HONG KONG: A fire engulfed 16 vessels in a Hong Kong typhoon shelter early on Sunday (Jun 27), resulting in at least 10 boats sinking and one person sent to a hospital. The fire broke out at about 2.30am at the Aberdeen South typhoon shelter in Hong...

TAIPEI: Taiwan reported 88 new domestic COVID-19 infections on Sunday (Jun 27), up from 78 a day earlier. It had earlier reported on Saturday its first domestically transmitted case of the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus, tighten...

India reported on Sunday 50,040 new COVID-19 infections over the past 24 hours, data from the health ministry showed.

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia will extend a national lockdown beyond Monday (Jun 28) to curb the spread of COVID-19, state news agency Bernama reported on Sunday, citing Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin. Lockdown measures were set to end on Monday. But Muhy...

NEW DELHI: The Communist Party of China (CCP) will stage a patriotic extravaganza on Jul 1 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of its founding. Among the achievements it will celebrate is the Baihetan Dam, located on the Jinsha River, on the southeas...

Exploring greater exchanges with Malaysian football could be sensible but any such collaboration has to be for the benefit of football in both countries, says John Duerden.

JAKARTA: With great precision and agility, Seto Noviantoro’s fingers glided across the strings of an Indonesian musical instrument, while his right arm moved the bow back and forth. Despite its distinctive sound, not many people know the name of ...

A container ship left adrift in the Indian Ocean after an engine room fire was being towed to Singapore on Saturday, Sri Lanka's navy said.

Seasonal flooding of the Ganges is flushing out shallow graves and exposing some of the hundreds of bodies that were buried by the river during India's recent Covid-19 surge.

JAKARTA: Indonesia recorded its biggest daily increase in COVID-19 cases on Saturday (Jun 26) with 21,095 cases, taking the national tally to 2,093,962, according to data from the country’s health ministry. The data showed 358 more COVID-19 death...

Bangladesh has announced it will impose a tough new lockdown starting Monday, after a "dangerous and alarming" surge in Delta variant cases of coronavirus.

Taiwan reported its first domestically transmitted case of the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus on Saturday, tightening controls in a southern part of the island where the cases have occurred.

MANILA: Philippine former president Benigno Aquino was laid to rest in a Manila cemetery on Saturday (Jun 26) beside his parents, two of the country's democracy icons. Hundreds of mourners in black and white, some also wearing yellow ribbons and fac...

JAKARTA: Indonesia and the United States have broken ground on a new US$3.5 million maritime training centre in the strategic area of Batam, in the Riau Islands, Indonesia's maritime security agency said. Attending the ceremony virtually on Friday (...

BEIJING: At least 18 people were killed and 16 injured when a fire broke out at a martial arts school in central China in the early hours of Friday (Jun 25), according to the local government. Official state news agency Xinhua reported that all vict...

Electric car giant Tesla will "recall" over 285,000 cars from the Chinese market after an investigation found issues with its assisted driving software that could cause road collisions, a government regulator announced late Friday.

Myanmar authorities torched over half a billion dollars worth of narcotics across the country Saturday, sending opium, heroin and methamphetamine up in smoke as experts warn smugglers have adapted to Covid-19 travel restrictions and are back in busin...

A mammoth trek across southern China by a herd of elephants that has captivated the world with their playful antics has thrown a spotlight on the loss of their habitat and conservation challenges.

A helicopter carrying Colombia's President Ivan Duque and others was struck by multiple bullets in an attack on Friday, he said in a video message.

JAKARTA: Ketika Prigi Arisandi naik perahu karet dan menyusuri sungai, dia mencari suatu barang khusus - popok sekali pakai yang kotor. Pendiri Brigade Evakuasi Popok dan timnya yang terdiri dari sekitar 30 sukarelawan secara berkala melakukan perja...

