events

46 h. ago Hong Kong’s Chris Tang defends police’s ‘difficult decision’ to shoot knife

Hong Kong’s security chief has defended police’s “difficult decision” to shoot a man who brandished a knife and took a woman hostage in a shopping centre, praising their bravery and decisiveness in saving lives. After police fatally shot the 34-year-old man on Thursday, Security Secretary Chris Tang Ping-keung revealed the suspect was mentally unstable at the time, possibly influenced by drugs, with suspected substances found in his possession. “It is obvious that [the suspect] was acting insane...

Events

46 h. ago Man shot dead by Hong Kong police had ‘history of mental illness, drug abuse’

A man shot dead by police after taking a woman hostage while brandishing a knife at a Hong Kong shopping centre on Thursday had a history of mental illness and drug abuse, and missed a medical consultation last week, the Post has learned. The information emerged as security chief Chris Tang Ping-keung defended police over the “difficult decision to shoot” the 34-year-old man in Tuen Mun, while a relative of the deceased said officers could have aimed for his limbs to avoid killing him. After...

Events

60 h. ago ‘Hong Kong lawyers should not aim just to compete but specialise in Greater Bay Area’

Hong Kong lawyers should not think of competing head-on with mainland counterparts in the Greater Bay Area, but instead position themselves as common law specialists and collaborators in cross-border legal teams, Hong Kong Bar Association chairman Jose-Antonio Maurellet has said. His comments came during a fireside chat on the sidelines of the China Conference: Greater Bay Area event hosted by the South China Morning Post in Shenzhen on Thursday. Recent policy measures allow Hong Kong lawyers to...

Politics

60 h. ago Hong Kong lawyers urged to specialise, not just compete, in Greater Bay Area

Hong Kong lawyers should not think of competing head-on with mainland counterparts in the Greater Bay Area, but instead position themselves as common law specialists and collaborators in cross-border legal teams, Hong Kong Bar Association chairman Jose-Antonio Maurellet has said. His comments came during a fireside chat on the sidelines of the China Conference: Greater Bay Area event hosted by the South China Morning Post in Shenzhen on Thursday. Recent policy measures allow Hong Kong lawyers to...

Politics

63 h. ago Hong Kong police shoot man wielding meat cleaver in Tuen Mun

Hong Kong police shot and injured a man after he brandished a meat cleaver in Tuen Mun neighbourhood. The incident occurred at around 7pm along Tuen Hi Road near Tuen Mun Town Hall, where the man was seen carrying the knife. An officer responding to the scene opened fire, with two shots believed to have been fired near a convenience store at Tuen Mun Town Plaza, according to a source. A police spokesman said the man was unconscious when he was taken to Tuen Mun Hospital. A video circulating...

Events

63 h. ago Hong Kong police shoot and kill man wielding meat cleaver in Tuen Mun

Hong Kong police have shot and killed a man who brandished a meat cleaver at a shopping centre in Tuen Mun. The tragedy unfolded around 7pm on Thursday near Tuen Mun Town Hall on Tuen Wui Road. A video taken by a passer-by shows a man in a white tracksuit carrying a 20cm knife entering the Tuen Mun Town Plaza mall. One of three police officers at the scene is seen shooting the man, who is holding a woman, with a pepper spray gun. Another officer fires two shots. A source said police received a...

Events

63 h. ago Hong Kong police shoot and kill man wielding 30cm knife in Tuen Mun

Hong Kong police have shot and killed a man who brandished a 30cm knife at a shopping centre in Tuen Mun, with the force saying the officers involved had no choice but to open fire to save a passer-by. The tragedy unfolded around 7pm on Thursday near Tuen Mun Town Hall on Tuen Wui Road. Police said the 34-year-old man killed was a Hong Kong identity card holder. They said preliminary information from his family pointed to a history of mental illness, although authorities were still seeking to...

