Category: World

WASHINGTON: “Perhaps the steepest, and most alarming, deterioration in religious freedom conditions was in India, the largest democracy in the world,” an official US report said on Tuesday. The report, compiled by the US Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), recommended that India be declared a “country of particular concern.” “We are seeing impunity for […]

Despite infecting more than three million people around the world, there are still 34 countries and territories that have yet to report a single case of the novel coronavirus. These include Comoros, Lesotho, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and tiny far-flung island nations in the Pacific, such as Nauru, Kiribati and the Solomon Islands. As of April 20, […]

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani on Wednesday told the United States it “should not plot against the Iranian nation every day”, amid fresh tensions between the arch foes in the Gulf. Tehran and Washington have traded barbs over a spate of incidents in the past year involving their forces in the sensitive waters of the Gulf. […]

India’s confirmed coronavirus death toll passed 1,000 on Wednesday following its highest daily increase, but the numbers remain low compared with Europe and the United States in a phenomenon that is puzzling experts. With massive slums and a shaky healthcare system, there were fears India would be ravaged by the pandemic that has killed more […]

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden won the endorsement on Tuesday of Hillary Clinton for the office she fell short of winning in 2016 in her bid to become the first woman elected as US president. The endorsement, at an online town hall on the effects of the coronavirus crisis on women, came at a […]

SEOUL: A train likely belonging to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been spotted at a resort town in the country’s east, satellite photos reviewed by a US-based think tank showed, as speculation persists over his health. The train was parked at a station reserved for the Kim family in Wonsan on April 21 […]

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is “alive and well”, a top security adviser to the South’s President Moon Jae-in said, downplaying rumours over Kim’s health following his absence from a key anniversary. “Our government position is firm,” said Moon’s special adviser on national security Moon Chung-in, in an interview with CNN on Sunday. “Kim Jong Un […]

Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne has cautioned China against attempts at “economic coercion” as Australia pushes for an investigation into the coronavirus pandemic that China opposes. Chinese ambassador to Australia, Cheng Jingye, said in a newspaper interview on Monday the “Chinese public” could avoid Australian products and universities. Australia last week called for all members […]

Children in China’s two most important cities went back to school on Monday after more than three months at home, as coronavirus restrictions eased and governments around the world began charting a path out of the pandemic lockdown. Europe’s four worst-affected countries all reported marked drops in their daily death tolls, offering hope that the […]

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday made his first public appearance since being hospitalised with coronavirus three weeks ago, saying Britain was beginning to “turn the tide” on the outbreak but rejecting growing calls to ease a nationwide lockdown. In a statement in Downing Street marking his return to work, looking thinner and with […]