US and Brazil deliver double blow to the populist right. Will Europe feel the impact?

South China Morning Post - Nov 6, 2026

In the space of roughly 10 days, the two largest democracies in the Americas delivered setbacks to the populist right. In Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva staged a narrow but remarkable comeback, defeating Flavio Bolsonaro, the son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, in a run-off election after trailing in the first round. This week, American voters handed control of both chambers of the US Congress to Democrats in a sharp rebuke of candidates riding on US President Donald Trump’s “Make America...

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Documentary spotlights Peace Corps Volunteer's role in Gwangju Uprising

Documentary spotlights Peace Corps Volunteer's role in Gwangju Uprising

The 1980 Gwangju Uprising produced a great many memorable photos, not least of which was one of a young man with blonde hair helping carry a man on a stretcher through the streets. The identity of this foreigner remained a mystery for decades, but as U.S. Peace Corps Volunteers (PCV) who were there began publishing their memoirs, his identity and role in the uprising gradually came into focus. The person in the photo was a PCV named Tim Warnberg, who had arrived in Korea in 1978 to work as a health volunteer at Gwangju Christian Hospital. Those who knew him before his arrival in Korea remember him as someone whose character and concern for others help explain his actions in 1980. Warnberg was from Brainerd, Minnesota, where his father was the town’s longest-serving sheriff. His mother was, as his sister Roxanne Wilson remembers, “devoted to caring for others” and creating “a home that was warm and inviting to neighbors, friends and persons in need.” As his closest childhood friend, Keevie Fairbanks, put it, “Tim was the best of both of his parents.” Robert Grotjohn, who at

Remembering Peace Corps' 15 years in Korea

Remembering Peace Corps' 15 years in Korea

It may come as a shock to many these days that the Peace Corps once had a mission in Korea. The U.S. volunteer agency sent more than 2,000 young volunteers to Korea between 1966 and 1981 in 51 waves, from K-1 to K-51. The country they arrived in was very different from the advanced nation Korea has grown to become. Coming out of the 1910-45 Japanese occupation and 1950-53 Korean War, Korea was for decades one of the poorest nations in the world. In the mid-1960s, when Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) began arriving, Korea's hills were barren, and the gutters were filled with human waste. The authoritarian government maintained a strict curfew, barring people from the streets from midnight to 4 a.m. “My first impression was ‘My god, what have I got myself into?’” Ed Klein (K-1) said in 2016. “It was the way it was,” David McCann (K-1) said in 2019, “and that didn't strike me as strange.” U.S. President John F. Kennedy established the Peace Corps in 1961 with an executive order. It was designed to serve three main goals: helping various countries meet their need for trained me

Foreign residents' first hurdle is housing. Enkostay says it can clear it.

Foreign residents' first hurdle is housing. Enkostay says it can clear it.

For many foreign residents, the first few weeks in Seoul can feel almost effortless. The subway works. Convenience stores are everywhere, and there is always another café, restaurant or corner of the city to discover. Then the paperwork begins. An appointment for a residence card. A landlord asking for a deposit that can run into the tens of millions of won. Almost overnight, the experience shifts from exploring Korea to deciphering it. For years, newcomers have leaned on Facebook groups for answers, and learned to sift through thousands of unverified listings and contradictory advice. Now they’re asking a blunter question, often on Reddit: Is this website legit? That was the question Huy Kim Nguyen, better known online as Kim Ninja, kept seeing about Enkostay, a rental platform for foreign residents. Nguyen came to Korea five years ago and began documenting the realities of living in Korea while working as a software developer. His YouTube videos explaining how Enkostay works went viral, drawing more than a million views. "You can't always trust the internet with a pretty website these

Defiant Hegseth tells US Democrats their impeachment push ‘won’t work’

Defiant Hegseth tells US Democrats their impeachment push ‘won’t work’

US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth said he will “not back down” against a “lame duck” US Congress, and that the calls for his impeachment will “not work” in his first reaction after the Democrats’ landslide victory in Tuesday’s midterm elections. In a video uploaded by the Pentagon on Thursday, Hegseth said that “a disgruntled, defeated congressman, along with all his Democrat allies”, have been submitting “sham” bills for his impeachment, resembling that of the similar attempt against US...

