HONG KONG: A private Hong Kong sports club has instructed all staff members to get vaccinated for COVID-19 by the end of June or be denied future bonuses, promotions and pay rises. The request, an example of the rising pressure on residents in the A...

SHENZHEN: Embattled Chinese tech giant Huawei will launch a homegrown new mobile operating system on Wednesday (Jun 2) as it fights for survival in the smartphone arena after the US blocked it from using Android. Huawei will unveil its first mobile...

COLOMBO: A burnt-out container ship that has already caused Sri Lanka's worst maritime environmental disaster was in imminent danger of sinking on Wednesday (Jun 2) with several hundred tonnes of oil still in its fuel tanks, the navy said. The MV X...

Vietnam will resume incoming international flights to its capital Hanoi and business hub Ho Chi Minh City effective immediately, after a few days of suspension due to COVID-19, its aviation authority said on Wednesday.

KUALA LUMPUR: The Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition on Wednesday (Jun 2) urged the government to develop a “clear action plan”, after Chinese military transport planes were detected heading towards Malaysian airspace and threatened the country’s s...

NEW DELHI: Low pay, 24-hour shifts and severe shortages of staff and protective gear have left many doctors on the frontlines of India's brutal pandemic surge near breaking point and fearful for their lives. Coronavirus infections have killed at lea...

HONG KONG: Hong Kong's June 4th Museum, dedicated to commemorating the victims of China's 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in and around Beijing's Tiananmen Square, said on Wednesday (Jun 2) it would temporarily close due to a licensing inv...

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian teenager Ain Husniza Saiful Nizam's unexpected rise from anonymous pupil to national leader against school harassment began with a teacher allegedly joking about rape. When the 17-year-old called out the incident in a viral ...

China says trade envoy spoke with US treasury secretary

TOKYO: Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga is planning to pledge an additional US$800 million to the World Health Organization's COVAX programme, which provides COVID-19 vaccines to countries in need, the Mainichi newspaper reported on Wednesday. ...

Just a few hours after using a mobile app to order some dishwashing liquid, Jakarta resident Juweriah opens the door to a motorcycle courier who provides a direct refill in her kitchen.

BEIJING: China on Wednesday (Jun 2) reported 24 new coronavirus cases on the mainland for Tuesday, versus 23 a day earlier, the country's health authority said. Of the new infections, 14 were imported, the National Health Commission said in a state...

China President Xi Jinping said that the country must improve the way it tells its "stories" to a global audience as it seeks to develop an international voice that reflects its status on the world stage, official news agency Xinhua reported.

A Pakistani journalist recently beaten by unidentified men in his apartment said on Tuesday (Jun 1) he was summoned by authorities to answer allegations he defamed a key national institution, a term often used for the military.

Billions in developing countries remain unprotected, but advanced economies can do more to share vaccines more equitably, says Mohamed A El-Erian.

Widespread distrust of the Prayut government is aggravating Sinovac hesitancy in the country, says an analyst.

The US military will hand over its main Bagram Air Base to Afghan forces in about 20 days, an official said on Tuesday (Jun 1), as Washington carries out its final withdrawal after nearly two decades of war.

The US Commerce Department is failing to do its part to protect national security and keep sensitive technology out of the hands of China's military, according to a US congressional advisory report seen by Reuters.

Three Myanmar journalists who illegally crossed into Thailand to flee a military crackdown have been fined and could face deportation, a member of their legal team said Tuesday, warning the trio's lives will be in danger if they are sent home.

A fire aboard a cargo ship off Sri Lanka carrying hundreds of tonnes of chemicals, plastics and cosmetics was finally extinguished on Tuesday (Jun 1) after a 13-day operation.

The most senior US official to visit Cambodia in years expressed concern on Tuesday about China's military presence there and sought clarification on the demolition of US-funded buildings, the State Department said.

