The bodies of all 14 workers trapped when a tunnel under construction was flooded last week have been recovered, authorities in southern China said on Thursday (Jul 22).

HONG KONG: Five members of a Hong Kong union behind a series of children's books about sheep trying to hold back wolves from their village have been arrested for sedition, police announced Thursday. The arrests by the new national security police un...

Buried in a long U.S. indictment accusing China of a global cyberespionage campaign was a curious detail: Among the governments targeted by Chinese hackers was Cambodia, one of Beijing's most loyal Asian allies.

BEIJING: China rejected on Thursday (Jul 22) a World Health Organization (WHO) plan for a second phase of an investigation into the origin of the coronavirus, which includes the hypothesis it could have escaped from a Chinese laboratory, a top healt...

TAIPEI: Taiwan has ordered a further 36 million doses of Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine, the government said on Thursday (Jul 22), as it seeks to lock in deliveries for the months ahead. Taiwan has received about 9 million doses to date of Moderna and A...

HONG KONG: A Hong Kong court on Thursday (Jul 22) sentenced seven men to between three-and-a-half and seven years in prison for their role in a 2019 attack on protesters, reporters and bystanders at a train station at the height of anti-government ...

ZHENGZHOU, Henan: Piles of cars were strewn across a central Chinese city on Thursday (Jul 22) as shocked residents picked through the debris of a historic deluge that claimed at least 33 lives, with more heavy rain threatening surrounding regions. ...

BANGKOK: Thailand on Thursday (Jul 22) reported 13,655 new COVID-19 cases, a daily record for a second consecutive day and bringing the country's total accumulated cases to 453,132. The COVID-19 task force also reported 87 additional deaths, bringin...

NEW DELHI: Indian farmers, protesting over three new farm laws they say threaten their livelihoods, will start a sit-in near parliament in the centre of the capital New Delhi in a renewed push to pressure the government to repeal the laws. In the lo...

The director of the opening ceremony of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics has been dismissed, organisers said on Thursday, following news reports about his past comments on the Holocaust.

BEIJING: Tens of thousands of people were being evacuated from flood-hit regions of central China on Thursday (Jul 22) as officials raised the death toll from heavy rains that have deluged Henan province for almost a week to 33 people. More cities ...

TOKYO: Japan's former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who memorably dressed up as the titular plumber from the Super Mario video game to promote the Tokyo Olympics in Rio, will not attend the opening ceremony, public broadcaster NHK and other media report...

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's Muar MP Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman pleaded not guilty to criminal breach of trust and misappropriation of funds belonging to his former party, Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu).  He was charged on Thursday (Jul ...

TOKYO :On the eve of the Tokyo Games, organisers fired the director of the opening ceremony over a joke he made about the Holocaust, while media reported former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a staunch advocate for the Tokyo Games, would skip the showpie...

SEOUL: South Korea on Thursday (Jul 22) reported another daily record of 1,842 COVID-19 cases, as it struggles to tame its worst-ever wave of outbreaks amid rising infections nationwide fuelled by the more contagious Delta variant. The latest num...

Matthew Mohan, who is covering the Tokyo Olympics for CNA, describes how getting into Japan against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic was more straightforward than he expected.

COVID-19 is a sustained test of state capacity, and Southeast Asian countries are faring poorly, says a doctor.

The story that Japan wants to tell the world has shifted profoundly from when it won the bid in 2013 to host the 2020 games, say researchers.

Although the UEFA World Cup and the European Championships are more prestigious competitions in the football sporting calendar, the Olympics is special to Asian teams, explains John Duerden.

JAKARTA: Indonesian Rudi Zafar, 31, could barely breathe and walk at the end of June after testing positive for COVID-19.  Despite his weak condition, for days he went from one hospital to the other to seek medical treatment in his hometown Bekas...

The Americas are facing a pandemic of the unvaccinated, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said on Wednesday (Jul 21), as it warned that countries with low inoculation rates are seeing increases in COVID-19 and repeated a call for vaccine do...

Hong Kong's national security police charged four former senior staff members of shuttered newspaper Apple Daily late on Wednesday night (Jul 21).

