Asia

The Indian government has re-imposed lockdown restrictions on several states as the number of confirmed coronavirus infections in the country nears the one million mark. A 15-day lockdown started in the northern state of Bihar on Thursday, after cases sharply increased there. The largely rural state has feeble health infrastructure. …

China has become the first major economy to show signs of recovery and avoid recession amid the coronavirus pandemic, with its gross domestic product (GDP) rising 3.2 percent in the second quarter. The positive economic growth, reported by China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Thursday, came after a sharp …

Azerbaijan and Armenia accused each other of shelling military positions and villages on Thursday, breaking a day of ceasefire in border clashes between the two former Soviet republics. Eleven Azeri soldiers and a civilian, and four Armenian servicemen, have died since Sunday in renewed conflict between countries who fought a …

Britain’s “discriminatory” ban on Huawei has severely damaged China’s investment confidence in the country, China’s commerce ministry said on Thursday, adding it will take necessary measures to defend Chinese firms’ legal rights. Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Tuesday ordered Huawei equipment to be purged completely from Britain’s 5G network by …

A US Marine Corps base in Okinawa has confirmed a further 36 novel coronavirus infections, the prefectural government said Wednesday, bringing the total number of cases at American military facilities on the island to 136. The Okinawa authorities said it was informed by the US forces of the latest positive …

The United States has threatened to slap sanctions on China over accusations of Beijing’s exploitation of offshore resources in most of the South China Sea. The top US diplomat for East Asia said on Tuesday that Washington could respond with sanctions against Chinese officials and enterprises involved in what he …

Azerbaijan reported the deaths of one of its generals and five other officers on July 14, in the worst outbreak of fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces in several years. The heating up of the usually frozen conflict over the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh follows the deaths of four …

India’s coronavirus caseload is approaching 1 million with a surge of 29,429 in the past 24 hours, prompting authorities to reimpose lockdowns in high-risk areas in nearly a dozen states. The new confirmed cases took the national total to 936,181. The Health Ministry on Wednesday also reported another 582 deaths …

President Donald Trump on Tuesday ordered an end to Hong Kong’s special status under U.S. law to punish China for what he called “oppressive actions” against the former British colony, prompting Beijing to warn of retaliatory sanctions. Citing China’s decision to enact a new national security law for Hong Kong, …

A Mongolian teenager diagnosed with bubonic plague died on Monday. The 15-year-old reportedly contracted the deadly disease after consuming marmot meat. The boy ate the infected meat with his two friends, whose condition is currently unknown. People who have been in contact with them have now been isolated and vaccinated, …

China on Tuesday described a U.S. rejection of its maritime claims in the South China Sea as completely unjustified and accused the U.S. of attempting to sow discord between China and the Southeast Asian countries with which it has territorial disputes. The Chinese Embassy in Washington said that a statement …

Dozens of people have been wounded in a car bomb blast followed by a shooting attack near an office of the Afghan intelligence agency in the northern province of Samangan. Clashes broke out between Afghan security forces and unknown gunmen on Monday following the bomb attack that targeted a government …

Armenia and Azerbaijan blamed each other Monday for skirmishes on their volatile border that have left four Azerbaijani soldiers dead and several troops wounded on both sides. The two neighbors in the South Caucasus have been locked in conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, a region of Azerbaijan that has been under the …

China announced “corresponding sanctions” against the United States on Monday after Washington penalised senior Chinese officials over the treatment of minority Uighur Muslims in the western region of Xinjiang. China’s move comes as relations between the world’s two biggest economic powerhouses have slumped over disagreements on issues including the coronavirus …

Multiple fire crews have been deployed to tackle a huge blaze raging at a biofuel complex in China. At least two people were injured during the incident. An explosion rocked a biofuel plant in the city of Longyan in China’s southeastern Fujian Province, local media reported, citing officials. Videos from …

Two Azerbaijani soldiers were reportedly killed and five others wounded in heavy fighting that broke out at a section of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border on Sunday. The spokeswoman for Armenia’s Defense Ministry, Shushan Stepanian, said Azerbaijani forces shelled an Armenian army outpost in the northern Tavush province during a failed attempt …

A Beijing law professor who has been an outspoken critic of China’s President Xi Jinping and the ruling Communist Party was released on Sunday after six days of detention, his friends said. Xu Zhangrun, a constitutional law professor at the prestigious Tsinghua University, returned home on Sunday morning but remained …

Three generations of Bollywood’s Bachchan family were hit by the coronavirus as former Miss World Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and her daughter on Sunday joined her father-in-law Amitabh and husband Abhishek in testing positive for the virus that causes COVID-19. Maharashtra state health minister Rajesh Tope said in a tweet that …

Heavy rains triggered flash floods and landslides that killed at least 40 people and displaced thousands in western Nepal, officials said on Saturday. Twenty people were killed and at least 13 others were missing in Myagdi district, 200 km (125 miles) northwest of the capital Kathmandu, where several houses were …

China’s embassy has warned its citizens of strange pneumonia more deadly than coronavirus spreading in the former Soviet republic. A leading health chief thinks there could be issues around testing for COVID-19. An unexplained pneumonia outbreak in Kazakhstan is likely to be the novel coronavirus, a World Health Organization (WHO) …