JAKARTA: When Prigi Arisandi gets into an inflatable boat and paddles down a local river, he looks for one specific item - soiled disposable diapers.  The founder of Diaper Evacuation Brigade and his team of about 30 volunteers regularly travels ac...

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani met with the US defense chief and the top Democrat in Congress in Washington on Friday as he seeks to shore up US support for his government ahead of the departure of American forces from his country.

India's richest state on Friday ordered malls and cinema halls to close as it scrambles to control a more transmissible variant of the coronavirus that has scuppered plans to ease lockdown measures.

JAKARTA: Separatist rebels were holding four civilians hostage in the jungles of Indonesia's breakaway Papua region after they killed several construction workers in an ambush, authorities said on Friday (Jun 25). Tensions have been mounting between...

HONG KONG: Married same-sex partners will be allowed to own subsidised housing together in Hong Kong after a landmark High Court ruling on Friday (Jun 25), a major stride for LGBT rights in the financial hub. Hong Kong does not recognise same-sex ma...

Scientists announced Friday that a skull discovered in northeast China represents a newly discovered human species they have named Homo longi, or "Dragon Man" -- and they say the lineage should replace Neanderthals as our closest relatives.

HONG KONG: China on Friday (Jun 25) approved the promotion of Hong Kong's security secretary John Lee to chief secretary, while police chief Chris Tang will take Lee's position in what critics say will further tighten Beijing's security squeeze on th...

BANGKOK: Thailand will close hundreds of construction sites and prevent workers from leaving their camps for a month, its prime minister said on Friday (Jun 25), in an effort to tackle the country's worst coronavirus outbreak so far. The order follo...

MANILA: Late Philippine President Benigno Aquino III was hailed on Friday (Jun 25) for his integrity in a Southeast Asian nation long plagued by corruption and for standing up to China over long-raging territorial disputes in the South China Sea. Hu...

COLOMBO: Damage to Sri Lanka's marine environment from a sinking chemical ship is worse than feared, officials said on Friday (Jun 25), as more dead turtles, dolphins and whales washed up on the island's beaches. As of Thursday, 130 marine animals h...

TOKYO: Japan's prime minister on Friday (Jun 25) dismissed claims that the country's emperor is "concerned" the Tokyo Olympics could spread the coronavirus, saying the comments were the opinions of an imperial household representative. On Thursday, ...

BEIJING: Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China remains deeply committed to United Nations peacekeeping efforts, where more than 2,400 Chinese troops and police are serving — a contribution that underscores China's increasing prominence in the world b...

KUALA LUMPUR: A hybrid parliament meeting could be held at the end of August or the first week of September, said the heads of Malaysia's Upper and Lower Houses.  In a statement on Friday (Jun 25), Senate President Ratis Yatim and House of Represen...

BANGKOK: Thai prisoners rolled up their sleeves to get coronavirus jabs on Friday (Jun 25) as the kingdom seeks to tackle a mass infection outbreak in its overcrowded jails. Authorities have been trying to contain a recent virus surge in the penal ...

GENEVA: The United Nations human rights chief should document her own findings on the plight of Uyghurs in Xinjiang even without China's blessing for a visit, activists and Western diplomats say, amid signs that her patience may be running out. Mich...

KATHMANDU: Wearing a baseball cap and knee-length traditional Gho robe, carrying a backpack, Bhutan's king has walked through jungles infested with leeches and snakes, trekked mountains and quarantined several times in a hotel in the capital. For 14...

JAKARTA: Indonesia’s Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said on Friday (Jun 25) that more hospitals and beds have been prepared in Jakarta to cope with another surge of COVID-19 cases, while assuring the public that there is sufficient oxygen s...

TAIPEI: Taiwan will tighten border controls to keep out the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus, authorities said on Friday (Jun 25), requiring arrivals from five countries, including Britain, to be placed in centralised quarantine fac...

KATHMANDU: A ventilator "bank" where hospitals can rent critical care machines for COVID-19 patients has given Nepal's cash-strapped healthcare system a much needed lifeline. The Himalayan nation, like its South Asian neighbours, experienced a spike...