US sanctions Chinese firms over alleged military supplies to Cuba

US sanctions Chinese firms over alleged military supplies to Cuba

The United States has imposed sanctions on two Chinese companies it accuses of supplying equipment and components to Cuba’s military, as Washington intensifies pressure on Havana’s foreign suppliers and expands its authority to target businesses operating on the island. The US State Department said on Thursday that China National Electronic Import and Export Company, or CEIEC, and Beijing H&C Technologies had worked with Cuban arms procurement company Sociedad Mercantil Duna to supply...

Chinese scientists chill atoms to record low on Tiangong space station

Chinese scientists chill atoms to record low on Tiangong space station

Chinese scientists have chilled atoms aboard the Tiangong space station to the lowest temperature ever measured, smashing US and German records and paving the way for ultra-precise space sensors that could find hidden minerals, track climate change and test Einstein’s theory of gravity. Researchers from Peking University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences brought thousands of rubidium atoms, packed into a cloud smaller than a grain of sand, to less than 10 trillionths of a degree above absolute...

Hong Kong police arrest operator of prisoner support group over allegedly seditious books

Hong Kong police arrest operator of prisoner support group over allegedly seditious books

Hong Kong national security police have arrested an operator of a local prisoner support group on suspicion of importing seditious publications, days after the group revealed that customs had seized dozens of books it had ordered from Taiwan. Police said officers carried out an enforcement operation in Mong Kok on Thursday morning, arresting a local man, 34, on suspicion of “importing a publication that has a seditious intention”, an offence under the Safeguarding National Security...

Domestic helper arrested after 5-month-old baby found unconscious at Yuen Long home

Domestic helper arrested after 5-month-old baby found unconscious at Yuen Long home

Hong Kong police have arrested a domestic helper for suspected child abuse after a five-month-old baby girl was found unconscious at her Yuen Long home. The force received a report from the girl’s mother at about 7.20pm on Thursday that the infant was unconscious at a residence at Ha San Wai along Castle Peak Road. Paramedics rushed to the scene and transported the baby girl to Pok Oi Hospital in Yuen Long for emergency resuscitation. She was subsequently transferred to Tuen Mun Hospital for...

Why the next US House speaker won’t follow Nancy Pelosi’s Taiwan playbook

Why the next US House speaker won’t follow Nancy Pelosi’s Taiwan playbook

The Democrat expected to become US House speaker has met Taiwan’s former leader and backed legislation supporting the island, yet is unlikely to follow Nancy Pelosi’s example in pursuing high-profile engagement with Taipei, analysts said. Hakeem Jeffries, the House’s top-ranking Democrat, announced his bid for the speakership on Wednesday after Democrats won a majority of seats in the US midterm elections. He is poised to officially become House speaker following a floor vote on the first day of...

Lithuania builds world’s biggest ultra-fast laser factory amid China tensions

Lithuania builds world’s biggest ultra-fast laser factory amid China tensions

Amid tensions with China, a small European country is anchoring itself at the centre of the global semiconductor and artificial intelligence (AI) hardware supply chain as a laser powerhouse. The latest sign of Lithuania’s growing footprint in the sector came last month, when laser maker Litilit launched a new factory in the capital, Vilnius. The company’s expansion unfolds as the Baltic nation of fewer than 3 million people navigates fraught ties with Beijing, which has targeted Lithuania with a...

The US-China tech contest has moved – to the gatekeeping product testers

The US-China tech contest has moved – to the gatekeeping product testers

The latest front in the US-China technology contest is not advanced chips, artificial intelligence (AI) or telecommunications equipment. It is the laboratories that certify whether an electronic product may enter the American market. On October 29, the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted to stop recognising testing laboratories, telecoms certification bodies and accreditation organisations in China and in other economies that lack a “mutual recognition agreement” or comparable...

Hong Kong grandmother gets 20 days for slapping 5-year-old girl at play area

Hong Kong grandmother gets 20 days for slapping 5-year-old girl at play area

A Hong Kong grandmother has been sentenced to 20 days in jail for slapping a five-year-old girl who squabbled over a basketball with her grandson in a play area at the atrium of APM shopping centre in Kwun Tong. Leung Lai-ha, 68, on Thursday pleaded guilty to assaulting the girl on August 26, admitting that she hit the girl on impulse. A video of the brawl showed three adults were involved – Leung, her 34-year-old daughter Ng Ka-wun and Xu Yang, 34, the girl’s mother. The physical altercation...

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