BANGKOK: Thailand's health minister on Tuesday (Jun 1) sought to reassure the public that a mass-immunisation programme would start as planned next week, amid anxiety over vaccine supplies and no relent in its deadliest COVID-19 outbreak yet. Thaila...

KUALA LUMPUR: Main roads in Malaysia fell silent on Tuesday (Jun 1) as the country began its third nationwide lockdown amid a surging third wave of COVID-19 that has hit record levels in recent weeks. Only essential businesses, such as supermarket...

KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian air force said on Tuesday (Jun 1) that it scrambled its jets to conduct a visual confirmation, after Chinese military transport planes were detected heading towards its national airspace and threatened the country’s sove...

HONG KONG: Hong Kong's financial regulators on Tuesday (Jun 1) told banks, brokers and asset managers to identify staff in key roles and encourage them to receive a COVID-19 vaccine as part of their business continuity planning. Authorities in the f...

KUALA LUMPUR: Giant panda Liang Liang gave birth to her third cub on Monday (May 31) at the Giant Panda Conservation Centre at Malaysia's national zoo in Selangor. The Department of Wildlife and National Parks (Perhilitan) said the cub, born a...

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's daily COVID-19 cases may hit the 13,000 mark by Jun 14 if COVID-19 measures are not followed, according to its health ministry's projections. According to modelling data published on Monday (May 31), COVID-19 cases will inc...

KUALA LUMPUR: Duopharma Biotech’s wholly-owned subsidiary Duopharma (M) has signed a deal with Malaysia to supply Russia's Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine. The company has "concluded execution of separate definitive supply agreements" with the Mal...

KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) said there has been a lack of engagement with private general practitioners (GPs) on their involvement in the national COVID-19 immunisation programme.  In a statement issued on Tuesday, MMA�...

China on Tuesday denied an Australian academic's claims that he had been tortured in custody during his two-year detention on espionage charges.

Japanese fans and public figures rallied in support of tennis star Naomi Osaka on Tuesday, offering sympathy after she withdrew from the French Open and opened up about her battles with depression.

Two prominent Thai pro-democracy protest leaders were granted bail on Tuesday, weeks after contracting coronavirus in the kingdom's overcrowded prison system.

BEIJING: A 41-year-old man in China's eastern province of Jiangsu has been confirmed as the first human case of infection with the H10N3 strain of bird flu, China's National Health Commission (NHC) said on Tuesday (Jun 1). The man, a resident of the...

Myanmar protesters took to the streets on Tuesday (Jun 1) in several districts, as fighting between the army and anti-junta militias raged in border areas, four months after the military ousted an elected government in a coup. Myanmar's military is ...

BEIJING: China's decision to allow families to have up to three children was met with scepticism on Tuesday (Jun 1), with doubts expressed on social media whether it would make much difference, and calls for details on what promised "supportive measu...

SINGAPORE: Malaysia’s Narcotics Criminal Investigation Department (NCID) has busted a drug syndicate that smuggled drugs into Singapore using modified fire extinguishers. In a statement on Tuesday (Jun 1), the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) said ...

SEOUL: South Korea summoned Japan's deputy ambassador on Tuesday (Jun 1) to protest over a map on the Tokyo Olympics website that showed a set of South Korea-controlled islands as Japanese territory. The small islands, called Dokdo in South Korea a...

Shares in Chinese toy makers, diaper producers and infant food companies soared for the second day on Tuesday, as investors piled into stocks seen as benefitting from Beijing's new three-child policy.

SEOUL: South Korea closed its first phase of reservations for Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines on Tuesday (Jun 1) as military personnel signed up for all 800,000 shots on offer, the government said. South Korea received 1 million doses of the va...

HONG KONG: Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific Airways said on Tuesday (Jun 1) that it had resumed pilot recruitment for those with local residency rights, as part of medium-to-long term planning despite having much of its fleet parked due to the COVID-19 pan...