The Taliban appear to have the "strategic momentum" in their sweeping offensives across Afghanistan, but their victory is far from assured, the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff General Mark Milley said Wednesday.

An 11-year-old boy has died in India from a bird flu virus of the H5N1 strain, the first such fatality in the country, highlighting a potential new risk for the world's second-most populous nation battling the coronavirus pandemic.

NEW DELHI: India recorded more than 45,000 cases of the deadly "black fungus" over the last two months, the health ministry said, as a nationwide outbreak sweeps through COVID-19 patients. The country's junior health minister Bharati Pravin Pawar t...

MANILA: The Philippines' top judges have ruled that the International Criminal Court can prosecute "government actors" for alleged crimes committed before the country withdrew from the tribunal - contradicting President Rodrigo Duterte's assertion ...

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia reported a record 199 COVID-19 deaths on Wednesday (Jul 21), its deadliest day since the start of the pandemic. Thirty-three of the victims were brought in dead as the national death toll reached 7,440. The health ministry...

BEIJING: A manicured hand touches the train carriage window as a brown swirl of floodwater squeezes up against the tunnel outside - one of many scenes of desperation from an underground tragedy shared on Wednesday (Jul 21) across a stunned Chinese ...

MOSCOW: Russia announced on Wednesday (Jul 21) that a batch of its Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine was produced for the first time in Vietnam, which is battling a new wave of COVID-19 infections. The test batch was produced in partnership with Vietnam...

Sinopharm's COVID-19 vaccine elicited weaker antibody responses against the Delta variant, based on the first published study of its effect against the more contagious version.

The United States, Japan and South Korea are sending a clear message with their coordination on policy towards North Korea, a senior US official said on Wednesday (Jul 21), despite some recent friction between the two Asian allies.

TOKYO: Japan will raise its target for renewable energy in the country's electricity mix for 2030 as it pushes to cut emissions to meet commitments under international agreements on climate change, according to a draft of its latest energy policy. T...

BANGKOK: A group of seven Thai airlines are seeking a combined 5 billion baht (US$152.16 million) in low interest loans from the Thai government to help weather the effects of the coronavirus crisis, the Thai Airlines Association said on Wednesday (J...

HONG KONG: Hong Kong police arrested the former executive editor-in-chief of the now-closed Apple Daily newspaper on Wednesday (Jul 21), local media reported, the latest arrest in a national security investigation of media tycoon Jimmy Lai's newspape...

TAIPEI: A major Taiwanese Buddhist group said on Wednesday (Jul 21) it had signed a deal to buy 5 million doses of BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine via the German firm's Chinese sales agent, bumping the island's order for the shot up to 15 million doses. ...

MANILA: Rodzon Enriquez's skeletal remains are pulled out of a coffin-sized tomb in Manila and placed in a body bag. Five years after the 21-year-old was killed in the Philippines' drug war, the lease on his grave is expiring. Activists estimate ten...

TOKYO: Japan's women's softball team got the Tokyo 2020 Olympics off to a winning start for the hosts on Wednesday (Jul 21), kicking off a pandemic-postponed Games that the World Health Organization says can be "a celebration of hope" even as COVID-1...

BEIJING: The Chinese city of Nanjing on Wednesday (Jul 21) urged its citizens not to leave the city unless necessary after nine airport workers tested positive for COVID-19. Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu province, said those who leave will haveÂ...

SEOUL: South Korea reported a daily record of 1,784 COVID-19 cases for Tuesday (Jul 20), breaking a mark set last week, as the authorities struggled to get on top of a surge in outbreaks linked to the Delta variant. Transmission rates have been ke...

BEIJING: At least 25 people have died in China's flood-stricken central province of Henan, a dozen of them in a subway line in its capital Zhengzhou, and more rains are forecast for the region. About 100,000 people have been evacuated in Zhengzhou,...

Two-thirds of India's population have antibodies against the coronavirus, according to data released on Tuesday (Jul 20) from a survey of 29,000 people across the nation conducted in June and July. The fourth national blood serum survey which tests ...

Might Malaysia’s royal fraternity be the people’s only hope? Malaysians will watch next week’s parliament first, says ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute’s Serina Rahman.

