Asia

Singapore aims to have more than 200,000 police cameras by at least 2030, Minister for Home Affairs K Shanmugam said on Tuesday, over double the current number of cameras deployed across the island state. With a land area of little over 700 square kilometres (270 square miles), Singapore has strict …

Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin defied mounting pressure to quit on Wednesday, saying he retained majority support among lawmakers and that he will prove it when the Southeast Asian nation’s parliament reconvenes next month. Speaking in a televised address, Muhyiddin said King Al-Sultan Abdullah agreed that he should remain in …

Two gunmen were reportedly in on the loose in an affluent part of Kabul. No one has claimed the attack yet, but it comes as tensions between the government and Taliban rise. Three people have died following an explosion in the green zone of Afghanistan’s capital Kabul. While no group …

Pakistan has announced that it hit the milestone of administering one million Covid vaccinations in a day, shortly after a deadline for compulsory vaccination was set for certain categories of people. Asad Umar, the minister in charge of the National Command and Operations Centre (NCOC), a military-run organization that manages …

At least 16 people have been killed and a quarter of a million people displaced from their homes after heavy monsoon rains lashed eastern India, officials said on Tuesday (Aug 3), as the air force joined rescue efforts. According to reports, the latest deaths in West Bengal came a few …

The presence of the Taliban movement in Afghanistan’s north will suppress the growth of threat from the Daesh (ISIS) terrorist group to Central Asian countries, Russia’s special presidential representative for Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, said on Tuesday. “Many other international terrorist organizations have been based on these territories for a long …

At least six nationals of African countries were injured during a scuffle with police in Bengaluru over the alleged custodial death. At least six nationals of African countries have been injured during a scuffle with police in India’s southern city of Bengaluru over an alleged custodial death of a Congolese …

Afghan forces battled the Taliban for control of a key provincial capital Tuesday, as the United Nations warned “indiscriminate” gunfire and airstrikes were hurting civilians the most. Officials said insurgents had seized more than a dozen local radio and TV stations in Lashkar Gah – the capital of Helmand province …

Japan has carried out a threat to publicly shame people not complying with coronavirus border control measures, releasing the names of three people who broke quarantine rules after returning from overseas. The health ministry said late on Monday the three Japanese nationals named had clearly acted to avoid contact with …

Authorities in Wuhan on Tuesday said they would test its entire population for Covid-19 after the central Chinese city where the coronavirus emerged reported its first local infections in more than a year. The city of 11 million is “swiftly launching comprehensive nucleic acid testing of all residents”, senior Wuhan …

Ferocious fighting is taking place in a major Afghan city, amid fears it could be the first provincial capital to fall to the Taliban. Lashkar Gah in southern Helmand province is under heavy assault from the militants, despite US and Afghan airstrikes. The Taliban are said to have seized a …

Kim Yo-jong, the influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, has warned that a planned joint US-South Korea military exercise will undercut a renewed push for diplomacy on the Korean Peninsula, state-run media reported. South Korea and the United States regularly stage military exercises, mainly in the spring and …

Hong Kong civil servants, teachers and healthcare workers must get vaccinated against the coronavirus or pay for regular testing, the city’s leader announced Monday, as her administration adopted a push into mandatory inoculations. The finance hub is one of the few places in the world to have secured ample supplies …

The death toll from floods in central China last month is at least 302 with dozens of people still missing, officials said Monday, after record downpours dumped a year’s worth of rain on a city in just three days. Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan province and the epicenter of the …

The Afghan government forces have killed 38 members of the Taliban movement and injured two others when the insurgents attempted to storm a prison in the southwestern city of Lashkar Gah, Afghan defence ministry spokesman Fawad Aman said on Monday. Fighting broke out between the Afghan forces and the Taliban …

A preponderance of evidence proves the virus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic leaked from a Chinese research facility, said a report by U.S. Republicans released on Monday, a conclusion that U.S. intelligence agencies have not reached. The report also cited “ample evidence” that Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) scientists – …

A 5.9 magnitude quake struck off the coast of Indonesia’s easternmost Papua region today, the United States Geological Survey said, but there was no tsunami warning or immediate reports of damage. The quake hit at a relatively shallow depth of 12 kilometers (7.5 miles), about 180 kilometers northeast of Tual …

South Korean officials said a decision on the annual August drills with the US has not yet been finalized, and joint exercises should not raise tensions, following a strong warning from Pyongyang. “The timing and method [of the drills] were not finalized,” South Korean Defense Ministry spokesperson Boo Seung-chan told …

Millions of people were confined to their homes in China Monday as the country tried to contain its largest coronavirus outbreak in months with mass testing and travel curbs. China on Monday reported 55 new locally transmitted coronavirus cases, as an outbreak of the fast-spreading Delta variant reached over 20 …

US President Joe Biden’s administration will launch a new program to resettle certain Afghans as refugees in the US, an administration official and two knowledgeable sources said on Sunday. The US State Department was expected to announce the setting-up of the so-called Priority Two refugee program on Monday, the three …