Pascal Lamy served two consecutive terms as director general of the World Trade Organization from 2005 to 2013. Before that, he spent decades in various French government roles, contributing to the building of the European Union. He was chief of staff to European Commission president Jacques Delors from 1985 to 1994, and European trade commissioner from ...

In early July, China fired a test missile from a nuclear submarine into the South Pacific for the first time, a weapon capable of carrying nuclear warheads. Washington and Canberra were livid. The Pacific has long been the exclusive testing ground for such long-range missiles from the United States. How dare China! The reaction from Pacific island states ...

Russia vowed on Sunday to intensify its strikes on Kyiv in response to Ukrainian drone attacks on Moscow, as an exit poll showed the ruling United Russia party on course to win tightly controlled parliamentary elections. Ukraine fired waves of drones at Moscow and the surrounding region on the final day of voting, killing two people and setting an oil ...

Thousands of people marched in Paris and other French cities on Sunday against a proposed law on the legitimate use of force that critics say would be a licence to kill for police and gendarmes. In July, deputies in the National Assembly approved the bill which says that any police official who uses force is assumed to have acted legally when using their ...

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz suffered a bruising electoral setback in two state elections on Sunday, including a historic defeat for his party, but vowed to press ahead with potentially painful reforms to Europes biggest economy. Exit polls by public broadcaster ARD on Sunday night indicated that Merzs centre-right Christian Democratic Union, or CDU, ...

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Sunday she will soon introduce a measure to her government that would cap the number of foreign pupils in classrooms and ban the wearing of burkas and niqabs in schools. Meloni told the youth wing of her nationalist conservative Brothers of Italy party that the measure would also make Italian language lessons ...

Chinese President Xi Jinping and other top leaders sent condolences from Beijing as Hong Kong bade farewell to the citys first postcolonial leader, Tung Chee-hwa, at a sombre yet poignant state funeral on Sunday. A report by the official Xinhua News Agency praised Tung, who died on September 8 at the age of 89, as an outstanding contributor to one country ...

A new study finds that prenatal exposure to rare earth elements can raise the risk of low birthweight, with some substances increasing the danger by more than three times. Researchers tracked 4,891 pregnant women who gave birth at Wuhan Maternal and Child Health Hospital between 2012 and 2014. They measured the concentration of 13 rare earth elements ...

The recent opening of a new road bridge between North Korea and Russia may look like a modest infrastructure project. In reality, the 1km stretch across the Tumen River carries implications far beyond the movement of vehicles between two border towns. For China, it is a reminder that its influence over North Korea is no longer as secure as it once appeared ...

Hong Kong firms will benefit from expanded non-discriminatory treatment and investment guarantees in 10 Asean states after a protocol amending an investment agreement with the bloc was signed on Sunday. The protocol was signed in Manila where Asean economic ministers are meeting ahead of dedicated trade consultations between Hong Kong and the bloc. ...

North Korea launched two missiles off its eastern coast on Sunday, its second set of tests in roughly a week, days after Pyongyang accused the US of driving tensions on the Korean peninsula through a series of military drills. Just three hours after launching a short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) towards the East Sea, or Sea of Japan, on Sunday afternoon, ...

Hong Kong customs has seized about 13kg of suspected ketamine, worth an estimated HK$4.7 million (US$599,067), at the citys airport and arrested a passenger arriving from Germany over alleged drug trafficking. According to the Customs and Excise Department, officers found the suspected ketamine in the checked luggage of a 22-year-old Japanese man who ...

China can learn from US immigration strategies to attract foreign talent and stay competitive in the intensifying global tech race, a Chinese public policy analyst has said. Li Mingbo, deputy dean of the Guangzhou Institute of the Greater Bay Area (GIG), said China must be more efficient in promoting its new K visas for young science and technology ...

Hong Kongs education authorities have urged a local secondary school to review its rules and guidelines for events after a post alleging the school banned Cantonese in graduation videos sparked outrage online. In a response to the South China Morning Post on Sunday, the government said the school has activated its crisis management team to follow up on the ...

In the first instalment of a four-part Health Matters series on traditional Chinese medicine, Lisa Cam and Ashlyn Chak explore how a new generation of health-conscious youth is discovering century-old leung cha and helping neighbourhood tea shop owners safeguard a dying trade. Long before modern chain pharmacies and over-the-counter painkillers were readily ...

Huang Qiaoyuan has just a year to go before she completes her undergraduate medical training in southern China, but she is thinking of quitting the field and going into consulting. Huang, a fifth-year clinical medical student in Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, said she was initially drawn to the idea of being a doctor during the Covid-19 pandemic, when ...

Online community in China is heart-wrenched over a drivers goodwill in pulling a rope across a road as a warning sign, which ultimately took the life of a passer-by. The case emerged after the driver, surnamed Xie, was arrested for manslaughter in central Chinas Henan province on September 11. While driving along a dirt road in a village, the concrete mixer ...

The medias treatment of Prince Harry and his wife Meghan is on a par with that faced by his mother Diana, the late princesss brother said in an interview published on Sunday, warning that lessons needed to be learned from that period. Diana died aged 36 in a 1997 Paris car crash as photographers pursued her on motorbikes, sparking an outpouring of grief and ...

Hong Kong police suspect a dog attack may have caused the death of a woman who was taken to hospital in the early hours of Sunday, the South China Morning Post has learned. A force spokesman said the woman was found unconscious beside a bicycle on Pok Wai South Road at 12.42am. She was taken to Pok Oi Hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 2.09am. A ...

Hong Kong prosecutors are set to open the murder trial of three former relatives of slain socialite Abby Choi Tin-fung later this week, three years after her killing shocked the city and drew international attention. The High Court will hold the first trial hearing on Monday for parties to sort out preliminary issues. Jury selection is expected to take ...

Hong Kongs first post-colonial leader, Tung Chee-hwa, has been lauded as a pioneer of one country, two systems, a staunch patriot and a close friend of the Chinese Communist Party who also contributed to US-China relations, according to a eulogy delivered by a senior Beijing official. In his remarks at Tungs state funeral on Sunday, seen by the South China ...

Hong Kong authorities should shoulder a larger share of the cost of facilities jointly used by institutions at the Northern Metropolis university towns, a varsity president has said, while calling for dedicated research funding to encourage collaboration among campuses. Professor Stephen Cheung Yan-leung, president of the private Saint Francis University, ...

Ukraine launched what Moscows mayor called the biggest ever drone attack on the Russian capital on Sunday, in what he said was an unsuccessful attempt to disrupt the final day of a parliamentary election that President Vladimir Putin has cast as a test of support for Russias war in Ukraine. Two people were killed in the surrounding Moscow region and the ...

The United States Congress has reportedly launched a probe after a shipment of sensitive F-35 fighter jet parts was said to have been unexpectedly diverted to Hong Kong and went missing, with the citys authorities declining to comment on the case. A spokesman for the Hong Kong government said over the weekend that it would not comment on individual cases, a ...

Hong Kongs first five-year plan will give businesses greater certainty to make long-term investment decisions amid a volatile external environment, the citys finance chief has said. Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po said the plans targets and timelines would allow companies to see the citys direction over the next five years and better align their plans ...