HONG KONG: Hong Kong's legislature, which has no opposition party, begins discussions on Wednesday (Jul 21) on privacy laws tackling "doxxing behaviour" that some technology giants fear are so broad and vague that they could hamper operations in the ...

COVID-19 has placed the issue of inequality centre-stage, bringing longstanding divides to the surface, but in a manner that differs starkly from the zero-sum ethnocentric lens of the past, says a researcher.

WASHINGTON: The US State Department has lowered its COVID 19-related travel advisory for India to "Level 3 – Reconsider Travel," the department said in a statement on Tuesday (Jul 20). The advisory for Pakistan was similarly eased, it said. The C...

India beat Sri Lanka by three wickets in the second one-day international to take an unassailable 2-0 lead in the three-match series after Suryakumar Yadav and Deepak Chahar guided the tourists home with maiden half-centuries on Tuesday.

BEIJING: The Chinese army warned that a stricken dam in the centre of the country "could collapse at any time" after being severely damaged in torrential storms that killed at least 12 people and brought the region to a standstill. Weather authoriti...

India's parliament was disrupted for the second day running on Tuesday by noisy opposition calls for an investigation into reports of snooping on politicians and others with Israeli-made spyware Pegasus.

TOKYO: A Ugandan weightlifter has been found four days after he disappeared from an Olympic training camp in Japan leaving a note saying he wanted to find work, police said Tuesday (Jul 20). The disappearance of Julius Ssekitoleko came at a time of ...

JAKARTA: Indonesian President Joko Widodo said on Tuesday (Jul 20) that the country’s COVID-19 cases have fallen and if the trend continues, the current restrictions will gradually be lifted from Jul 26. Indonesia had imposed COVID-19 restriction...

GENEVA: Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche said on Tuesday (Jul 20) that Japan had become the first country to fully approve its Ronapreve antibody treatment for patients with mild to moderate COVID-19. The approval was based on phase 3 trials finding...

Taiwan on Tuesday announced it will set up an office in Lithuania using its colloquial name in a significant diplomatic departure that is bound to rile China.

HONG KONG: The trial of the first person charged under Hong Kong's national security law wrapped up on Tuesday (Jul 20), with the prosecution seeking to designate a slogan popular during 2019 protests as subversive in a crucial test of the city's rul...

BEIJING: China on Tuesday (Jul 20) said the US had "fabricated" allegations it carried out a massive Microsoft hack, countering that Washington was the "world champion" of cyberattacks while raging at American allies for signing up to a rare joint st...

BEIJING: China will allow tax deductions for expenses on children under three as part of a major relaxation in child-bearing policy to stem a dramatic decline in births in the world's most populous country, an official document showed on Tuesday (Jul...

BEIJING: Heavy rain pounded the central Chinese province of Henan on Tuesday (Jul 20), bursting the banks of major rivers, flooding the streets of a dozen cities and shutting the world-famous Shaolin Temple. Henan, a major logistics hub, has been h...

YANGON: A confidante of deposed Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi and stalwart democracy campaigner died on Tuesday (Jul 20) after becoming infected with COVID-19 in prison, authorities said. Nyan Win, a veteran senior member and former spokesperson o...

SEOUL: South Korea's prime minister and defence minister apologised as hundreds of COVID-19-infected sailors were flown to Seoul on Tuesday (Jul 20) after a navy destroyer patrolling the waters off Africa was found to be riddled with the coronavirus....

TOKYO: The chief of the Tokyo 2020 organising committee on Tuesday (Jul 20) did not rule out a last-minute cancellation of the Olympics, as more athletes tested positive for COVID-19 and major sponsors ditched plans to attend Friday's opening ceremo...

JAKARTA: Millions of Muslims in Indonesia on Tuesday (Jul 20) celebrated Eid al-Adha, one of the most important Islamic festivals, as President Joko Widodo pledged that tighter COVID-19 restrictions would remain in place until infections dropped. CO...

SINGAPORE: Discussions on the Singapore-Hong Kong air travel bubble will resume only when the COVID-19 situation allows, Singapore's Ministry of Transport (MOT) said on Tuesday (Jul 20). This is given the recent surge in community cases and the imp...

