News Headlines

India has started trade talks with the European Union (EU) and is open to dialogue with the United Kingdom for a free trade agreement, the trade minister said on Saturday, as Asia's third largest economy looks for new markets for its products.

Chinese vaccine developer CanSino Biologics is in talks with Russia, Brazil, Chile and Saudi Arabia to launch a Phase III trial of its experimental COVID-19 vaccine, its co-founder said on Saturday (Jul 11).

KATHMANDU: Heavy rains triggered flash floods and landslides that killed at least 40 people and displaced thousands in western Nepal, officials said on Saturday (Jul 11). Twenty people were killed and at least 13 others were missing in Myagdi district, 200km (125 miles) northwest of the capital ...

BEIJING: The US State Department warned American citizens on Saturday (Jul 11) to "exercise increased caution" in China due to heightened risk of arbitrary law enforcement including detention and a ban from exiting the country. "US citizens may be detained without access to US consular services or ...

India's government has petitioned a state court to stop any of the Chinese companies whose 59 apps it recently banned from obtaining an injunction to block the order, according to two sources and the legal filing.

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia reported one new COVID-19 death on Saturday (Jul 11), the country's first in almost a month. This brings the country’s death toll to 122. Eight new cases were also reported, of which four were local transmissions involving two Malaysians and two foreigners, bringing the ...

The family of a Franco-Irish teenager who went missing while on holiday in the Malaysian rainforest said Saturday they hoped an upcoming inquest into her death would finally provide answers.

HONG KONG: Hong Kong's opposition camp set up polling booths across the city on Saturday (Jul 11) for primary elections aimed at selecting democracy candidates who stand the best chance of success in Legislative Council elections in September.  Thousands queued in the intense summer heat at ...

BEIJING: Jiangxi province in southern China issued its highest flood warning on Saturday (Jul 11), predicting a big overflow from a lake on the Yangtze River as torrential rain continues to batter much of the country, state media said. The Jiangxi government raised its flood-control response level ...

SEOUL: North Korea denounced Britain on Saturday (Jul 11) for announcing sanctions against two organisations that the British government has said are involved in forced labour, torture and murder in North Korean prison camps.  The move against the two organisations, named as the Ministry of State ...

Indonesia reported 1,671 new coronavirus cases on Saturday, bringing the total count to 74,018, Health Ministry official Achmad Yurianto told a televised news briefing.

HANOI: Vietnam's most seriously ill COVID-19 patient, a British pilot who at one point seemed close to death, left hospital on Saturday (Jul 11) on his way home after a dramatic recovery that attracted national attention. The case of Stephen Cameron, a pilot for national carrier Vietnam Airlines ...

PARIS: Patients with abnormally high blood sugar levels are more than twice as likely to die from COVID-19, researchers in China said on Saturday (Jul 11). It is the first time scientists have been able to confirm that patients with hyperglycemia, but not diagnosed with diabetes, are at higher ...

Kolkata's legendary Eden Gardens cricket stadium is to be used as a quarantine centre for Indian police who have the coronavirus, officials said Saturday.

BANGKOK: A monkey trainer in the southern Thailand said very few monkeys are involved in harvesting coconuts for export and there was no abuse at his centre, disputing an activist report following which Thai products were banned by some British supermarkets. Earlier this month, some British ...

Indian farmers have planted 12 million hectares with summer-sown rice, preliminary farm ministry data for this year showed, up 25per cent from last year as robust monsoon rains encouraged the expansion of acreage.

As millions of Chinese students sat a gruelling university entrance exam this month, stories of how an identity theft scandal robbed hundreds of previous candidates of their dreams set social media alight.

Thousands of beds for coronavirus patients in Bangladesh are lying empty despite the country struggling with a rising caseload as people are too scared to enter hospitals, officials and sufferers say.

Tokyo officials confirmed 206 new coronavirus infections on Saturday, public broadcaster NHK reported, as Japan's capital struggles with a resurgence in cases after the government lifted a state of emergency.

Conservationists have warned a sudden change in Myanmar's law allowing the commercial farming of tigers, pangolins and other endangered species risks further fuelling demand in China for rare wildlife products.

KUALA LUMPUR: The Badminton World Federation (BWF) are seeking more information from China about its decision to cancel all international sport in the country this year before they make a decision on the season-ending World Tour Finals. The World Tour Finals, scheduled to take place in Guangzhou ...

A border clash has plunged ties between India and China to their lowest point in decades. But one beneficiary looks clear -- the US-India relationship.

China reported two new coronavirus cases in the mainland for July 10, compared with four cases a day earlier, the health authority said on Saturday.

Sut Seng Du says he turned over 100 bodies as he clawed through the mud in a heavy downpour last week, before he finally found his brother, one of 172 people buried alive in the worst mining disaster anyone can remember in Myanmar's "jade city".

