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...

BEIJING: Divers have been dispatched in the search for 14 workers missing since water flooded a tunnel under construction in southern China three days ago, authorities said on Sunday (Jul 18). Zhang Yisheng, the vice mayor of Zhuhai city, told a new...

TOKYO: Two athletes have tested positive for the coronavirus in the Tokyo Olympic Village after a team colleague was also infected, officials said on Sunday (Jul 18), raising fears of a cluster just days before the opening ceremony. The first cases ...

BANGKOK: Thai youth activists vowed to stage a protest on Sunday (Jul 18) to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, despite a nationwide ban on public gatherings imposed by the government amid surging coronavirus cases. Youth-le...

HANOI: Vietnam put its entire southern region in a two-week lockdown starting midnight on Sunday (Jul 18), as confirmed COVID-19 cases exceeded 3,000 for the third day in a row. The lockdown order includes the Mekong Delta and Ho Chi Minh City metr...

BANGKOK: Thailand on Sunday (Jul 18) announced an expansion of coronavirus restrictions that include travel curbs, mall closures and a night-time curfew to three more provinces after the country reported a third consecutive day of record case numbers...

From megalitres of hand sanitiser to millions of disposable masks, the Tokyo Olympics is proving to be a test of global logistics, say researchers.

The Malaysian government’s decision to reconvene Parliament has been welcomed. But this in itself will not resolve the list of problems facing the country in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, says Dr Norshahril Saat.

KUALA LUMPUR: Selama ini, Nadia Abu Bakar dan suami biasanya melakukan ibadah korban dengan menaja seekor kambing atau satu pertujuh kos seekor lembu pada Hari Raya Aidiladha.  Namun disebabkan pelbagai fasa sekatan pergerakan yang berkuatkuasa d...

KUALA LUMPUR: In previous years, Nadia Abu Bakar and her husband would sponsor a goat or contribute one-seventh of the cost of a cow as their sacrifice on Aidiladha.  But with the various forms of lockdown currently imposed in Malaysia, commemora...

PRAGUE: A Czech Olympic team staff member has tested positive for COVID-19 after arriving in Tokyo on a charter flight from Prague, Czech Olympic officials said on Saturday (Jul 17), adding that all the athletes were fine and in the Olympic Village. ...

JAKARTA: Indonesia is evaluating whether to end COVID-19 restrictions on movement as planned or extend them, as the country battles with a surge of new infections and a crumbling economy, senior minister Luhut Pandjaitan said on Saturday (Jul 17). T...

Vietnam will impose restrictions on movement in 16 southern provinces for two weeks from Monday as the country faces its worst COVID-19 outbreak so far, the government said on Saturday.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan: Chinese investigators, accompanied by Pakistani counterparts, on Saturday (Jul 17) visited the site of a bus explosion in which 13 people, including nine Chinese workers, were killed earlier this week, multiple sources said. The ...

The health ministry reported 138 coronavirus deaths on Saturday (Jul 17), a new daily record.

South Korea summoned the Japanese ambassador on Saturday over "undiplomatic" remarks about President Moon Jae-in and the possibility of a summit during the upcoming Tokyo Olympics, according to Seoul's foreign ministry.

BEIJING: A COVID-19 vaccine developed by a unit of China's Chongqing Zhifei Biological Products largely retained its neutralising effect against the Delta variant but there was a slight reduction, Chinese researchers found in a laboratory study. Sci...

TOKYO: Tokyo Olympics organisers revealed the first COVID-19 case in the Games Village on Saturday (Jul 17) as they sought to reassure competitors that the pandemic-delayed event would be safe. Six days before the opening ceremony, organisers said ...

HONG KONG: China's foreign ministry branch in Hong Kong said new US sanctions on Chinese officials and its updated business advisory on the city are "extremely rude" and "extremely unreasonable" bullying acts with "despicable intention". The United...

BANGKOK: Thailand imposed a nationwide ban on public gatherings and is considering more restrictions on movement as authorities reported record numbers of new COVID-19 cases and deaths on Saturday (Jul 17), despite partial lockdowns in Bangkok and ni...