TOKYO: Olympics chief Thomas Bach revealed "doubts" and "sleepless nights" over the postponed Tokyo Games on Tuesday (Jul 20) as the opening ceremony nears after a year's delay and COVID-19 chaos that has made them deeply unpopular with the Japanese ...

Myanmar's military-controlled health ministry expects half of the population to be vaccinated against COVID-19 this year, state media reported on Tuesday (Jul 20), a day after authorities announced a record tally of coronavirus deaths. The inoculati...

TOKYO: Japanese companies were targeted by a cyber hacking group called APT40, government spokesperson Katsunobu Kato said on Tuesday (Jul 20), adding "the Chinese government is highly likely" behind the attack. The comment by Kato comes after the U...

TOKYO: The so-called bubble to control COVID-19 infections at the Olympic Athlete's Village in Tokyo is already "broken" and poses a risk of spreading infections to the general populace, a prominent public health expert said on Tuesday (Jul 20). Gam...

BEIJING: China on Tuesday (Jul 20) reported the highest daily tally of new confirmed COVID-19 cases since January, driven by a surge in imported infections in southwestern Yunnan province, which shares a border with Myanmar. Mainland China recorded ...

WASHINGTON: US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will visit Southeast Asia later this month, the Pentagon said, in a trip that will include stops in the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam, according to the US embassy in Hanoi. "Secretary Austin's visi...

Phuket opened to tourists despite COVID-19 deaths surging on the mainland. But the sandbox provides lessons for other tourist-friendly countries in the region, says a Southeast Asia observer.

JAKARTA: From sterilised milk to green coconuts, Indonesians have been stocking up on healthy drinks, food and spices as the COVID-19 caseload rose sharply. Messages claiming that these are effective in preventing and treating COVID-19 have proli...

Pakistan said on Monday it was waiting for information from the Afghan government in an investigation into the brief kidnapping of the Afghan ambassador's daughter in Islamabad, after Afghanistan raised questions over the credibility of the probe.

Britain's Prince Harry is writing a memoir about his life that will be published in late 2022, publisher Penguin Random House said in a statement on Monday.

Tokyo 2020 sponsor Toyota will not run Olympics-related TV commercials amid lacklustre public support for the Olympics, with two-thirds of Japanese doubting organisers can keep the Games safe during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a local media p...

A composer for the Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony said Monday he would step down following an outcry over old interviews in which he described bullying disabled schoolmates.

BANGKOK: AstraZeneca has told Thailand it should be able to supply around 6 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine per month, leaked correspondence showed, contradicting assertions by Thai officials that the government had been promised 10 million. T...

More than a dozen diplomatic missions in Afghanistan on Monday called for "an urgent end" to the Taliban's ruthless military offensive, saying it was at odds with claims they want a negotiated settlement to end the conflict.

WASHINGTON: The United States and its allies accused China on Monday (Jul 19) of a global cyberespionage campaign, mustering an unusually broad coalition of countries to publicly call out Beijing for hacking. The United States was joined by NATO, th...

South Korea's Olympic team will cook food for its athletes separately and screen ingredients for radiation during the Tokyo Olympics, an official said on Monday, a potential further irritant to frayed Seoul-Tokyo relations around the Games.

A speeding bus carrying mostly labourers travelling home for a major Muslim holiday rammed into a container truck on a busy highway in central Pakistan on Monday (Jul 19), killing at least 33 people and injuring 40, police and rescue officials said.

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's COVID-19 Immunisation Task Force (CITF) said it is cooperating with police and the armed forces to investigate claims of recipients not being properly injected with vaccines.  This came after accounts of separate incidents ...

Anti-coup protesters in Myanmar held demonstrations on Monday (Jul 19) to coincide with a public holiday to commemorate slain independence heroes, including the father of the country's detained elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Since the military sei...

American businesses in Hong Kong fear mainland Chinese Internet curbs and want local authorities to commit to the free flow of information, the head of the city's American Chamber of Commerce said on Monday (Jul 19).