JAKARTA: When Teguh Satrio chanced upon a video on breeding dozens of catfish in a plastic bucket in late May, he was intrigued. “All it took to breed catfish was a space no bigger than a bucket? Is that true?”  “I found myself browsing article after article on how to breed catfish. I spent hours ...

GENEVA: The United States welcomes the World Health Organization's W(HO) probe into the origins of the novel coronavirus in China, its ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva said Friday (Jul 10). "We welcome the WHO's investigation. We view the scientific investigation as a necessary step to ...

An advance team from the World Health Organization (WHO) has left for China to organise an investigation into the origins of the novel coronavirus which sparked the pandemic, a spokeswoman said on Friday.

President Donald Trump was forced Friday to cancel an election rally, further darkening his mood as he lashed out at China over the coronavirus pandemic while visiting one of the worst-hit US states.

The Chinese Communist Party official hit with US sanctions over the mass detention of Muslims in the troubled western region of Xinjiang is a soldier-turned-politician known as a security enforcer.

Hong Kong police on Friday seized computers at the office of a prominent opinion pollster that was helping the city's pro-democracy opposition to conduct a primary election planned for the weekend.

HONG KONG: Hong Kong will suspend all schools after the territory reported a spike in locally transmitted coronavirus infections, the city's education minister said Friday (Jul 10). Schools will close from Monday, bringing forward the start of the summer holidays, Kevin Yeung said, after the city ...

Two straight days of record novel coronavirus infections in the Japanese capital have dashed shopkeepers' hopes that business can get back to normal any time soon.

An advance team from the World Health Organization (WHO) has left for China to organise an investigation into the origins of the novel coronavirus which sparked the pandemic, a spokeswoman said on Friday.

A Seoul court on Friday slashed disgraced former president Park Geun-hye's prison terms by 10 years, in what should be the final ruling over the corruption scandal that brought her down.

KUALA LUMPUR:  Former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad and five Members of Parliament (MPs) aligned to him announced on Friday (Jul 10) that they will remain as an independent bloc and will not join any coalition. In a joint statement, they said they are also standing by with a decision ...

China on Friday rejected a new US invitation to join arms control talks with Russia, complaining that Washington had continued to "pester" Beijing over the issue.

Malaysia will next month open an inquest into the death of a Franco-Irish teenager whose body was found in the jungle after she disappeared from a resort, her family's lawyer said Friday.

The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on Chinese officials, including a member of the country's powerful Politburo, accusing them of serious human rights abuses against the Uighur Muslim minority, a move likely to further ratchet up tensions between Washington and Beijing.

Hong Kong reported 38 new coronavirus cases on Friday, edging down from Thursday's 42 but broadly in line with a sharp increase that the city has registered over the past three days.

The magnitude of South Korea's sexism problem has been illustrated by the case of a top politician and women's rights advocate who was accused of sexual harassment then took his own life, activists say.

BANGKOK: Air pollution has contributed to a combined estimated 153,600 premature deaths and US$82.4 billion in economic loss so far this year in just 11 major Asian cities, according to a new tool that tracks the impacts of degraded air quality in real time. The tool, developed by Greenpeace and ...

MUMBAI: India reported a record 26,506 new coronavirus cases on Friday (Jul 10) as authorities reimposed lockdowns in its most populous state and in an industrial hub, home to automakers, drug factories and brewers. The new cases pushed India's tally to nearly 800,000 cases, the world's third ...

MANILA: A Philippine lower house committee on Friday (Jul 10) rejected a request for a 25-year extension of the broadcast franchise of ABS-CBN. The move would ensure the media conglomerate that has angered President Rodrigo Duterte will stay off air. Philippine lawmakers voted against a bill that ...

An Indonesian politician is under fire for ordering female civil servants to wear face veils once a week in what he defended as a bid to guard against the coronavirus.

The economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted about 31 million workers in Vietnam, with 900,000 out of work and nearly 18 million people receiving less income than before, a government agency said on Friday.

Hong Kong politicians, tycoons and celebrities joined grieving relatives Friday at the funeral of Stanley Ho, the flamboyant gaming magnate who made his fortune in neighbouring Macau.

Four cities along China's Yangtze river have declared top-level flood warnings over the past two days after torrential rain triggered landslides and inundated roads and farmland, with parts of the river threatening to burst its banks.

Nine months ago he was burned by corrosive liquid hurled during anti-government protests, but Hong Kong police officer Ling says he has no regrets and remains devoted to being a law enforcer.

U.S. Army Chief of Staff General James McConville met with Thailand's prime minister and its army chief on Friday, in the first high-level visit by a foreign delegation to Thailand since the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted international travel.

When Chandana Hiran was a child, strangers would urge her to lighten her skin. Today the Indian student is leading a campaign against whitening creams as global anti-racism protests highlight the obsession with fair complexions for many in Asia.