A Hong Kong internet provider said Thursday it had blocked access to a website following a police order, the first confirmed takedown using a new national security law imposed by Beijing last year. Unlike mainland China, Hong Kong has open internet...

Off-spinner Dom Bess claimed five wickets as England bowled out Sri Lanka for 135 after the hosts elected to bat in the opening Test on Thursday. Bess, who returned figures of 5-30, combined with paceman Stuart Broad, who took three wickets, as Sri...

Afghan traffic authorities are retiring licence plates containing the number "39" because the figure has long been associated with pimping and prostitution. Vice President Amrullah Saleh said a decree to that effect would be introduced this week, e...

Two Canadians detained in China for over two years on spying charges were allowed to call their families out of "humanitarian considerations" over Christmas, Beijing said Thursday. Relations between Beijing and Ottawa have spiralled since China det...

Archaeologists have discovered the world's oldest known cave painting: a life-sized picture of a wild pig that was made at least 45,500 years ago in Indonesia. 

Washington's envoy to the United Nations held a virtual talk with Taiwan's president on Thursday after her visit to the island was scrapped in a diplomatic volte-face during the chaotic last days of the Trump administration. Ambassador Kelly Craft ...

This week marks ten years since deposed strongman Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali fled Tunisia, the first to fall as the 2011 Arab Spring took hold across North Africa and the Middle East. Although democratic advances have been made, many Tunisians feel tha...

Cuba will close schools, bars and restaurants and halt all public transport at night from Thursday after a spike in coronavirus cases, the government has announced. The new measures come after health authorities announced 550 new cases in 24 hours ...

An England cricket fan who waited 10 months in Sri Lanka to watch his team play was ushered away by police before a ball had been bowled in the first Test on Thursday. Rob Lewis, who flew out last March before the original tour was aborted over the...

Women's badminton world number one Tai Tzu-ying breezed into the quarter-finals of the Thailand Open on Thursday, sweeping aside South Korea's Kim Ga-eun 21-16, 21-10 in less than half an hour. The 26-year-old's victory came as the Badminton World...

Sobbing friends and relatives filed into a Jakarta cemetery Thursday to bury the remains of a flight attendant from the crashed Indonesian passenger jet, as divers restarted their hunt for its second black box. Okky Bisma, 29, was the first confirm...

Former US presidential hopeful and tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang has announced he will run for mayor of New York City in an election this year that he is an early favourite to win. Yang, 46, announced his run on Twitter Wednesday, posting a video ...

Lebanese hunkered down indoors Thursday on the first day of a strict 11-day lockdown imposed in a bid to slow down a sharp uptick in novel coronavirus cases. The heightened restrictions, which include a 24-hour curfew until January 25, come after s...

A closed-door mass trial of 150 Cambodian opposition figures resumed in Phnom Penh Thursday, in what critics labelled a politically motivated sham and an affront to human rights and the rule of law. The case is linked to attempts by exiled oppositi...

Tennis chiefs insisted America's Tennys Sandgren was not a coronavirus risk after he sparked a flurry of concern by tweeting he'd boarded a flight for the Australian Open in Melbourne despite testing positive. The world number 50 is among more than...