TAIPEI: Foxconn and its billionaire founder Terry Gou sought permission from Taiwan's government on Tuesday (Jun 1) to buy COVID-19 vaccines from Germany's BioNTech as the island grapples with a rise in infections. The proposed purchase of 5 million...

SEOUL: A climate change summit hosted by South Korea has drawn ridicule for kicking off with a promotional video suggesting it was taking place in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang. The opening ceremony for the P4G, or Partnering for Green Growth,...

SEOUL: A shipment of coronavirus vaccines to North Korea via the global COVAX sharing programme that was expected for late May has been delayed again amid protracted consultations, South Korea's Unification Ministry said on Tuesday (Jun 1). COVAX, w...

BEIJING: China has jailed a popular blogger for "defaming martyrs" after he suggested the death toll of the China-India border clash last year was higher than the official count of four. Qiu Ziming - with more than 2.5 million followers on China's t...

SEOUL: North Korea's ruling party has amended its rules to create a de facto second-in-command under leader Kim Jong Un as he looks to revamp domestic politics, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said on Tuesday (Jun 1). Citing an unidentified source ...

HANOI: Vietnam is seeking to buy COVID-19 vaccine production technology and wants to build a plant to supply the COVAX programme, its health ministry said on Tuesday (Jun 1), as the country tries to step up vaccinations to stem a new outbreak of infe...

TOKYO: Japan has signed off on a US$338 million semiconductor research project to develop cutting-edge chip technology in the country with the market-leading Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). Taiwan's chip-making plants are among th...

TOKYO: Tokyo 2020 was supposed to be a marketing bonanza, but public opposition and a possible spectator ban over COVID-19 fears have left some Japanese sponsors with an Olympic headache. Around 60 Japanese companies ploughed a record US$3.3 billion...

YANGON: Schools in Myanmar will open on Tuesday (Jun 1) for the first time since the military seized power, but teachers and students are set to defy the junta's calls for full classrooms in a show of resistance. Four months of national turmoil have...

BEIJING: Fifteen tutoring firms have been hammered with millions of dollars of fines over alleged fraud, Chinese state media said on Tuesday (Jun 1), as the government's chastening of the tech sector seeps into the private education businesses. The ...

BONGHWA, South Korea: Hidden in a South Korean mountain tunnel designed to withstand a nuclear blast, the seeds of nearly 5,000 wild plant species are stored for safekeeping against climate change, natural disaster and war. Plant extinction is progr...

Rolling out a vaccination drive in a country as large and diverse as Malaysia is no mean feat, says a researcher.

The Japanese public has a darkening sense of the unstoppable arrival of tens of thousands of athletes and their teams, says the Financial Times’ Leo Lewis.

Thailand held a welcoming ceremony on Monday to mark the return of two ancient hand-carved artefacts that were stolen decades ago and smuggled out of the country to the United States.

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday prolonged partial coronavirus curbs in the capital and nearby provinces until mid-June to contain infections that have been decreasing since hitting a peak in April.

BANGKOK: Thailand's government has reversed a decision by authorities in its capital Bangkok to ease some COVID-19 restrictions, as the city battles its worst outbreak of the virus so far. The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) late on Monday...

BANGKOK: Two ancient sandstone artefacts believed to have been stolen from Thailand during the Vietnam War were unveiled on Monday (May 31) at a Bangkok museum, greeted with a fanfare of traditional dancers and an elaborate worship ceremony. The te...

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin unveiled a new economic stimulus package worth RM40 billion (US$9.7 billion) on Monday (May 31), in an attempt to mitigate the impacts of an impending total lockdown.  Speaking during a...

Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin on Monday announced an additional 40 billion ringgit (US$9.70 billion) stimulus package, ahead of the imposition of stricter lockdown measures this week to curb the spread of COVID-19.

NEW DELHI: India's economic growth picked up in the January to March quarter from the previous three months, but economists have grown pessimistic about this quarter after a huge second wave of COVID-19 infections hit the country last month. Gross d...

