MUMBAI: Rescue teams in India struggled through thick sludge and debris on Saturday (Jul 24) to reach dozens of submerged homes as the death toll from landslides and accidents caused by torrential monsoon rain rose to 125. Maharashtra state is being...

Malaysia's health ministry reported 15,902 new COVID-19 cases on Saturday (Jul 24), the highest number of daily infections since the beginning of the pandemic.

Toa, the baby orca who captured hearts after he was found stranded in New Zealand waters, has lost his fight for survival, conservationists confirmed Saturday.

SHANGHAI: China criticised NBC Universal for showing an "incomplete map" of the country in its broadcast of the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics, after a map displayed during the arrival of Chinese athletes included neither Taiwan nor the S...

SHANGHAI: China reported 35 new COVID-19 cases on Friday (Jul 23), down from 48 cases a day earlier, the country's national health authority said on Saturday. Local infections accounted for 13 of the new cases, up slightly from 12 a day earlier, the...

HANOI: Vietnam announced a 15-day lockdown in the capital Hanoi starting Saturday (Jul 24) as a coronavirus surge spread from the southern Mekong Delta region. The lockdown order, issued late Friday night, bans the gathering of more than two people ...

BEIJING: Internet giant Tencent was ordered by regulators to end exclusive contracts with music copyright holders, adding to increased enforcement of anti-monopoly and other rules as Beijing tightens control over booming online industries. Tencent c...

China's Yang Qian has won the first gold medal of the Tokyo Olympics in the women's 10m air rifle competition.

TOKYO: Fencer Kiria Tikanah bowed out of the women's individual epee event at the Tokyo Olympics on Saturday (Jul 24) after losing 15-10 to Romania's Ana Maria Popescu in the table of 32. At the Makuhari Messe Hall B, the Singaporean, who is rank...

TOKYO: 50 shooters, 60 shots, eight spots in the finals.  The margins are tiny but the pressure is high at any shooting competition, let alone the Olympic Games.  So it is no wonder that Singapore shooter Adele Tan used the word “battle” to ...

JAKARTA: Dari susu steril hingga kelapa hijau, masyarakat Indonesia bersiap sedia dengan berbagai macam minuman dan makanan kesehatan serta ramuan herbal seiring membubungnya beban kasus COVID-19. Pesan-pesan berisi klaim bahwa makanan dan minuman t...

KUALA LUMPUR: Terdapat durian daun yang besarnya tidak lebih setapak tangan manusia, dengan durinya yang agak lentur dan kurang mengancam apabila disentuh. Isinya berwarna jingga dan perisanya pula dikatakan hampir sama dengan pisang dan cempedak, l...

The Olympics has a long and storied history. It has been accused of having bloated budgets and catering to money rather than sports. But exactly how should the games evolve? John Duerden weighs in.

As COVID-19 rages in Southeast Asia, regional governments are racing to roll out their national vaccination programmes. In the first part of a series, CNA looks at how vaccine distribution and bureaucracy are affecting Indonesia’s efforts.

MANILA: An earthquake of magnitude 6.7 struck south of the Philippine capital early on Saturday (Jul 24), the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said. The agency said aftershocks were expected from the tectonic earthquake, which had...

The United States on Friday renewed calls on Myanmar's junta to free a jailed US journalist as concerns grow about a Covid-19 outbreak in prisons packed with detained activists.

Chilean authorities said on Friday that China's Sinovac had begun evaluating potential sites for the construction of a vaccine plant in Chile that could begin producing doses of the Chinese shot as early as the first half of 2022.

BEIJING/WASHINGTON :China said on Friday that it has imposed counter-sanctions on U.S. individuals including former U.S. commerce secretary Wilbur Ross in response to U.S. sanctions on Chinese officials in Hong Kong.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to India next week, the State Department said on Friday, the top U.S. diplomat's first visit to the world's largest democracy and an important U.S. ally in Asia.

TOKYO: In an opening ceremony that was equal parts surreal and sensational, the Tokyo Olympic Games were officially declared open on Friday (Jul 23). And in front of a largely empty 68,000-seater stadium, a sprinkling of Singapore’s contingent ...

The Philippines became the world's first country Friday to approve the commercial production of genetically modified "golden rice" that experts hope will combat childhood blindness and save lives in the developing world.

Indonesia is suffering a devastating wave of coronavirus infections, driven by the Delta variant, but the government is already talking about relaxing social curbs enacted earlier this month - a move analysts say is largely led by economic considerat...

Japan's Emperor Naruhito is set to declare the opening of the Tokyo Olympics on Friday, reprising the role of his grandfather who opened the last Tokyo Olympics in 1964.

The Philippines sent millions of children back into lockdown Friday as hospitals prepared for a surge in coronavirus cases fuelled by the highly contagious Delta variant ravaging neighbouring countries.

PUTRAJAYA:  The Malaysian government has agreed to extend the contract of all contract medical officers, dental officers and pharmaceutical officers for two years upon completion of their mandatory service, as part of the immediate actions to add...

