Asia

Japanese authorities said Tuesday a man with no recent travel to China has contracted the novel strain of coronavirus — apparently after driving tourists visiting from Wuhan, where a deadly outbreak began. The man in his sixties from Nara in western Japan drove two groups of Wuhan tourists earlier in January and was hospitalised on […]

Thousands of foreigners are among millions of people stuck in the central Chinese city of Wuhan as the country struggles to get to grips with the spread of a SARS-like virus which has claimed 106 lives nationwide. These are the plans so far by foreign governments to evacuate their citizens from the epicentre of the […]

by Leo RAMIREZ China on Tuesday urged its citizens to postpone foreign travel to curb a viral outbreak that has killed 106 people, as the first cases of human-to-human contagion were detected abroad. While a host of nations prepared to airlift their citizens from the epicentre of the epidemic, Japan and Germany reported the first cases […]

Manila — Singapore-born Angeline Tham is a hero to thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of Filipino commuters. Unfortunately, with some leaders, she is not nearly as popular, with one Philippine senator even seeking to deport the young mother of one due to controversy over a motorcycle ride-sharing business the entrepreneur runs in the country. […]

A Thai park official implicated in the alleged killing of an environmental activist will not face prosecution for murder due to “insufficient evidence”, the attorney general’s office announced Monday — a move condemned by rights groups decrying impunity for enforced disappearances. Ethnic Karen leader Por Cha Lee Rakcharoen — known as Billy — vanished in […]

A woman died while taking part in a cake-eating competition to celebrate Australia Day, local media reported Monday. Paramedics were called to a pub in the state of Queensland on Sunday afternoon after a woman was involved in a “medical incident”. Public broadcaster ABC reported the 60-year-old had a seizure after she “shovelled a lamington […]

France will fly home its citizens who wish to leave the Chinese city of Wuhan at the centre of a coronavirus outbreak that has sickened thousands and killed 81, the government announced. The repatriation, via a direct flight to France, will be planned for the middle of this week, with Chinese permission, under the supervision […]

by Leo RAMIREZ China on Monday extended its biggest national holiday to buy time in the fight against a viral epidemic and neighbouring Mongolia closed its border, after the death toll spiked to 81 despite unprecedented quarantine measures. In a sign of the mounting official concern, Premier Li Keqiang visited ground-zero to oversee containment efforts […]

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has threatened to end a pact key to annual war games with American troops if the US does not restore the travel visa of an official who oversaw his drug war. It is the latest in a long line of Duterte’s threats to shrink or sever ties with historical ally Washington, […]

China on Friday added four more cities to a transport ban around the epicentre of a deadly virus, restricting the movement of some 41 million people in 13 cities as authorities scramble to control the disease. Officials in Xianning, Xiaogan, Enshi and Zhijiang cities — all located in central Hubei province where the virus first […]

by Amber Wang with Jerome Taylor in Hong Kong As the world prepares to welcome the Year of the Rat, feng shui masters predict a lucky year for Donald Trump, but warn Harry and Meghan’s futures are less certain as they make a bid for freedom. Both the US President and the Sussexes have begun […]

by Aishwarya KUMAR Pawan Kumar feels zero sympathy for the four men he is due to hang next month for a 2012 gang rape and murder that appalled India. “The people who are going to die are like beasts, not humans,” the third-generation hangman and father-of-seven told AFP in his tiny flat in the northern […]

by Danny KEMP The UN’s top court will announce Thursday whether it will allow a case accusing Myanmar of genocide against Rohingya Muslims to go ahead and if it will impose emergency measures to stop further violence. The ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) comes days after a Myanmar commission concluded that some […]

Protestors outside a Canadian courtroom pressing for the release of a senior Chinese telecommunications executive fighting extradition to the US were paid actors, they told local media. It was not clear, however, who footed the bill. A dozen men and women on Monday, at the start of the hearing considering whether or not to hand […]

by Vishal MANVE Rashmi Sahijwala never expected to start working at the age of 59, let alone join India’s gig economy — now she is part of an army of housewives turning their homes into “cloud kitchens” to feed time-starved millennials. Asia’s third-largest economy is battling a slowdown so sharp it is creating a drag […]