Bagaimana situasi lapangan di Jakarta seiring meningkatnya kasus COVID-19 secara tajam? Koresponden CNA Nivell Rayda menuliskan pengalamannya.

Louis Lee mengedarkan beberapa ratus bungkusan nasi lemak dan nasi ayam halal untuk warga Malaysia yang menetap di Singapura dan juga pemandu teksi dari gerainya di Owen Road.

In Vietnam, recovery of late debts involves three things: Gentle reminders, perfidy and a dash of death threats to you and your family, say researchers.

The resumption of economic activity and domestic travel contributed to the regional surge in COVID-19 cases, says a researcher.

KUALA LUMPUR: There are durian daun - literally leaf durians - that fit snugly into a person’s palm, with spikes that are flexible and less menacing to the touch.  The pulp comes in an orange hue and its flavours are said to be reminiscent of ban...

President Joe Biden on Friday nominated Tom Udall, a former senator known for his environmental passion, as ambassador to New Zealand, with which the US administration expects a growing relationship.

Former Haitian justice ministry official Joseph Felix Badio could have ordered the assassination of Haiti's President Jovenel Moise, Colombia's police chief, General Jorge Vargas, said on Friday.

WASHINGTON: The United States imposed sanctions on Friday (Jul 16) on seven Chinese officials over Beijing's crackdown on democracy in Hong Kong, Washington's latest effort to hold China accountable for what it calls an erosion of rule of law in the ...

WELLINGTON: Leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) group, including US President Joe Biden, Russia's Vladimir Putin, and China's Xi Jinping, pledged on Friday (Jul 16) to work to expand sharing and manufacturing of COVID-19 vaccine...

KABUL: A Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer with Reuters news agency was killed Friday (Jul 16) covering fighting between Afghan security forces and the Taliban near a border crossing with Pakistan, the media outlet reported, citing an army commande...

BEIJING: China on Friday (Jul 16) rebuffed World Health Organization (WHO) accusations that it failed to share raw data needed for an investigation into COVID-19's s origins, insisting experts were given adequate access when they visited the country ...

China has financed the setup of a fund under APEC to fight COVID and fuel economic recovery, President Xi Jinping said during a virtual meeting of the Asia-Pacific trade group on Friday, according to Xinhua news agency.

HONG KONG: Hong Kong's national security police on Friday (Jul 16) raided buildings at the city's top university after its student leaders paid tribute to a man who stabbed a policeman. Anti-police sentiment has been running high in Hong Kong, a d...

JAKARTA: Indonesia's coordinating minister for maritime affairs and investment Luhut Pandjaitan said on Friday (Jul 16) that it is very possible for broad emergency community restrictions to curb the spread of COVID-19 to be extended, as cases co...

SINGAPORE: Singaporeans currently in Myanmar should leave as soon as they can while it is still possible to do so, said the Singapore Embassy in Yangon.  In an email dated Jul 15, the embassy cited the deteriorating security and COVID-19 situation ...

Thailand’s Thonburi Healthcare Group Pcl (THG) doubled down on its outspoken chairman's claim to be buying Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines on Friday, helping its share price rise despite denials by both drugmakers.

TOKYO: A Ugandan weightlifter has gone missing during an Olympic training camp in Japan after learning he would not be able to compete, Japanese and Ugandan officials said Friday. Authorities were searching for Julius Ssekitoleko, 20, who failed to ...

KUALA LUMPUR: The enhanced movement control order (EMCO) in many parts of Selangor will end as scheduled on Friday (Jul 16).  In a press statement on Friday (Jul 16), Deputy Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob said the decision was made follow...

WhatsApp blocked more than two million users in India in just one month for violating its rules, the US company disclosed in its first compliance report under India's controversial new social media rules.

In a clinic in a remote Myanmar town, some of the few doctors still working after the coup emptied hospitals are battling to keep their Covid-19 patients alive as the virus resurges.

BEIJING: China on Friday (Jul 16) launched the world's biggest carbon trading system to help lower carbon emissions, but critics and analysts have raised doubts about whether it will have a significant impact. China is the world's biggest emitter of...

