Amid a worldwide backlash against recently announced changes to its privacy terms, instant messaging giant WhatsApp on Saturday announced it would give users until May – rather than early next month – to decide whether they consented to the new a...

Online classes resumed in Hong Kong schools this month, but a number of teachers remain stranded in Britain because of the Covid-19 travel ban, the Post has learned.Nearly one in 10 teachers from Harrow International School, including its head, Ann H...

US Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told President Donald Trump in a letter this week that the attack on the Capitol could tarnish the legacy of the administration.In the January 12 letter, Azar cited what he called the administration’...

The Trump administration on Friday carried out its 13th federal execution since July, an unprecedented run that concluded just five days before the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden – an opponent of the federal death penalty.Dustin Higgs, c...

Fiji, the favourite of Western nations, won the presidency of the United Nations Human Rights Council on Friday, beating Bahrain and Uzbekistan in a ballot that resolved a tense deadlock over the selection.The vote was called after an impasse that me...

The US Forces in Korea (USFK) said on Saturday it has imposed a shelter-in-place order on two of its largest bases – US Army Garrison Yongsan and Camp Humphreys – until Tuesday after a cluster of coronavirus infections.Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtae...

Hong Kong’s government has lashed out at the United States for “insane, shameless and despicable” interference in the city’s internal affairs after the departing administration in Washington slapped sanctions on six officials over the enforce...

Acute altitude sickness is behind the numbers of people losing their way in the remote Himalayas between China and India, according to experts, who say the numbers of new troops from both sides in the disputed area are at risk.A Chinese soldier who w...

An aftershock hit Indonesia’s Sulawesi island on Saturday as rescuers searched for people trapped under rubble after a 6.2 magnitude earthquake left at least 45 dead and hundreds injured.There were no reports of further damage after the magnitude 5...

A proposed constitutional revamp is dominating discussions in the Philippine Congress once again as allies of President Rodrigo Duterte make another attempt to barrel through charter changes – the so-called Cha-Cha the country regularly finds itsel...

The coronavirus presented affluent families in China with a new challenge last year: just how were they going to spend some 350 billion yuan (US$54 billion) of disposable income on luxury items like jewellery and watches with overseas travel and shop...

It’s hard to imagine a more luxurious place to spend two weeks of quarantine than the Anantara Phuket Suites & Villas in Thailand, where visitors are pampered in private residences that can have their own pool and courtyard.Yet more than three mont...

The US said on Friday it had new information suggesting the Covid-19 pandemic could have emerged from a Chinese laboratory and not through contact with infected animals, the latest salvo in the Donald Trump administration’s efforts to pressure Beij...

A senior adviser to the Chinese government is calling for a proposed road and rail tunnel between mainland China and its southern island province of Hainan to be put back on the agenda, to boost the island’s economy and help Beijing gain a foothold...

Hong Kong confirmed 50 new Covid-19 cases on Saturday, while health experts said they would not rule out a delay in the inoculation drive over concern with side effects of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, following reports of deaths in Norway.All but one...

Food plays a pivotal role in Chinese culture because of its ability to serve as a conduit for developing relationships, cementing business partnerships and bringing families together.A meal is not merely a culinary event in our world. The occasion pr...

Justice Department lawyers asked a federal appeal court on Friday to replace President Donald Trump with the United States as the defendant in a defamation lawsuit brought by a woman who says he raped her in the 1990s.The lawyers filed papers in an a...

The Student of the Year Awards, organised by the South China Morning Post and sponsored by the Hong Kong Jockey Club, with support from the Education Bureau, are among the city’s most prestigious honours for local youths. This year, 11 awards were...

Companies and local governments are offering workers and urban residents financial incentives to stay at home ahead of China’s New Year celebrations next month.Cash bonuses, shopping vouchers, movie tickets, free entry to local attractions, and eve...

The Student of the Year Awards, organised by the South China Morning Post and sponsored by the Hong Kong Jockey Club, with support from the Education Bureau, are among the city’s most prestigious honours for local youth. This year, 11 awards were ...

The combined impact of illegal dirt bike riders and wildfires has led to the rapid destruction of a popular Hong Kong hiking spot, prompting a local green group to call for stricter enforcement and reforestation.Once covered with silver grass, the sl...

Drinking water provided to nearly 100 million people in China has levels of toxic chemicals that exceed safe limits, researchers have found.A team from Tsinghua University monitored the levels of per and polyfluoroalkyls (PFAS) – man-made chemicals...

Hong Kong’s subdivided flats and improper sewage structures crammed into old buildings have exposed flaws in the city’s strategy against Covid-19, health experts have warned, calling for a more proactive and timely approach.The concern centred on...

Vaccines are rolling out, slowly but surely, across the world. Does that mean it’s time to think about travelling yet?The tourism industry would like to say yes. According to the most recent data from the World Travel and Tourism Council, publishe...

