France's government has not yet decided whether the country will move into a third lockdown to curb the coronavirus epidemic and notably the circulation of new variants of the virus, French European Affairs minister Clement Beaune said on Monday.

Taiwan expelled nearly 4,000 Chinese vessels illegally dredging sand from its waters in 2020, authorities said Monday, a more than six-fold increase on the year before as Beijing seeks to heap pressure on the democratic island. China has taken an i...

Greece and Turkey bowed to EU and NATO pressure on Monday and opened the first direct talks in nearly five years over their explosive eastern Mediterranean standoff. The Istanbul meeting is not expected to make major headway after the two NATO neig...

A US aircraft carrier group sailed into the South China Sea on a so-called "freedom of navigation" exercise, the first routine operation in the region under new President Joe Biden. Led by the USS Theodore Roosevelt, the carrier strike group entere...

This Monday marks 10 years since the start of Arab Spring protests in Egypt that brought about the fall of strongman Hosni Muburak. At the time, the revolutionaries' slogan was "Bread, Freedom and Social Justice". But over the decade that followed,...

Indian and Chinese troops have fought a new brawl on their contested Himalayan border, leaving injuries on both sides, military officials said Monday. The fighting on January 20 came six months after a pitched battle which left at least 20 Indian t...

Protests against a curfew to curb the spread of Covid-19 in the Netherlands degenerated into clashes with police and looting in cities across the country Sunday, authorities and reports said.

Billionaires including Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Tesla founder Elon Musk have seen their wealth soar during the Covid-19 pandemic while the world’s poor face years of hardship, charity Oxfam said on Monday as it demanded steps to tackle inequality...

Israel on Sunday announced a week-long ban on most incoming and outgoing flights in a bid to slow the spread of new variants of the novel coronavirus.

Olympic pole vault champion Katerina Stefanidi has spoken out strongly in favour of going ahead with the Tokyo Games, nearly a year after she led calls to postpone the event over the coronavirus pandemic. Stefanidi told Japan's Kyodo news agency th...

When Egyptians first took to the streets on January 25, 2011, their numbers quickly swelled in Cairo's Tahrir Square, state security forces backed off and, within less than three weeks, then-president Hosni Mubarak stepped down. But a decade late...

Almost half a million people have died in natural disasters linked to extreme weather events in the last 20 years, according to a new assessment of the direct threat posed to humanity by climate change. The mortality burden of climate-related catas...

A Greek former minister and freedom fighter who took part in several bomb attacks against the country's military dictatorship before escaping prison by swimming from Corfu to Albania has been found dead at sea. Former socialist minister Sifis Vali...

World leaders are set to appear online on Monday at the first summit dedicated to making the planet more resilient to the effects of climate change. Leaders including French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Pri...

Spinner Lasith Embuldeniya claimed seven wickets to help bowl out England for 344 as the tourists conceded a first-innings lead of 37 runs on day four of the second Test on Monday. Dilruwan Perera trapped overnight batsman Jack Leach lbw for one on...