South Korean graduate student Kim Hyun-jin sits with her thumbs flailing away at the screen of her phone, hoping to land a click on an online map that will get her the leftover coronavirus vaccine that someone in her Seoul neighbourhood missed.

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's health ministry said on Friday (Jul 16) it has granted conditional approval for emergency use to the COVID-19 vaccine manufactured by China's Sinopharm. The Sinopharm vaccine in Malaysia was registered by pharmaceutical com...

Coronavirus outbreaks involving Olympic teams in Japan have turned small-town hotels into facilities on the frontline of the pandemic battle, charged with implementing complex health measures to protect elite athletes and a fearful public.

TikTok owner ByteDance has been blocking new user and content creator registrations for its Chinese news aggregator Jinri Toutiao since September at the behest of regulators, according to people familiar with the matter.

MANILA: The Philippines has recorded the country's first locally transmitted cases of the more infectious Delta coronavirus variant, the health ministry said on Friday (Jul 16), with one person dying from the disease. Of the 16 new COVID-19 cases fo...

China launched its long-awaited emissions trading system on Friday, a key tool in its quest to drive down climate change-causing greenhouse gases and go carbon neutral by 2060.

SHANGHAI: The Chinese provinces of Henan and Yunnan have failed to meet public expectations when it comes to tackling pollution and cleaning up their air, rivers and soil, the environment ministry said after the completion of inspections. The centra...

Taiwan has garnered another donation of COVID-19 vaccines, this time from Slovakia, which has pledged 10,000 doses in what the central European country said was a show of support after a Taiwanese gift of face masks to Slovakia last year.

WELLINGTON: Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern discussed efforts to ensure vaccine availability in New Zealand and the Pacific region in a call with US President Joe Biden on Friday (Jul 16), the New Zealand government said in a statement. The call come...

BANGKOK: Thailand reported on Friday (Jul 16) a daily record of 9,692 COVID-19 infections, taking total cases to 381,907 since the start of the pandemic, as authorities struggle to tackle the country's biggest wave of infections so far. The COVID-...

South Korea reported 1,536 new coronavirus cases as of Thursday midnight, a slow decline in daily infections since hitting a record earlier this week, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said on Friday.

WASHINGTON: The Biden administration is expected to issue a blanket warning to US firms about the risks of doing business in Hong Kong as China continues to clamp down on political and economic freedoms in the territory. US officials say the advisor...

The art of lying flat – or “tang ping” – has fired up discussion boards and social media platforms and spooked the Chinese establishment. But embracing this change in thinking can light a new way forward for the country, says William Wan.

BANGKOK: More than 5 million deaths, including about 2.6 million in Asia, can be attributed to abnormal hot and cold temperatures that are becoming more common due to climate change.  According to a first-of-its-kind study published in The Lancet...

Dressed in a saffron robe, Thai monk Pongpetch Santijittho, climbs into a white protective suit and sprays disinfectant on a pair of rubber boots.

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's health ministry on Thursday (Jul 15) said the country will stop administering the COVID-19 vaccine produced by China's Sinovac once its supplies end, as it has a sufficient number of other vaccines for its programme. Malaysi...

BEIJING: A shaking skyscraper in southern China which sent crowds fleeing in panic earlier this year was rocked by wind currents, experts concluded Thursday (Jul 15). The 300m SEG Plaza tower in the city of Shenzhen near Hong Kong began to wobble su...

Bangladesh is to start giving coronavirus vaccinations to some of the 850,000 Rohingya refugees who fled across the border from Myanmar, officials said Thursday.

Hundreds more bodies than usual are being taken for funerals every day in junta-ruled Myanmar as a new wave of COVID-19 sweeps through the country, services transporting the bodies and arranging ceremonies said. The accounts from different parts of ...

SINGAPORE: A growing number of COVID-19 infections linked to KTV lounges and clubs has seen local transmission of the virus surge in recent days in Singapore.  As of Thursday (Jul 15) noon, 87 cases in Singapore have been tied to the KTV cluster.�...

Olympics chief Thomas Bach said Thursday that Tokyo Games anti-virus rules "are working", as the Japanese capital recorded its highest number of new infections since January.