Wang Ying is young, educated and an unquestioning believer in the Communist Party's sole right to rule China -? exactly what the increasingly conformist institution seeks as it enters a new century.

Each morning, a group of Filipinos rakes up piles of trash on the banks of one of the world's most polluted rivers, filling sacks in an endless pursuit to clean a waterway that is also a major source of ocean plastics.

China reported 24 new coronavirus cases in the mainland for Thursday, compared with 16 a day earlier, the health authority said.

SHANGHAI: The virus that causes COVID-19 could have started spreading in China as early as October 2019, two months before the first case was identified in the central city of Wuhan, a new study showed on Friday (Jun 25). Researchers from Britain's ...

The security of Taiwan is directly linked with that of Japan, Japan's Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi said in an interview with Bloomberg News. "The peace and stability of Taiwan is directly connected to Japan and we are closely monitoring ties between...

Judge keeps India terror attack suspect in US custody

Colombia's antigovernment protests could grow in the second half of the year if neither the government nor Congress meet the economic and social demands driving them, a union leader said on Thursday.

The country’s messy pandemic situation was brought on by sheer incompetency, internal squabbling and a naked pursuit of power, says a political science lecturer.

A blinkered approach premised on maintaining national security led by US elites, evident at the NATO summit, is counterproductive, say Andrew Sheng and Xiao Geng.

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan was facing a growing backlash on Thursday (Jun 24) after he blamed victims of rape for wearing "very few clothes".

The United States plans to evacuate at least some Afghan interpreters who have worked with US forces before the full withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan, a senior official said on Thursday (Jun 24).

An estimated 230,000 people have been displaced by fighting and violence in Myanmar this year and are in need of assistance, the United Nations humanitarian agency said on Thursday (Jun 24). Myanmar has been in crisis since a Feb 1 coup ousted an el...

KUALA LUMPUR: A Malaysian government task force on Friday (Jun 24) proposed amendments to Syariah law that would allow action to be taken against social media users for insulting Islam and "promoting the LGBT lifestyle". Sodomy and same-sex acts are...

The world's highest luxury hotel, boasting a restaurant on the 120th floor and 24-hour personal butler service, has opened in Shanghai to guests with deep pockets and a head for heights.

JAKARTA: Indonesia recorded its biggest daily increase in coronavirus cases on Thursday (Jun 24) with 20,574 infections, taking the country's total tally to 2,053,995 cases, according to data from the country’s health ministry. The data also showe...

Sri Lanka's president pardoned 16 men linked to the Tamil Tiger rebels on Thursday, as the country faced renewed pressure from the UN over detentions without charge under an anti-terrorism law.

SYDNEY: The Pacific island of Nauru is negotiating for the construction of an undersea communications cable that would connect to an Australian network, two sources with knowledge of the talks told Reuters, after the earlier rejection of a Chinese pr...

HONG KONG: Apple Daily cub reporter Yau Ting-leung could not sleep much. Tired, he lay in bed on Wednesday (Jun 23) morning checking the news. The 23-year-old had been in his dream job at the pro-democracy tabloid for less than a year, but now thing...

Indian premier Narendra Modi told leaders from Jammu & Kashmir that elections would be held there after the region's constituencies were reconfigured following the revocation of its semi-autonomous statehood, meeting participants said.

HONG KONG: Hong Kong cyber activists are backing up articles by Apple Daily on censorship-proof blockchain platforms after the newspaper was forced to shut down as it became embroiled in a national security law crackdown. The latest drive to preserv...

MANILA: Philippine defence secretary Delfin Lorenzana on Thursday (Jun 24) ordered the grounding of the military's fleet of Black Hawk helicopters after a crash during training mission in an province north of the capital Manila killed six people. Th...