China plans to strengthen controls in industries such as steel and aluminium which involve high energy use and produce high emissions, in an effort to promote low-carbon developments, the environment ministry said on Monday.

HANOI: Vietnam announced the suspension of incoming international flights to its capital and tightened restrictions in its biggest city on Monday (May 31), as part efforts to contain a coronavirus outbreak that has seen cases double in the past month...

PUTRAJAYA: Measures will be taken to ensure that food supply from the agriculture, fishing and farming sectors will not be disrupted during the two-week total lockdown from Tuesday (Jun 1), said Minister for Agriculture and Food Industries Ronald ...

PUTRAJAYA: A total of 82,341 infants and children in Malaysia have tested positive for COVID-19 to date, health minister Adham Baba said on Monday (May 31). Giving a breakdown of the numbers, Dr Adham said 19,851 cases were children below the age o...

China and Taiwan traded more accusations on Monday about COVID-19 vaccines, with Beijing saying they should not be a political tool while Taiwan's ruling party said China was the "black hand" preventing it accessing shots internationally.

South Korea on Monday reported its first case of rare blood clotting linked to AstraZeneca's coronavirus vaccine.

Several thousand Rohingya staged "unruly" protests Monday against living conditions on a cyclone-prone island off Bangladesh where they were moved from vast camps on the mainland, police said.

Bangkok will ease bans on venues such as massage shops, clinics and parks applied to stop the spread of COVID-19, but schools, cinemas, gyms and zoos will remain closed, the Thai capital said in a statement on Monday.

Hong Kong police have arrested an elderly democracy activist as she made a solo demonstration over China's deadly Tiananmen crackdown in a vivid illustration of the zero protest tolerance now wielded by authorities in the financial hub.

Sri Lanka's criminal investigators began questioning the crew of a burning cargo ship Monday, as the Singapore-registered carrier smouldered for a 12th straight day in one of the island's worst-ever marine ecological disasters.

BEIJING: Married Chinese couples may have up to three children, China announced on Monday (May 31), in a major shift from the existing limit of two after recent data showed a dramatic decline in births in the world's most populous country. Beijing s...

TAIPEI: Taiwan's parliament approved on Monday (May 31) an extra NT$420 billion (US$15.20 billion) in stimulus spending to help the economy deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, as the island curbs business activity to counter a spike in domestic infectio...

HONG KONG: Beijing's office that oversees matters in Hong Kong has warned of threats made to a judge who sentenced media tycoon Jimmy Lai and other democracy activists for their roles in an unauthorised assembly on Oct 1, 2019. A representative for...

HONG KONG: The 47 Hong Kong democratic opposition figures charged with conspiracy to commit subversion, most of whom have been kept in custody for the past three months, are due to appear in court again on Monday (May 31) in a widely monitored nation...

SEOUL: North Korea said on Monday the US allowing South Korea to build more powerful missiles was an example of the US' hostile policy against the North, warning that it could lead to an “acute and instable situation” on the Korean Peninsula. ...

TOKYO: Japan is considering requiring negative COVID-19 test results or vaccination records from fans attending the Tokyo Olympics, the Yomiuri newspaper reported on Monday (May 31), as a new poll showed public opposition to the Games remained strong...

BEIJING: A three-man crew of astronauts will blast off in June for a three-month mission on China’s new space station, according to a space official who was the country's first astronaut in orbit. The comments by Yang Liwei, the manned space progr...

SHANGHAI: China on Monday (May 31) reported a sudden surge in COVID-19 infections in the country's south, with 18 new local cases on May 30 in the city of Guangzhou, causing a flurry of flight cancellations. Of the 27 new coronavirus cases reported ...

American tire manufacturer Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company is facing accusations of unpaid wages, unlawful overtime and threats to foreign workers at its Malaysian factory, according to court documents and complaints filed by workers.

