Category: World

WASHINGTON: US Secre­tary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday said “enormous evidence” showed the new coronavirus originated in a lab in China, further fuelling tensions with Beijing over its handling of the outbreak. Pompeo’s comments came as Europe and parts of the United States prepared to cautiously lift virus lockdowns as signs emerge that the […]

WASHINGTON: The head of the maker of remdesivir, an anti-viral shown to reduce recovery times in Covid-19 patients, said on Sunday the company has been exporting the drug and is making it available to patients in the United States through the US government. Gilead Sciences CEO Daniel O’Day said the company is donating its entire […]

The acting top US diplomat for South Asia announced her retirement on Sunday, as President Donald Trump looks increasingly likely to go a full term without a Senate-confirmed State Department official focused on the subcontinent. Alice Wells, a career diplomat who has served as acting assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia for […]

The Foreign Office (FO) on Monday rejected India’s “baseless and fallacious contention” regarding the Supreme Court’s decision to allow the federal government to conduct the upcoming general elections in Gilgit-Baltistan (GB). On April 30, the top court had allowed the Centre to conduct the elections under the Election Act 2017 and amend the related law […]

There were signs on Monday that the coronavirus pandemic was easing significantly in some parts of Europe but getting worse in India and Russia. Meanwhile, pressure to reopen kept building in the United States — which has only seen a slight drop in reported daily new cases — as tens of millions have lost their […]

UNITED NATIONS: The United States and China remained at loggerheads on Thursday over a UN Security Council draft resolution calling for a 90-day humanitarian pause in conflicts worldwide in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. The stalemate — over a mention of the World Health Organisation (WHO) — leaves little hope of a quick vote […]

Bleak new figures on Thursday underscored the worldwide economic pain inflicted by the coronavirus: The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits has climbed past a staggering 30 million, while Europe’s economies have gone into an epic slide. And as bad as the numbers are, some are already outdated because of the lag in gathering […]

United States President Donald Trump said on Thursday his hard-fought trade deal with China was now of secondary importance to the coronavirus pandemic and he threatened new tariffs on Beijing, as his administration crafted retaliatory measures over the outbreak. Trump’s sharpened rhetoric against China reflected his growing frustration with Beijing over the pandemic, which has […]

A journalist who had worked for some of China’s most powerful propaganda outlets has been jailed for 15 years after being accused of attacking the ruling Communist Party, court documents showed. The sentence handed down on Chen Jieren is one of the harshest moves yet against free speech by China’s government under President Xi Jinping, […]

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Friday that the country is banning the use and trade of assault-style weapons immediately. Trudeau cited numerous mass shootings in the country, including the killing of 22 people in Nova Scotia on April 18 and 19. He announced the ban of over 1,500 models and variants of assault-style […]