BEIJING: When a prefecture in northwestern China's Xinjiang region ordered a halt on cryptocurrency mining projects this month, Chris Zhu scrambled to move clients' machines southward, spending over a week to reassemble in Sichuan. But after the shi...

TOKYO: Japanese Emperor Naruhito appears "concerned" about the possibility the Olympic Games could cause the coronavirus to spread as feared by many in the public, Kyodo News quoted an official at the Imperial Household Agency (IHA) as saying. "The ...

BANGKOK: A former soldier fired gunshots in a coronavirus field hospital in Thailand on Thursday (Jun 24), killing a 54-year-old patient after earlier shooting dead a convenience store employee, police said. The suspect, 23, believed that the patien...

China has lodged a complaint with the World Trade Organization (WTO) over Australia's anti-dumping and anti-subsidy measures against Chinese railway wheels, wind towers and stainless steel sinks, the commerce ministry said on Thursday.

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian oil services firm Serba Dinamik Holdings Bhd said on Thursday it has received notice from its external auditor KPMG handing in its resignation with immediate effect. In a stock exchange filing, Serba said KPMG stated in t...

JAKARTA: An influential firebrand cleric was sentenced to another four years in prison in Indonesia on Thursday (Jun 24) for concealing information about his coronavirus test result. The three-judge panel at East Jakarta District Court, which was un...

A Sydney-based Chilean woman accused of Pinochet-era crimes lost a court appeal Thursday against extradition to Chile to face seven counts of aggravated kidnapping.

BANGKOK: Hundreds of protesters rallied in Bangkok on Thursday (Jun 24) to call for the government's resignation, defying warnings from authorities about the kingdom's soaring COVID-19 caseload. The marches came on the 89th anniversary of the Siames...

JAKARTA: Generous Indonesians donating their spare change to the poor and needy are unwittingly helping finance deadly terror attacks and militant training camps in a scam that has netted big money for extremist groups. Former radical Khairul Ghaza...

HONG KONG: The Hong Kong government said on Wednesday (Jun 23) it will ban passenger flights from Indonesia from Friday, deeming the country's arrivals "extremely high risk" for COVID-19.  Authorities said flights would be suspended after the numb...

Former Philippines President Benigno Aquino, the son of two of the Southeast Asian country's democracy icons, died in a Manila hospital on Thursday (Jun 24) of renal failure as a result of diabetes, his family said.

SINGAPORE: Singapore Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan has stressed the importance of advancing economic integration and maintaining trade and investment flows by strengthening supply chain resilience.  Dr Balakrishnan was speaking at the virt...

Hong Kongers queued Thursday for the final edition of the city's beloved pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily after it was forced to close under a sweeping new national security law, ending a 26-year run of taking on China's authoritarian leaders.

Chinese audiences are no longer as fascinated by Hollywood films as they were 20 years ago and are increasingly embracing homegrown movies, says a media studies professor.

The beginnings of a G7 policy on China must reconcile many pushs and pulls, given interests within the western block may not always sync up, says Shruti Pandalai.

Phuket’s travel “sandbox” has the potential to be a game changer for the long-term suffering travel industry in Thailand, says NUS Business School’s Jochen Wirtz.

JAKARTA: President Joko Widodo has been criss-crossing vaccination centres in Jakarta, keeping tabs on the national vaccination programme and rallying those in the capital city to get inoculated quickly. “I have conveyed to the governor of Jakart...

In the chaotic, final hours of the Vietnam War, the US evacuated thousands of South Vietnamese who supported the American mission and were at risk under the communist government.

There is no meeting planned between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at a G20 gathering in Italy next week, a State Department official said on Wednesday, after the Financial Times reported that Beijing and W...

Chilean researchers have repurposed a carbon dioxide detector model to warn of the risk of contracting COVID-19 in enclosed spaces.

North Korea said it is not considering any contact with the United States, state media KCNA reported, citing Foreign Minister Ri Son Gwon on Wednesday.