TAIPEI: Taiwan's government on Monday (Jul 19) approved the emergency use and production of Medigen Vaccine Biologics Corp's COVID-19 vaccine candidate, a major step in the island's plans to develop its own vaccines to protect against the coronavirus...

TOKYO: A Japan court on Monday (Jul 19) sentenced an American father-son duo who helped former Nissan chief Carlos Ghosn flee the country to between 20 months and two years in prison. The sentence is the first handed down in Japan in the Nissan saga...

DHAKA: Waiting among hundreds of fellow travellers to catch a ferry out of Bangladesh's capital, unemployed construction worker Mohammed Nijam knew he was risking catching the coronavirus, but he felt it was even riskier to stay in Dhaka with another...

JAKARTA: As COVID-19 surges in the Indonesian capital, volunteers like Badie Uzzaman are pitching in to help, delivering food to people who have tested positive but are forced to quarantine at home as hospitals run short of beds. The 26-year-old dr...

SEOUL: South Korea's military has recorded its biggest cluster of COVID-19 infections to date, with more than 80 per cent of personnel aboard a destroyer on anti-piracy patrol in the Gulf of Aden testing positive. While the 247 cases are not directl...

YANGON: With hospitals in junta-run Myanmar empty of pro-democracy medical staff and coronavirus cases surging nationwide, volunteers are going house-to-house to collect the fast-rising number of victims dying in their homes. Early each morning, Tha...

TOKYO: South Korean President Moon Jae-in will not visit Tokyo for the upcoming Olympics, his office said on Monday (Jul 19), scrapping plans for what would have been his first summit with Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga. The announcement came after ...

BANGKOK: Thailand reported on Monday (Jul 19) 11,784 new COVID-19 cases, the fourth consecutive day of record infections, as the country struggles to tackle its worst outbreak to date. The Southeast Asian nation's COVID-19 task force also announced ...

YANGON: The wife of a detained Australian adviser to Myanmar's deposed leader pled on Sunday (Jul 18) for her husband's release, citing worries about his health as the country endures a surge of COVID-19 cases. Economist Sean Turnell was the first f...

Despite recent exhortations from President Xi to tone down their language, China’s wolf warriors are here to stay. Their effects are not all positive, says Christian Le Miere.

Nepal's new Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba won a vote of confidence in parliament on Sunday, days after the Supreme Court reinstated the legislature that was dissolved in May.

Skipper Shikhar Dhawan led by example and wicketkeeper-batsman Ishan Kishan impressed in his one-day debut to secure a comprehensive seven-wicket win for India against Sri Lanka in the first match at the R Premadasa Stadium on Sunday.

JAKARTA: Deaths of doctors from COVID-19 in Indonesia rose sharply in the first half of July, according to the profession's association, as the Delta variant of the coronavirus fuelled a surge in infections across the country. A total of 114 doctors...

At least 23 people were killed after several homes were crushed by a collapsed wall and a landslide triggered by heavy monsoon rains in India's financial capital Mumbai, authorities said Sunday.

For a week, 21-year-old student Phoe Thar has been out by dawn to gather oxygen cylinders from the homes of coronavirus sufferers in Myanmar's second city of Mandalay. He and fellow volunteers line the tanks up outside charities for filling and retu...

The Philippine central bank chief said on Sunday an additional pandemic relief package would not improve the country's credit ratings prospects, in remarks days after Fitch Ratings downgraded the Philippines' outlook to negative from stable.

Thai police deployed water cannon against protestors in Bangkok Sunday as demonstrators defied Covid-19 restrictions to call for Premier Prayut Chan-O-Cha's resignation and mark the one-year anniversary of a pro-democracy movement.

TOKYO: The death toll in a landslide that hit the Japanese resort town of Atami has risen to 15, a local official said on Sunday (Jul 18), as hundreds of rescuers continued the search for more than a dozen missing residents. "Two more people were co...

SEOUL: South Korea is sending military aircraft on Sunday (Jul 18) to replace the entire 300-member crew of a navy destroyer on an anti-piracy mission off East Africa after nearly 70 of them tested positive for the coronavirus, officials said. Two m...