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An Australian father and son have been released after almost six months in detention on unknown charges in Qatar, multiple sources said Sunday. Professor Lukman Thalib, 58, and his son Ismail Talib, 24, were reportedly arrested in the Qatari capital Doha by local authorities in July. The pair have been released from Qatari custody, said a […]

A senior official at the Greek sailing federation has been axed in the wake of sex abuse allegations by one of the country’s top Olympians, the federation said. The federation late Saturday said it was “shocked” by the claim put forward by two-time Olympic medallist Sofia Bekatorou, which has sparked a flurry of revelations by […]

China will donate one million doses of its Sinovac coronavirus vaccine to Cambodia, the kingdom’s strongman premier Hun Sen has said, thanking “friend” Beijing for its generosity. Cambodia has long been a staunch ally of Beijing, receiving billions of dollars in soft loans and investment from China. While many countries reacted early in the pandemic […]

The coronavirus pandemic has slowed global migration by nearly 30 percent, with around two million fewer people than predicted migrating between 2019 and 2020, according to a UN report released on Friday. Some 281 million people were living outside their country of origin in 2020. The report, entitled “International Migration 2020,” showed that two-thirds of […]

by AFP Bureaus India kicked off one of the world’s largest coronavirus vaccination drives Saturday as the pandemic spread at a record pace and global Covid-19 deaths surged past two million. The World Health Organization has called for accelerating vaccine rollouts worldwide as well as ramping up efforts to study the sequencing of the virus, […]

Hong Kong on Saturday hit back at the United States over its latest sanctions on six pro-China officials, slamming the move as “insane, shameless and despicable”. The US announced on Friday it was imposing sanctions on the half dozen officials, including Hong Kong’s sole representative to China’s top lawmaking body, over the arrests of more […]

Australian firefighters said they expect to battle an out-of-control bushfire well into the night on Saturday, as the blaze threatens lives and homes in the west coast city of Perth. Residents were told “to act immediately to survive” as the flames approached homes near Oakford, about 35 kilometres (22 miles) south of Perth’s city centre, […]

by Jalees ANDRABI A homegrown coronavirus vaccine will be rolled out in India from Saturday even though clinical trials haven’t been completed. But the government insists it will be safe and effective. The All India Drug Action Network (AIDAN), an independent watchdog, led a chorus of concern from experts saying it was “shocked” and “baffled” […]

by Haeril HALIM / Agnes ANYA A powerful earthquake rocked Indonesia’s Sulawesi island early Friday, killing at least 34 people, levelling a hospital and severely damaging other buildings, authorities said. Hundreds more were injured when the 6.2-magnitude quake struck in the early hours, triggering panic among the terrified residents of the island, which was hit […]

by Roland JACKSON Britain’s economy slumped 2.6 percent in November on coronavirus restrictions, official data showed Friday, stoking fears that the current virus lockdown could spark a double-dip recession. Gross domestic product hit reverse after 0.6-percent growth in October, the Office for National Statistics said in a statement, adding the economy was 8.5 percent smaller […]

China has sent over 20,000 rural residents living in the epicentre of the country’s latest virus outbreak to state-run quarantine facilities, as Beijing on Friday reported the worst nationwide figures since March. The country had largely brought the virus under control after strict measures including mass testing and travel restrictions, but recent weeks have seen […]

US prosecutors now believe supporters of President Donald Trump planned to “capture and assassinate elected officials” in their siege of the Capitol building last week, according to a new court filing. The filing, submitted by Justice Department lawyers late Thursday, sought the detention of Jacob Chansley of Arizona, the QAnon conspiracy theorist pictured in the […]

Two experts on an international mission to investigate the origins of Covid-19 in China are still in Singapore after testing positive for Covid antibodies, the WHO said Thursday. The World Health Organization said earlier that the international team of experts had landed in Wuhan for the long-delayed mission, but it later tweeted that two had […]

by Glenn CHAPMAN Twitter chief Jack Dorsey on Wednesday backed the messaging platform’s ban of US President Donald Trump, but said it sets a “dangerous” precedent and represents a failure to promote healthy conversation on social networks. “Having to ban an account has real and significant ramifications,” Dorsey said in a string of tweets about […]

China’s President Xi Jinping has asked former Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz to help promote trade between Washington and Beijing in a rare missive to a foreign business figure, state media reported Thursday. Xi, responding to an earlier message from Schultz, urged the multi-billionaire to “continue to play an active role in promoting China-US economic and […]