TAIPEI: Taiwan has become inundated with waste after a surge of COVID-19 cases prompted movement curbs that led to a spike in online shopping and food deliveries, threatening to set back efforts to reduce the consumption of single-use plastic. Taiw...

KUALA LUMPUR: Vaccine recipients can now record themselves being jabbed at COVID-19 vaccine distribution centres, said Malaysia's Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation Khairy Jamaluddin. This followed several claims of improperly administ...

Thailand’s already locked down capital shut parks and the few remaining public places available to residents on Friday (Jul 23), as the country registered a new high of coronavirus infections.

MUMBAI: After the pandemic shut offices and put Mumbai's renowned lunchbox delivery men out of work, the 130-year-old dabbawala network has tied up with a trendy restaurant chain to take on India's billion-dollar start-ups. For two decades, neither...

MUMBAI: At least 67 people have died in the western Indian state of Maharashtra, authorities said on Friday (Jul 23), after torrential monsoon rains caused landslides and flooded low-lying areas, cutting off hundreds of villages. Parts of India's we...

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia reported a record 15,573 new COVID-19 cases on Friday (Jul 23), surpassing its previous high by more than 2,000 infections.  This is also the first time the country has breached the 15,000 mark for new daily cases. The Klang...

ZHENGZHOU, Henan: Villagers were evacuated over makeshift bridges on Friday (Jul 23) as floods submerged swathes of central China following a historic deluge which claimed at least 51 lives - while an approaching typhoon threatened to dump more rain ...

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian police hit on a novel way to dispose of more than 1,000 Bitcoin-mining machines seized in raids - they crushed the devices using a steamroller. Authorities on Borneo island discovered the machines, worth an estimated RM5.3 m...

China is delivering 2 million COVID-19 vaccine shots to Myanmar this week to help fight a growing outbreak in the border area, officials said, as a spike in infections in the Southeast Asian country spills over into parts of southern China. Myanmar...

BEIJING: China's eastern province of Jiangsu found 12 new domestically-transmitted COVID-19 patients on Thursday (Jul 22), taking to 23 its total since Jul 20, in its first local outbreak since the pandemic began last year. All 23 cases were in Nanj...

TAIPEI: Taiwan will ease its COVID-19 restrictions from next week though some will remain in place, the government said on Friday (Jul 23), with rapidly falling case numbers giving authorities confidence to further lower the alert level. Taiwan imp...

BEIJING: China's President Xi Jinping visited the Tibet autonomous region on Wednesday (Jul 21) and Thursday, according to the official Xinhua news agency, in his first recorded visit as leader of the nation. It was the first such visit by the coun...

MANILA: The Philippines will ban travellers coming from Malaysia and Thailand, as well as tighten restrictions in the Manila area, in a bid to prevent the spread of the contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus, the presidential spokesperson said o...

BEIJING: Residents of the storm-ravaged central Chinese city of Zhengzhou on Thursday (Jul 22) were shovelling mud from their homes and hauling away wrecked cars and piles of destroyed belongings following floods that killed at least 33 people in the...

State utility company PLN has pledged carbon neutrality by 2060, but the pledge merits greater scrutiny, says a researcher.

The hope is the Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony will be a humble reminder of what the games are truly about rather than a wasteful display of pomp, says John Duerden.

A batch of Chinese Covid-19 vaccines arrived in Myanmar on Thursday, an AFP reporter said, as the coup-wracked country battles a devastating new surge in cases.

The Indian government rejected on Thursday recent studies suggesting that millions of people have died in the country from Covid-19, several times the official toll of almost 420,000.

Homes in ruins, pulverised roads and a sea of mud coating cars, the once affluent central Chinese town of Mihe was still in shock Thursday as residents turned to food handouts and slept rough after record-breaking storms.

China's capital Beijing has fully vaccinated nearly 91per cent of its adult residents against COVID-19, data from the municipal government showed, as the country expands its nationwide vaccination efforts.

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Thursday urged Indonesia to implement a stricter and wider lockdown to combat surging COVID-19 infections and deaths, just days after the country's president flagged the easing of restrictions.

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia logged more than 13,000 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday (Jul 22), marking its second highest daily tally since the start of the pandemic. More than half of the 13,034 new cases were from the Klang Valley area with 6,049 in Sel...

Thousands of security forces deployed across New Delhi on Thursday for protests by farmers who are renewing a campaign against government agriculture reforms.

HANOI: Vietnam is in talks with the United States on domestic production of mRNA vaccines, its foreign ministry said on Thursday (Jul 22), as the country looks to boost supplies amid its worst coronavirus outbreak yet. After reining in the virus for...

An Indonesian man who is infected with COVID-19 has boarded a domestic flight disguised as his wife, wearing a niqab covering his face and carrying fake IDs and a negative PCR test result.

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 against new agriculture laws they say threaten their livelihoods, started a sit-in on Thursday (Jul 22) near parliament in the capital, renewing a push for repeal of the laws. In the longest-running growers' pro...

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 have�...

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...