Events

65 h. ago Hong Kong police hunt trio after HK$838,000 watch disappears from hotel room

A 21‑year‑old Hong Kong woman’s Van Cleef & Arpels watch worth HK$838,000 (US$107,000) has gone missing from the city’s oldest luxury hotel after she invited three men to her room for drinks in the early hours of Thursday. Police said staff at The Peninsula Hong Kong in Tsim Sha Tsui filed a report at 10.55am that day after the guest claimed her Lady Arpels Pont des Amoureux timepiece had been stolen. The case has been classified as theft. Investigators said the woman rented a room at the hotel...

Events

3 d. ago Pushed off the ladder: young Hongkongers with subsidised flats halves in 20 years

Hong Kong’s young adults are being pushed off the housing ladder, with the proportion of subsidised homeowners aged 30 to 39 nearly halving to 16 per cent over the past two decades, and a mid-sized private flat now costing more than 18 years of an average household’s combined income, a study shows. The “Hong Kong Economic Policy Green Paper 2026”, released by the University of Hong Kong Business School on Wednesday, highlighted a long-term shift in Hong Kong’s housing landscape. Overall home...

Politics

3 d. ago Proportion of young Hongkongers owning subsidised flats halves in 20 years: study

Hong Kong’s young adults are being pushed off the housing ladder, with the proportion of subsidised homeowners aged 30 to 39 nearly halving to 16 per cent over the past two decades, and a mid-sized private flat now costing more than 18 years of an average household’s combined income, a study shows. The “Hong Kong Economic Policy Green Paper 2026”, released by the University of Hong Kong Business School on Wednesday, highlighted a long-term shift in Hong Kong’s housing landscape. Overall home...

Politics

3 d. ago Proportion of young Hongkongers owning subsidised flats halves in 30 years: study

Hong Kong’s young adults are being pushed off the housing ladder, with the proportion of subsidised homeowners aged 30 to 39 nearly halving to 16 per cent over the past three decades, and a mid-sized private flat now costing more than 18 years of an average household’s combined income, a study shows. The “Hong Kong Economic Policy Green Paper 2026”, released by the University of Hong Kong Business School on Wednesday, highlighted a long-term shift in Hong Kong’s housing landscape. Overall home...

Politics

3 d. ago Burning mugwort linked to flat fire that killed elderly Hong Kong man

A 78-year-old man has died in a fire suspected to have started from burning mugwort, a herb used in traditional Chinese medicine, in a flat at a public housing estate in Hong Kong’s Kwai Chung district. Police said they received a report at 12.41pm on Wednesday that a fire had broken out at Cho Yiu Chuen estate’s Kai Him Lau block. Li Kai-chung, assistant divisional officer of the Fire Services Department, said the blaze started in a bedroom of about 60 sq ft in a fifth-floor flat. Thirteen fire...

Events

5 d. ago Man fights for life after plunging to ground following blast at Hong Kong flat

A man is fighting for his life in hospital after jumping from a first-floor flat of a residential building in Hong Kong following a gas explosion that blew out a window. Police said the man plunged to the ground after a blast was heard at a building at 6.40pm on Monday at 43 Pak Tai Street in Kowloon City. He remained conscious and was sent to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Yau Ma Tei. He was listed as being in a critical condition on Monday night. A twisted metal window frame was spotted on the...

Politics

6 d. ago Hong Kong police hunt man who snatched HK$650,000 Rolex watch in Tsim Sha Tsui

Hong Kong police are searching for a man who snatched a Rolex watch worth HK$650,000 (US$83,370) from a luxury shop in a busy shopping district while posing as a customer. The force said on Sunday it received a report at 12.46pm from staff at Prince Jewellery & Watch on Haiphong Road in Tsim Sha Tsui, saying that a mainland Chinese suspect snatched the watch during a viewing. The man had asked shop staff to let him see the timepiece about 10 minutes earlier, before grabbing the watch and fleeing...

Events

6 d. ago Hong Kong police to release list of 161 Tai Po fire victims, some families told

Hong Kong police have informed some families who lost their loved ones in the tragic Tai Po fire that a full list of the 161 deceased will be made public, the Post has learned. Six weeks after Wang Fuk Court fire, Hong Kong’s deadliest in decades, two residents who lost family members told the Post separately that officers contacted them by phone on Sunday to relay the plan. “The police called us and said they will release the list. They didn’t ask if we agree or not, or tell us when,” said one...

Events