As North Korean leader Kim Jong-un vowed to build up a nuclear arsenal and railed against Washington at a rare party congress this week, Park Won-gon, a professor of international relations at Seoul’s Handong Global University was struck most by wh...

President Donald Trump will leave Washington on January 20 just before President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration to begin his post-presidential life in Florida.Refusing to abide by tradition and participate in the ceremonial transfer of power, Trump...

In another action against China days before he leaves office, US President Donald Trump on Friday directed government departments to look at ways to minimise procurement of Chinese goods and services to reduce the risks from espionage, his national s...

More than 20 million people across China are in lockdown as the country battles a spike in Covid-19 infections, the worst flare-up since last summer.China reported 135 new locally transmitted cases for Thursday, of which 90 were in the northern provi...

Five judges at Scotland’s highest court of criminal appeal on Friday upheld the conviction of the only man found guilty of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing after a posthumous legal challenge.The family of former Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset Ali...

With mass coronavirus vaccinations set to be available next month, the possibility for Hong Kong to return to some semblance of normality seems to be on the horizon. Yet, 2021 will see the city adjusting to a new normal, one that is underscored by a ...

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas on Friday announced dates for the first Palestinian elections in more than 15 years, setting legislative polls for May 22 and a July 31 presidential vote.Abbas’s Fatah party, which controls the Palestinian Author...

Emma Thompson did it in Ang Lee’s 1995 screen adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, as did Dustin Hoffman in the movie classic The Graduate in 1967. Actors taking on roles that are much younger than their real age – Thompson played...

The global death toll from Covid-19 surpassed two million on Friday, with the World Health Organization (WHO) urging mass vaccinations as the pandemic progresses at a record pace.As of Friday, at least 2,000,066 people worldwide had been confirmed de...

The United States on Friday imposed sanctions on six officials including Hong Kong’s sole representative to China’s top lawmaking body over mass arrests of pro-democracy activists in the financial hub.Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in the latest...

This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Nick Niedzwiadek on politico.com on January 15, 2021.The Department of Justice announced on Friday it has initiated an internal review of its response to th...

Oswald Spengler, the prophet of the decline of the West, left a terrible question for the West more than a century ago. If the decline of the West is caused by its own doing, then it has no one to blame. But if the rise of non-white people causes the...

All suspects still in custody on suspicion of helping a dozen Hong Kong fugitives flee the city last year were expected to be released on bail by Friday night, the Post has learned.At least four of the 11 arrested by the police force’s National Sec...

A Chinese Communist Party official responsible for the country’s security apparatus has told law enforcers that the time for China’s rise has come but the struggle with the US will be a “long protracted battle”.Chen Yixin, secretary general o...

US President-elect Joe Biden’s newly outlined US$1.9 trillion stimulus package looks to have global implications – prompting China’s central bank to call attention to growing external risks to its economy and that of the world at large.If Biden...

A week is a long time in politics. On Wednesday last week, armed supporters of Donald Trump stormed the US Capitol, the temple of American democracy. On Wednesday this week, he became the first American president to be impeached twice.Next Wednesday,...

Four Hong Kong policemen allegedly colluded with triad members and tipped them off about a coming raid on an illegal gambling den, while also unknowingly meeting an undercover officer over the plot, the court heard on Friday.The constables of the org...

The UN Human Rights Council will this week hold an unprecedented secret ballot to pick its president after China and others blocked a candidate from Fiji considered to be a rights champion, sources and analysts said.“There has been a stand-off,” ...

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s government resigned on Friday over a child benefits scandal, media reported, threatening political turmoil as the country battles the coronavirus pandemic.Thousands of parents were wrongly accused by Dutch authorit...

China’s central bank on Friday played down the urgency of an immediate change in key interest rates and vowed to maintain necessary monetary support for economic recovery from the pandemic, amid growing expectations it will gradually tighten credit...

Beijing has provided another indication of its interest in joining the Comprehensive Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (CPTPP) by releasing a Chinese translation of its principal documents.Since President Xi Jinping said last year that...

The US announced a flurry of sanctions and measures against China on Thursday, with the clock counting down to the final days of the Trump administration.Among the measures was an investment ban on nine more Chinese firms, including state-owned plane...

Covid-19 vaccines developed by China National Biotec Group (CNBG) can offer at least six months of protection, and the manufacturer is still waiting to see whether that can be extended to eight months, state news agency Xinhua reported on Friday.“F...

Huawei Technologies Co. heiress Annabel Yao has launched herself into show business, releasing a video documentary announcing her signing as an entertainment artist with a Beijing-based company.Styled by the company in a slick, all-black figure-huggi...

China is arranging for a WHO coronavirus investigation team member to fly to Wuhan after the scientist tested negative in a second round of antibody checks.The expert was one of two scientists on the team who were not allowed to board a flight from S...

A teacher at a government secondary school in Hong Kong is being investigated for allegedly using biased materials in the classroom, the education minister revealed on Friday.Secretary for Education Kevin Yeung Yun-hung said the inquiry was continuin...