Trade power tensions, regulatory hurdles and attempts by the West to counter Chinese competition are delaying a return of the 737 MAX in China, frustrating Boeing Co as a potential rival demonstrates its growing influence.

BANGKOK: Thai authorities warned demonstrators on Wednesday (Jun 23) against gathering to mark the anniversary of the Siamese Revolution, citing the kingdom's soaring COVID-19 infections. Key pro-democracy groups have announced plans for demonstrati...

TOKYO: A second COVID-19 case linked to the Ugandan Olympic team has been detected after a coach tested positive on arrival in Japan, a city official told AFP on Wednesday (Jun 23). The announcement comes as Olympic officials marked one month until ...

KUALA LUMPUR: Johor ruler Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar said on Wednesday (Jun 23) that he has given consent for the state assembly to reconvene on Aug 12. A statement issued by the Royal Press Office said that the sultan will open the state assembly ...

KUALA LUMPUR: Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC will invest RM 750 million (US$180 million) in Sunway's healthcare business, the Malaysian conglomerate said on Wednesday (Jun 23). GIC will buy a 16 per cent stake in an agreement that values Sunw...

TOKYO: Japan's daily rate of COVID-19 vaccinations has reached a crucial milestone of 1 million, government data showed on Wednesday (Jun 23), as authorities scramble to recover lost time in inoculating the population. The figure is a critical thres...

Japan's top court on Wednesday ruled a law requiring married couples to have the same family name is constitutional, rejecting plaintiffs who sought the right to keep separate surnames, local media said.

MOSCOW: Myanmar's junta chief on Tuesday (Jun 22) thanked Russia, a major weapons supplier to the troubled Southeast Asian country, for strengthening the army which seized power in a coup earlier this year. Myanmar has been in turmoil since the mili...

KATHMANDU: Nepal’s Supreme Court delivered a fresh blow to embattled communist Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli by removing 20 recently appointed ministers, pending a ruling on whether a caretaker prime minister can make such sweeping cabinet changes....

BENGALURU: India on Tuesday (Jun 22) declared a new coronavirus variant to be of concern, and said nearly two dozen cases had been detected in three states. The variant, identified locally as "Delta plus", was found in 16 cases in the state of Maha...

TAIPEI: Taiwan will extend its coronavirus curbs by two more weeks until Jul 12, as the situation has yet to reach a point where they can be relaxed, Health Minister Chen Shih-chung said on Wednesday (Jun 23). Taiwan has been dealing with a rise in...

"Pride of China" Sun Yang is "a victim of political posturing" and did not break doping rules, his lawyer said, after a ban of more than four years forced the swimming star out of the Tokyo Olympics.

BENGALURU: India reported on Wednesday (Jun 23) 50,848 new COVID-19 infections over the past 24 hours, health ministry data showed. The nation's total infections now stand at 30.03 million, according to a Reuters tally. India also recorded another 1...

HONG KONG: Hong Kong's most vocal pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily said it will print its last edition on Thursday (Jun 23) after a stormy year in which it was raided by police and its tycoon owner and other staff were arrested under a new nationa...

TAIPEI: A major Taiwanese Buddhist group said on Wednesday (Jun 23) that it was hoping to buy 5 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine, joining Foxconn and TSMC in trying to secure vaccines for the island. Taiwan's government has millio...

The stripped-back Tokyo Games, held despite the ongoing pandemic, will highlight the Olympics' "true values", Tokyo 2020 chief Seiko Hashimoto said as organisers mark a month to go.

A panda at Tokyo's Ueno zoo gave birth to twins on Wednesday, weeks after news of Shin Shin's pregnancy sent stocks in nearby restaurants soaring.

China on Wednesday reported 24 new coronavirus cases in the mainland for June 22, compared with 25 cases a day earlier, the health authority said.

The first trial under Hong Kong's new national security law begins on Wednesday (Jun 23) without a jury, a landmark moment for the financial hub's fast-changing legal traditions.