More than 20 horses have died of starvation in just one month at Bangladesh's most popular resort district, the animals' owners said Sunday, as the country's tourism industry reels from the pandemic's economic fallout.

BANGKOK: Ukraine's ambassador to Thailand died early Sunday (May 30) on the southern beach island of Koh Lipe while on vacation with his son, police said, with the cause of death still undetermined. Andrii Beshta is a 45-year-old career diplomat who...

KATHMANDU: Former Hong Kong schoolteacher Tsang Yin-hung said on Sunday (May 30) she always believed in aiming high after setting a new record for the fastest ascent of Everest by a woman. Tsang scaled the 8,848.86m mountain in 25 hours and 50 minut...

KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian government said on Sunday (May 30) that all malls will have to be shut, while 17 essential service sectors will be allowed to operate during the impending two-week "total lockdown". These sectors include healthcare, t...

BANGKOK: Thailand's largest agribusiness firm Charoen Pokphand Foods said on Sunday (May 30) it had closed one of its factories for five days after several workers tested positive for COVID-19. The company's poultry processing plant in Saraburi prov...

Search teams are looking for one missing person after rescuing all other passengers from a large ferry that caught fire in Indonesia, an official said Sunday.

TAIPEI: Taiwan has not given up hope of eventually getting COVID-19 vaccines from Germany's BioNTech, Health Minister Chen Shih-chung said on Sunday (May 30), a deal that Taipei's government has blamed China for not being able to complete. After rec...

South Korea's Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum said on Sunday that 1 million doses of Johnson & Johnson's (J&J) coronavirus vaccines will arrive this week, including for 550,000 soldiers, after the United States almost doubled its earlier pledge.

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia reported 6,999 new coronavirus cases on Sunday (May 30), bringing the total infections in the country to 565,533. The daily figure was down from Saturday's 9,020 cases, the fifth straight record rise in COVID-19 infections in ...

HANOI: Vietnam's business hub Ho Chi Minh City will begin social distancing measures for 15 days starting from May 31 in an effort to curb the spread of COVID-19, the country's government said on Sunday (May 30). The city has seen a spike in cases r...

NEW DELHI: Rasheeda Jaleel lives in fear that she may not be able to feed her seven children as millions of Indian families are forced into poverty by a devastating new coronavirus wave. The 40-year-old, her husband Abdul Jaleel, 65, and the childre...

WASHINGTON: The theory that COVID-19 might be the result of scientific experiments has thrown a spotlight on the work of the world's most secure biolabs. While the evidence linking SARS-CoV-2 to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China is strictly c...

Breathless, fevered and without the extra oxygen that could help keep them alive, the new COVID-19 patients at a hospital near Myanmar's border with India highlight the threat to a health system near collapse since February's coup. To help her tend ...

The veteran supporting actor also achieved fame as sardonic TV news writer Murray Slaughter on The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

SIDOARJO, East Java: Indonesian Muanisah, who goes by one name, recalled the day when she held her 40-day-old baby in despair as he had trouble breathing. She was just about to have her breakfast on May 29, 2006 when she smelled a pungent odour, wh...

China on Saturday launched a cargo spacecraft carrying supplies for its new space station, after delays due to technical reasons, state media said.

Indonesia ferry catches fire at sea; no casualties

Indonesia has released an Iranian tanker and a Panamanian vessel that were both seized at the beginning of the year on suspicion of carrying out illegal oil transfers, officials said on Saturday (May 29).

Sri Lanka is facing its worst beach pollution crisis as tonnes of plastic waste from a burning container ship wash ashore, a senior environment official said Saturday.

Hong Kong senior executives of financial companies and their overseas affiliates who are fully vaccinated can now apply for an exemption from the three-week compulsory quarantine, the markets watchdog said

MANILA: The Philippines on Saturday (May 29) said the country's workers could again go to work in Saudi Arabia, reversing a brief deployment ban after the kingdom said they would not be charged for COVID-19 tests and quarantine upon arrival. "Our Sa...